The Team

From 2008 through 2019, she served as Director of Education for the San Francisco Opera. She was recruited to create the opera’s first department committed to community-building and arts education. Nott was at the helm of a team that innovated multiple programs serving more than 70,000 people annually. Among these initiatives is Arts Resources in Action (ARIA), which was recognized with a Yale Distinguished Music Education Partnership Award for its focus on collaboration, professional development, and arts integration. She held previous positions at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, New York City Opera, IMG Artists, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Ruth Nott inspires organizations to stretch beyond the boundaries of convention and tradition. Throughout 2019-2020, Ruth brought those strengths to consulting positions with Santa Fe Opera; Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Music at Kohl Mansion’s Violins of Hope project; Kyoo, an online ordering system and partner of point-of-sale system Square; and started PrimeLife Arts Learning, an on-line Creative Aging art-making platform dedicated to improving the social and emotional well-being of older adults.

Brian Staufenbiel is the creative director for Opera Parallèle where he has directed and spearheaded the conceptual designs of the company’s productions since it was founded in 2010. Specializing in multimedia, immersive, and interdisciplinary productions, he actively works across a wide range of artistic disciplines collaborating in film and with media designers, choreographers and dancers, circus and fabric artists, and designer fabricators. His progressive approach to stagecraft has garnered critical acclaim for many of the company’s productions, including Wozzeck, Orphée, Champion and Dead Man Walking.

Staufenbiel recently directed films for the online festival season of the Sun Valley Music Festival, a film of Dove/Angelis’ Flight for Seattle Opera, a graphic novel film of Talbot/Scheer’s Everest with Opera Parallèle, and a feature-length film of Gordon Getty’s opera Goodbye Mr. Chips for Festival Napa Valley. Other upcoming projects include the premiere of Miguel Zenon’s Golden City Suite with SF JAZZ,  a project with  L’Opéra De Montréal, and a documentary about the life of Frederica Von Stade with Paper Wings Films. Staufenbiel will be co-directing, with choreographer Yayoi Kambara, Ikkai, a dance installation about Japanese incarceration camps in the United States during World War II.

Staufenbiel enjoys an ongoing relationship with composer Philip Glass, having directed a number of his operas including In the Penal Colony for Philip’s own festival. The production is currently streaming an a new platform, Philip Glass Days and Night’s Festival Presents and was named a New York Times Top Ten pick. 

Staufenbiel recently created a new production of Elektra for Minnesota Opera. His 2016 production of Das Rheingold for Minnesota Opera was reprised at Arizona Opera and at L’Opéra de Montréal and was named a Star Tribune Classical Pick of the Decade.  He also recently created a new production of Gordon Getty’s Usher House and Canterville Ghost for the Center of Contemporary Opera in NY and LA Opera. 

Staufenbiel’s interdisciplinary approach to opera extends to his academic activity. He recently left his position after seventeen years as the director of the opera program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has mounted a wide spectrum of award winning productions ranging from traditional operas to original works by contemporary composers. Staufenbiel holds degrees in Philosophy and Music including a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music and currently resides in San Francisco.

Aileen Tat is one of the 16 national company representatives originally selected to participate in OPERA America’s Community-Centric Fundraising for Opera working group, which has doubled in size and aims to establish more equitable and inclusive fundraising practices throughout the opera industry. She also serves on the board of Pacific Primary preschool, a national leader in early childhood anti-bias education. Her other professional credits include working in development and membership at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and in various roles supporting artists and non-profits in New York City, including the Brooklyn Rail and the Public Art Fund. Tat holds a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, and studied public art with Ruth Asawa.

Jacques Desjardins served as the General Manager of Opera Parallèle from 2004 until 2013 when he became the company’s first Artistic Administrator. As a composer, Desjardins was responsible for the re-orchestration of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby performed by OP at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and at the Aspen Music Festival in 2012. He has received commissions from BluePrint, the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, the Arthur-LeBlanc Quartet, the Québec Youth Orchestras Association, and the Musica Nova Ensemble.  Desjardins is on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he teaches Conducting, Music Theory, and Musicianship. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree (DMA) in Composition at the University of Michigan.

Daniel Harvey is an experienced creative professional with 13+ years experience in artistic, administrative, and production roles across the creative sector. Currently as Artistic & Community Manager for Opera Parallèle in San Francisco, he works as a key member of the artistic team producing all of the company’s main stage productions, as well as overseeing all community programming and partnerships. In this role, he created ‘Expansive’ a new annual showcase event for transgender classical artists in partnership with the Transgender District SF. Daniel’s background in set & costume design, and theatre production informs his current work as a creative producer. Daniel is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia and moved to San Francisco in 2017. In the Bay Area, Daniel has also previously worked as a program director for Intersection for the Arts and served on the board for contemporary dance company LEVYdance. His costume designs can also be seen occasionally on stages around San Francisco. Daniel is known as a persistently positive ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and collaborative team member with a passion for storytelling and a strong belief in the change it can affect.

Brett comes to Opera Parallele with a variety of experience in small businesses, event support and financial services for primarily non-profit community, theatre and arts presenting organizations, though he has also owned high-end custom stationery stores in San Francisco, was part of producing team that ran a yearlong production on the life of Buckminster Fuller, and worked on features films in Los Angeles. Brett has a passion for providing opportunities that connect people with new ideas in meaningful and impactful ways, that can change their lives and our communities.

Francesca Muscolo is a Bay Area based freelance Production Manager and Technical Director. Most recently she has worked with Merola Opera Program, Smuin Ballet, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Francesca has toured internationally with Alonzo King LINES Ballet and LA Dance Project. She is also an Associate Design Manager with Got Light, installing and working with live events onsite.

Jack is an Oakland based producer and designer. He’s the Director of Production for ODC and the Production Manager for the Sun Valley Music Festival in Idaho. He’s toured nationally and internationally with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Van Anh Vo, and Flyaway Productions and is thrilled to have been a part of bringing The Forgotten Empress to Pakistan in 2017. Jack is honored to have received a 2019 Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design for Flyaway’s The Wait Room. Jack recently produced the feature length opera film Goodbye, Mr Chips. www.jackb.info. 

Muskan Parashar is the development associate at Opera Parallèle. A Presser Scholar and soprano, she received a BM in vocal performance, a BA in behavioral science, and a minor in linguistics from San José State University in 2022. She was a founding member as well as the Director of Development for SJSU’s Opera Production Club, which is where she was first introduced to development as a field.
Muskan is still an avid performer in addition to being a part of OP’s team. She has been a soloist and ensemble singer for various choirs, early music ensembles, and opera productions (including SJSU’s Choraliers and Opera Theater as well as Opera San José). Muskan is a multilingual and multicultural singer, having training in both Indian and Western vocal performance. She has a passion for equity, social justice, and activism, especially relating to her experiences as a queer Indian-American musician. 

Keisuke Nakagoshi began his piano studies at the age of ten, arriving in the United States from Japan at the age of 18. Mr. Nakagoshi earned his Bachelor’s degree in Composition and Master’s degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition with David Conte and piano with Paul Hersh. Graduating as the recipient of multiple top awards, Keisuke was selected to represent the SFCM for the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project, a program featuring young musicians from major conservatories across the United States.

Mr. Nakagoshi has performed to acclaim on prestigious concert stages across the United States, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He has received training from some of the most celebrated musicians of our time—Emanuel Ax, Gilbert Kalish, Menahem Pressler, Robert Mann, Paul Hersh, David Zinman—and enjoys collaborating with other accomplished musicians such as Lucy Shelton, Ian Swensen, Jodi Levitz, Robin Sutherland, Lev Polyakin, Axel Strauss, Mark Kosower, Gary Schocker and also conductors such as Alasdair Neale, George Daugherty, Nicole Paiement, Michael Tilson Thomas and Herbert Blomstedt. In 2014, he made a solo debut with San Francisco Symphony on Ingvar Lidholm’s Poesis with Herbert Blomstedt conducting.

In 2009, Keisuke and Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann formed ZOFO, a piano duet team commissioning and performing music for piano four hands and their first CD was nominated for Grammy award for best chamber music/small ensemble in 2013. Mr. Nakagoshi is currently Pianist-in-Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he serves as resident pianist in the production team for Opera Parallèle.

A nationally recognized public relations and marketing practitioner with over 25 years of high-level experience in not-for-profit management, Jon is a distinguished professional among industry clients, the press and media, and his peers and colleagues. His collaborative work has generated positive press and media results that have successfully contributed to mission-driven client goals. He is experienced and adept at working with high-profile clients, providing positive pathways to challenging situations, meeting deadlines and managing crisis communications. Jon is the recipient of the 2013 San Francisco Opera Guild Star of Excellence Award. His association with performing arts businesses include the National Symphony, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Festival dei due Mondi di Spoleto, Detroit’s Michigan Opera Theatre, Opera Pacific, Dayton Opera, and San Francisco Opera. In private practice, his clients have included San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Ballet, SF Ethnic Dance Festival, Chanticleer, Robert Moses’ Kin, Margy Jenkins Dance, Joe Goode, Dame Edna, Eddie Izzard, Eve Ensler/The Vagina Monologues, Rita Moreno, Betty Buckley, Paula West, The Plush Room, the Rrazz Room, and Music at Kohl Mansion.