GRANT GERSHON
Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director
Hailed for his adventurous and bold artistic leadership, Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director, celebrated his 20th anniversary season in 2021-22 with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which he has turned into the "finest-by-far major chorus in America.” (Los Angeles Times)
Gershon, who elicits technically precise and expressive performances from musicians, is committed to increasing representation in the choral repertoire, and in 2020 he announced that the Chorale will reserve at least 50% of each season for works by composers from historically excluded groups in classical music. For his career-spanning leadership in the field of choral music, Gershon received Chorus America’s 2022 Korn Founders Award. Gershon was named Outstanding Alumnus of the USC Thornton School of Music in 2002 and received the USC Alumni Merit Award in 2017.
In July 2019, Gershon and the Chorale opened the famed Salzburg Festival with Lagrime di San Pietro, directed by Peter Sellars. The Salzburg performances received standing ovations and rave reviews by such outlets as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called Lagrime “painfully beautiful.” In 2022–23, Gershon will collaborate again with Sellars in the Chorale’s production of Music to Accompany a Departure.
Gershon’s discography includes Grammy-winning Best Choral Performance for Mahler: Symphony No. 8, “Symphony Of A Thousand”, Grammy-nominated recordings of Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical), and commercial recordings with the Chorale that include Glass-Salonen (RCM), You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch), Daniel Variations (Nonesuch), A Good Understanding (Decca), Miserere (Decca), and the national anthems (Cantaloupe Music). He has also led the Chorale in performances for several major motion pictures soundtracks, including, at the request of John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
As resident conductor of LA Opera, Gershon conducted the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in November 2018. He made his acclaimed debut with the company with La Traviata in 2009 and subsequently conducted Il Postino, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Florencia en el Amazonas, Wonderful Town, The Tales of Hoffmann, and The Pearl Fishers. In 2017, he made his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West, directed by Peter Sellars, who also wrote the libretto, and made his Dutch National Opera debut with the same opera in March 2019.
In New York, Gershon has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the historic Trinity Wall Street, and he has performed on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Other major appearances include performances at the Ravinia, Aspen, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Salzburg, and Vienna festivals, the South American premiere of the LA Opera’s production of Il Postino in Chile, and performances with the Baltimore Symphony and the Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino in Turin, Italy. He has worked closely with numerous conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and his mentor, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
KRISTEN TOEDTMAN
Mezzo-Soprano
Kristen Toedtman is a Song Carrier for our time. Trained in conservatories to interpret songs from the Renaissance and Bel Canto opera to modern compositions, she has performed solo and with ensembles at Carnegie Hall, DaviesHall (SF), Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl with the New World Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and others. She is a long-time singer with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and has sung on the soundtracks of Frozen, Minions, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Godzilla, and others. She has led choirs at rallies and on Skid Row (CeaseFire Baltimore, Midnight Mission, and Downtown Women’s Center of LA) and teaches workshops on harmony singing and connecting with Divine Source through singing. As Director of the Community Chorus of Peabody, she brought the choir through the pandemic, emerging to at last share the stage with Marin Alsop and the BSO in a new realization of Beethoven’s9th Symphony as a part of the Global Ode to Joy project. For years, Kristen toured with her own band and choir singing original songs and promoting her recordings across the US.While maintaining her classical and recording career, Kristen specializes in creating safe spaces for singing. Her warmth and unrivaled enthusiasm for the pleasures of group singing help even the shyest singer step into the cool waters of harmony. She carries her blend of collected “pocket songs” with her wherever she goes: songs that are fun to learn, uplifting in spirit, and infectiously catchy.
JJ LOPEZ
Tenor
Praised for being an “alluring lyric tenor having ample spinto leanings and an attractive and engaging stage demeanor with stylistic acumen,” Mexican-American tenor JJ Lopez was recognized by Opera News for his performance of Rodolofo with Pacific Opera Project. JJ is a member of the LA Opera Chorus as well as the LA Master Chorale, where he performs regularly at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic. JJ made his Walt Disney Concert Hall solo debut in Handel’s Messiah in 2017. He was a featured soloist for the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s concert of Bruckner’s Great Mass. As a Los Angeles-based professional session singer specializing in vocals for TV, film, and video games, JJ’s unique ability to incorporate a variety of styles and flexibility to be called upon as soloist or chorister makes him a valuable asset to many composers for any recording or performing project. He has performed on film scores such as Super Mario Bros., Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Haunted Mansion, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Mulan (2020), as well as many others.
ABDIEL GONZALEZ
Baritone
Puerto Rican baritone Abdiel Gonzalez has been praised for his “rich, lush baritone” and for having a “superb voice, which commanded the stage.” He has been a concert soloist under the batons of Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Grant Gershon, to name a few. He has traveled the world singing, including Taiwan, where he performed the role of Gaston in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. He was also the baritone soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Boca Del Rio Orchestra in Veracruz, Mexico for the inaugural concert of a new state-of-the-art performing arts center. He has performed 36 operatic and Zarzuela roles, and can be heard on over 75 films, including Coco, Frozen, Encanto, Avatar 2, and Star Wars: TheLast Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE
SOPRANO
April Amante
Tamara Bevard
Claire Fedoruk
Graycen Gardner
Kelci Hahn
Ayana Haviv
Elissa Johnston
Alina Roitstein
Anna Schubert
Courtney Taylor
Chloe Vaught
Suzanne Waters
ALTO
Garineh Avakian
Aleta Braxton
Monika Bruckner
Janelle DeStefano
Carmen Edano
Amy Fogerson
Sharon Chohi Kim
Sharmila G. Lash
Hannah Little
Lindsay Patterson Abdou
Niké St. Clair
Kristen Toedtman
TENOR
Casey Breves
Matthew Brown
Bradley Chapman
Adam Faruqi
Jon Lee Keenan
Charlie Kim
Joey Krumbein
Charles Lane
JJ Lopez
Sal Malaki
Evan Roberts
Todd Strange
BASS
Michael Bannett
Mark Beasom
John Buffett
David Castillo
Kevin Dalbey
Mark Edward Smith
Dylan Gentile
Abdiel Gonzalez
Chung Uk Lee
Ben Lin
Adrien Redford
Shuo Zhai
The singers of the Los Angeles Master Chorale are represented by the
American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO, James Hayden, AGMA Delegate.
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