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.
ZANAIDA STEWART ROBLES
COMPOSER
Dr. Zanaida Stewart Robles is an award-winning Black American female composer, vocalist, and teacher. She is a fierce advocate for diversity and inclusion in music education and performance. Authentic interpersonal connection and relationship-building are core principles of her teaching and performance methods. Born, raised, and educated in Southern California on the unceded lands of the Tongva-Gabrielino peoples, she is in demand as a composer, vocalist, clinician and adjudicator for competitions, festivals, and conferences related to choral and solo vocal music.
Dr. Robles’s original music has been performed by professional ensembles, community choirs, educational institutions, churches, and individuals world wide. In addition to her self-published music, her works are published by E.B. Marks Music, Pavane Publishing, Stainer and Bell, Oxford University Press, and Hinshaw Music. Her compositional style can be described as energized, soulful, contrapuntal, harmonically colorful, rhythmically driven, heavily modal, occasionally with African elements and touches of progressive rock.
Dr. Robles serves on the advisory board for the California Choral Directors Association as Repertoire and Resources Chair for Choral Composition. For three years, she served as President of the Board of Directors for Tonality. As a performing arts instructor at Harvard Westlake Upper School in Studio City, CA, Dr. Robles conducts the Chamber Singers, Jazz Singers, Bel Canto Treble Choir, and Wolverine Chorus for tenors and basses. She is also the director of music at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, CA where she oversees the Neighborhood Chorus, Neighborhood Bells, and the Neighborhood Youth Choir. Dr. Robles served for 5 years as music director for “Project Messiah” with Street Symphony—an organization that engages communities directly affected by homelessness and incarceration in LA County through performances, workshops and teaching artistry. While studying at the University of Southern California (USC), she conducted the USC Thornton University Chorus for two years. Prior to this, she worked at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) for 7 years where she was the director of classical choirs and taught vocal fundamentals, sight singing, and music theory. Under her direction, the LACHSA Classical Choirs performed for numerous festivals, concerts, and special events at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and in other venues throughout Southern California.
As a concert soprano soloist, studio vocalist for film and television, and professional ensemble singer, Dr. Robles has sung throughout the United States, and in parts of Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Her film, television, and video game credits include Glee, Tinkerbell: Pirate Fairy, Godzilla, Minions, Creed, The Lego Movie, Despicable Me 3, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Venom, Game of Thrones in Concert, Smallfoot, Frozen 2, Underwater, Mulan, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and NieR in Concert. Dr. Robles holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music, a Master of Music degree from CSU Northridge, a Bachelor of Music degree from CSU Long Beach, and she is a graduate of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.
Through his academic work and experience, Dr. Lee developed an exceptionally deep interpretation of compositions and the ability to draw sounds from musicians that are shimmery and profound. As a result, audiences were drawn to his inspired expression of music.
Pianist, cultural catalyst, and New York Times Sunday Crossword clue Lara Downes has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News and “an explorer whose imagination is fired by bringing notice to the underrepresented and forgotten” (The Log Journal). An iconoclast and trailblazer, her dynamic work as a sought-after soloist, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, a producer, curator, arts activist, and advocate positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene. She was honored as 2022 Classical Woman of the Year by Performance Today. Downes’ recent and upcoming onstage adventures include guest appearances with The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Pops, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, with recitals and residencies at Ravinia, the Gilmore Festival, Washington Performing Arts, Caramoor, and the Cabrillo Festival, among many others. Her creative collaborations with diverse artists including Rhiannon Giddens, Thomas Hampson, Judy Collins, Daniel Hope, Yo-Yo Ma and the Miró Quartet explore shared creative perspectives across genres and traditions. Lara’s forays into the broad landscape of music have created a unique series of acclaimed recordings, including her most recent release Love at Last on the Pentatone label, which debuted at the top of the Billboard and Amazon charts and was featured on an NPR Tiny Desk concert. Downes’ transformative album America Again was selected by NPR as one of “10 Albums that Saved 2016” and hailed as “a balm for a country riven by disunion” by the Boston Globe. Lara is a highly visible media presence in her role as the creator and host of AMPLIFY with Lara Downes, an NPR Music video series soon launching its third season in partnership with Classical California. She is the creator and curator of Rising Sun Music, a label dedicated to making first recordings of music by Black composers from the 18th century to the present day. Learn more at LaraDownes.com.
Chloé Vaught is a musical renaissance woman, excelling in vocal styles and genres across the board such as baroque, jazz, gospel, experimental and more. She has performed with Los Angeles Opera Chorus, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Philharmonic, HEX Vocal Ensemble, Seraphic Fire, Synchromy, San Fransisco Opera Chorus, and even went on tour with Björk alongside Tonality for her Cornucopia Tour in 2022. Chloé can also be heard on a variety of film scores such as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Sing 2, and Space Jam: A New Legacy. She has participated as a vocal fellow at prestigious Young Artist Programs, such as the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, the Castleton Vocal Immersion Program, and the Aspen Music Festival. Chloé has a B.A. in Vocal Performance from UCLA. Under the mentorship of the renowned Michelle DeYoung, Chloé’s dedication to refinement of her craft remains resolute. Chloé seeks to open doors in opera and classical music, ensuring vitality, relevance, and accessibility to audiences of every background. chloemaliavaught.com
Jamal Moore is an internationally acclaimed singer, songwriter, and recording artist. Known for his smooth, rich tone and his cross-style versatility, Jamal brings a captivating artistry to everything he touches, be it pop, classical, gospel, or jazz. A regular collaborator with Beyoncé, Jamal has performed at Coachella Festival, the Kobe & Gianna Bryant Memorial service, on Disney’s new The Lion King soundtrack, and on Beyoncé’s Grammy nominated single, Break My Soul. He has also toured globally with Kanye West as a member of gospel sensations, Sunday Service Collective. On screen, Jamal has performed on The Academy Awards (with Rihanna), BET Awards (with Kirk Franklin), Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Netflix documentaries, Beyoncé’s Homecoming and Black is King. Jamal was also a finalist on NBC’s The Sing-Off and can be heard as the singing voice of “Synth” on Dreamworks/Hulu series, Trolls. With a degree in Opera from New York’s Eastman School of Music, Jamal remains active in the classical music space, having recently been featured as the soloist for the Pasadena Symphony & Pops Holiday Candlelight Concert.
LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE
SOPRANO
Christina Bristow
Graycen Gardner
Kelci Hahn
Elissa Johnston
Caroline McKenzie
Beth Peregrine
Sunmi Shin
Kathryn Shuman
Addy Sterrett
Chloé Vaught
Suzanne Waters
Andrea Zomorodian
ALTO
Garineh Avakian
Monika Bruckner
Mindy Ella Chu
Janelle DeStefano
Callista Hoffman-Campbell
Sharon Chohi Kim
Sharmila G. Lash
Lindsay Patterson Abdou
Laura Smith Roethe
Jessie Shulman
Niké St. Clair
Kristen Toedtman
TENOR
Matthew Brown
Bradley Chapman
Adam Faruqi
Jon Lee Keenan
Dermot Kiernan
Charlie Kim
Joey Krumbein
Michael Lichtenauer
Matthew Miles
Robert Norman
Evan Roberts
Darita Seth
BASS
Michael Bannett
Kevin Dalbey
Dylan Gentile
Will Goldman
Luc Kleiner
Chung Uk Lee
Ben Lin
Brett McDermid
Jamal Moore
Adrien Redford
Mark Edward Smith
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.