Georgetown Americas Institute

Featuring

Anna Deeny Morales works in poetry and music as a librettist, translator, and literary critic. Her most recent operatic work is ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, commissioned by UNC, Charlotte, composer and professor, Brian Arreola. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Nobel Laureate, Gabriela Mistral, she has also translated works by Raúl Zurita, Mercedes Roffé, and Alejandra Pizarnik, among others. Her edited and translated volume of poetry by Nicanor Parra is forthcoming from New Directions in 2022. She has served as an expert reader for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Competition; a judge for the National Translation Award in Poetry; and she chairs the Gabriela Mistral Youth Poetry Competition. Deeny Morales is an adjunct professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, and her book manuscript, Other Solitudes, Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming in 2023.

Ángel Gil-Ordóñez is currently the music director and conductor of PostClassical Ensemble and principle guest conductor of New York’s Perspectives Ensemble. Gil-Ordóñez is also music director of the Georgetown University Orchestra. Additionally, he serves as advisor for education and programming for Trinitate Philharmonia, a program in León, Mexico, modeled on Venezuela’s El Sistema, and is a regular guest conductor at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Colorado, the Pacific Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the orchestra of St. Luke’s. Abroad, he has conducted the Munich Philharmonic, the Solistes de Berne, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, at the Bellas Artes National Theatre in Mexico City, and the major symphony orchestras in his native Spain. He has recorded several albums devoted to Spanish composers, and his most recent Naxos CD with PostClassical Ensemble, featuring music by Lou Harrison, has been acclaimed on four continents.

Brian Arreola is a composer whose compositions have been performed across the United States, broadcast on NPR, and commercially released on Cantus Recordings and Albany Records. ZAVALA-ZAVALA is his first opera. Arreola has sung lead and supporting tenor roles with opera companies across the United States and Europe, including Minnesota Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera Carolina, Toledo Opera, New Orleans Opera, Grachtenfestival (Netherlands), Iford Opera (United Kingdom), and others. He seeks to advance the work of composers from underrepresented groups, collaborating with Asian-American composers P.Q. Phan and Asako Hirabayashi on multiple operas and concerts, and recording a CD of art songs by Asian and Asian-American composers, The Boy Who Drew Cats, released by Albany Records in 2019. Arreola is professor of Voice & Opera Workshop at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Arreola es profesor de Voz y Taller de Ópera en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte en Charlotte.

Timothy Nelson is a stage and music director. Prior to becoming artistic director of the In Series, he was active in both North America and Europe. He recently directed L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at London’s Barbican Hall for the Academy of Ancient Music; Un Ballo in Maschera, Fairy Queen and Jephtha for Iford Arts Festival; and Les Pêcheurs de Perles for the Nationale Riesopera, where he also created productions of The Lighthouse and La Nozze di Figaro. Other work includes productions of Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly for Sardinia’s Festival Ente Concerti, Aureliano in Palmira for the famed Festivale della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, Riders to the Sea for Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival, Dido and Aeneas and Vivier’s Love Songs for the Rotterdam Opera Days, La Voix Humaine for the Residentie Orkest of the Hague, Giulio Cesare for Opera London, and European touring productions of Where the Wild Things Are and L’Enfant et les Sortileges for the Dutch National Opera and NJO. From 2002 to 2012 he served as artistic director of American Opera Theater, followed by a tenure as artistic director and head of music of the Netherlands Opera Studio and Nieuwe Stemmen of the Rotterdam Operadagen. He has been called “The Future of Opera” by the New York Times.

Corinne Hayes has recently been appointed associate artistic producer for IN Series, working in collaboration with Artistic Director Timothy Nelson. With IN Series, Corinne conceived and directed a virtual production of Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata, and she has served as creative producer on Black Flute and BOHEME in the Heights. As a stage director and educator, she has created new productions of La rondine and Le nozze di Figaro for Miami Music Festival, La finta giardiniera for the Maryland Opera Studio, and The Little Prince for Red River Lyric Opera. Beyond the rehearsal hall, Hayes has presented courses and lectures at the University of Maryland, Temple University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Webster University. Her long affiliation with Washington National Opera includes serving as assistant director to Francesca Zambello (Candide, The Little Prince) and E. Loren Meeker (Don Giovanni).

Judy Yannini is a professional opera singer. Highlights of her career include singing on stage with internationally renowned Mexican tenor Fernando de la Mora in the 122^nd Anniversary Concert in her native Tijuana, Mexico. She is the winner of the American Opera Idol 2020 with Oper Connecticut. Yannini’s most recent roles include Ginevra from Handel’s Ariodante with the Maryland Opera Studio and Mimí from La Boheme with IN Series. She was part of the Opera Ambulante in Tijuana, performing opera flash mobs across Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Yannini has explored her interest in musical theater by directing her own concert series The Disney SongBook with pianist Roberto Salomón, performed to sold-out audiences for three years in a row. She will play the role of Sara Lopez in ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, which will premiere at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. 

Elizabeth Mondragón is a Washington, DC, based mezzo-soprano. Her performance experience
ranges from traditional operatic productions to new music premieres. Principal roles include Carmen, Rosina, Dido, Ma Moss, Giulio Cesare, and Mother in Amahl in the Night Visitors. She has sung throughout the northeastern region of the United States with companies such as Opera North, Camerata Baroque, Amore Opera, One World Symphony, Maryland Lyric Opera, Regina Opera, and IN Series. 

Alex Alburqueque is a Peruvian baritone. He studied vocal performance at the University of Maryland under the guidance of baritone Dominic Cossa. He has worked alongside Gregory Buchalter from the Metropolitan Opera, Lucy Arner from New Jersey Verismo Opera, and Carlos Palacios from Teatro Argentino de la Plata. He has portrayed the roles of Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Escamillo in Carmen, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Marcello in La Boheme, Vidal Hernando in Luisa Fernanda, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, King Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Don Hilarion in La Verbena de la Paloma, among others. He has worked with the Washington National Opera, Maryland Lyric Opera, Opera Camerata of Washington, DC, IN Series, Opera Bel Cantanti, Teatro Lirico DC, and Opera NOVA.

Manuel Cuellar (moderator) is assistant professor of Spanish, Latin American, and Latinx literatures and cultures in the Department of Romance, German, and Slavic Languages and Literatures (RGSLL) at George Washington University. He focuses on Mexican literary and cultural studies with an emphasis on race, gender, and sexuality. His research primarily engages questions of performance,  specially as they concern dance, indigeneity, and Afro-mestizo imaginaries in Mexico, combining ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and studies of contemporary and classical Nahuatl, Mexico’s most widely spoken and written Indigenous language. Dr. Cuellar’s strong background in Mexican traditional dance has led him to explore dance’s role in Mexican national identity, indigeneity, and queerness in Mexico and the United States. His forthcoming book, Choreographing Mexico: Festive Performances and Dancing Histories of a Nation (UT Press 2022), reveals how written, photographic, cinematographic, and choreographic renderings of a festive Mexico highlight the role that dance has played in processes of citizen formation and national belonging, from the late Porfirian regime to the immediate post-revolutionary era (1910-1940). His work has appeared in Performance Research, A Contracorriente, and Mexican Transnational Cinema and Literature.