Meet the team
Aiden Kim Feltkamp (Founder, Artistic Director) discovered their* passion for opera at a performance of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in their first semester of college. They just graduated with a M.M. from Dawn Upshaw’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music, where they played the Pig in Knussen's Higglety Pigglety Pop! and sang as an alto soloist under Leon Botstein’s baton for Handel’s The Messiah. They received their B.S. in Vocal Performance from Hofstra University. Professionally, they most recently created the lead role of Elizabeth in Griffin Candey’s Sweets by Kate and performed Ottavia in a Baroque gesture production of Monteverdi’s Poppea. Other full roles include Cherubino, Hansel, Prince Orlofsky, Donna Elvira, and Larina (Eugene Onegin). Patrick Dillon of OperaNews said of their Cherubino: “[Feltkamp] had me checking my program for her gender when she tumbled onto stage, so convincing was she as a twitchily teenage boy.” They have studied with esteemed mentors Peter Sellars, Edda Moser, and the late diction guru, Nico Castel. In their spare time, they write opera libretti and art songs.
*Aiden identifies as trans nonbinary
*Aiden identifies as trans nonbinary
Peiharn Chen (General Director), freelance pianist, holds a Master of Music from NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development where she studied in the studio of Eduardus Halim (the last pupil of Vladimir Horowitz). Her eclectic style has led her to perform in a variety of venues and festivals in and out of NYC including: Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium), Spectrum, Saklad Chamber Series, NYU Liszt Festival. Chamber performances in New York City include the Saklad Chamber Series (December 2009), where she played the works of Lou Harrison and Astor Piazzolla. She also works with young rising composers, such as the West Fourth New Music Collective. In February 2011, Peiharn was featured in a recital showcasing the vocal works of Turina, Poulenc, and Barber at Greenwich House Music School. In summer 2008, she made her first trip to Italy, participating in the Schlern International Music Festival, where she performed in a series of solo and chamber concerts featuring the works of Schumann, Fauré, and Dvorak in the Italian Alps. Her knowledge of opera placed her as a repetiteur on projects including Manhattan School of Music’s production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, and the World Premiere of Gilda Lyon’s A New Kind of Fallout (2015) at Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, where Peiharn was a Resident Artist Pianist. She is a regular accompanist for Les Chantereuses, a burlesque and variety show in Brooklyn, featuring traditional opera in new settings. Peiharn has taught piano lessons at a variety of schools including NYU, where she worked as an Adjunct Instructor. She strongly encourages students to listen and play as many different types of music as possible, and challenges them to discover the beauty and fun in each piece they play.
Griffin Candey (Music Director) is an American opera composer dutifully committed to creating vocal and theatrical works that, by approaching forward-thinking subject matter, aim to both expand and preserve those genres. At the core of Candey's vocal music is a level of practical vocal finesse that vocalists and interpreters praise for its "prosody that showcases both the words and the singers," its "intuitive rhythm," and its "lyricism and emotional depth." Candey's latest opera, Sweets by Kate – described as "hilarious and moving," "a piece with charming and elaborate complexity," and "a meaningful and beautiful work of art" – was recently chosen for the 2017 line-up of Fort Worth Opera's Frontiers Festival and was listed by Operawire as One of the Ten Must-See Operas of the 2017 Summer Season. The comic chamber work, commissioned and premiered by the Midwest Institute of Opera in July 2015, recently saw productions at Boston University's 2017 Fringe Fest, at Marble City Opera of Knoxville, TN (May 2016) and with NYC's OperaRox Productions at the historic Stonewall Inn (July 2017.) The next three years will also see the premieres of a broad range of vocal works – chamber song cycles for Megan Ihnen and the Seen / Heard Trio, for Brooke Larimer and the BEO String Quartet, for Hillary LaBonte and the Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music, for San Francisco's Ann Moss; chamber operas for both Marble City Opera (Follow Suit) and another for Cleveland Opera Theater (an adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca'sThe House of Bernarda Alba;) and an original, conservation-themed choral cantata with the Marquette Choral Society (The Night Psalms.)
Aumna Iqbal (Marketing Director) has worked as a professional mezzo soprano for 10 years, with credits as varying as The Industry’s Hopscotch, the LA Philharmonic for Nimbus, Pacific Symphony, and Pacific Opera Project. She has performed in roles such as Dorabella, Carmen, Komponist, and brought world premieres to life in Ghost Variations, ICELAND, Silver and Stars (concert), and as co-director for The Times Are Nightfall. Aumna’s concert work includes the Brahms Alto Rhapsody, Bach’s B Minor Mass, the Erbarme Dich for Bach in the Subways Los Angeles, and art song and scenes with Cantanti Project, OperaRox, and various symphonies around Southern California. Aumna brings to bear her background in marketing at Prime Cut Cafe, as well as an internship with The Phelps Group in Santa Monica. She also does freelance consulting work, putting together packages for nonprofit arts groups as well as audition materials for working singers. Aumna has been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, most notably First Prize in the POSA Follman-Young Young Artist Competition and the Anna Haxworth Music Prize, and she was twice a finalist for The American Prize in Opera. She also is a Young Musicians Foundation scholarship recipient, and participated in Songfest 2012 as a Songfest Fellow at The Colburn School in Los Angeles. Aumna completed a Master of Studies in Musicology from the University of Oxford and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Distinction and Honors) in Music from Stanford University. She has trained with faculty, directors, and actors from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Globe Theatre, and South Coast Repertory.
Previous Team Members
Jaimie Appleton (Co-Founder)
Michael Hofmann
Maayan Voss de Bettancourt
Devony Smith
Harry Rose
Felicia Zangari
Alexa Rosenberg
Michael Hofmann
Maayan Voss de Bettancourt
Devony Smith
Harry Rose
Felicia Zangari
Alexa Rosenberg