Donnie Ray Albert, baritone

50 years in photos

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About the Artists

Donnie Ray Albert

Donnie Ray Albert is a regular guest of opera companies and symphony orchestras around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera as Germont, Los Angeles Opera as Trinity Moses in Mahagonny, Simone in A Florentine Tragedy, and as the Father in Hansel and Gretel, plus numerous appearances with Opera Pacific, Houston Grand Opera, Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Dallas Opera, Arizona; Atlanta Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera,Utah Opera, and the opera companies of New Orleans, Baltimore, Columbus, Kansas City, Omaha, Pittsburgh, and, in Canada, with the companies in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Manitoba, and Vancouver. In Europe, he has appeared at the Cologne Opera singing all Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffman, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, and Frank in Die Tote Stadt, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as the Four Villains, the Royal Opera Wallonie in Liege for Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, the National Theater in Prague as Jack Rance, the Deutsche Opera Berlin, Lithuanian National Opera in the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer, plus the opera houses in Bordeaux, Köln, Bregenz, Milan, Mannheim and Hamburg, and in Vienna in the title role in Ernst Bloch’s Macbeth for the Vienna “Klangbogen” Festival.

He has appeared in Japan with the New National Theater in Tokyo as Wotan and the Wanderer in Der Ring des Nibelungen, and in Brazil as Jochanaan in Salome in Sao Paolo. As a concert artist, Mr. Albert has sung with the orchestras of Washington DC (National), Cologne, Southwest Florida, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Dallas, Minnesota, Seattle, St. Paul, Los Angeles, Austin, Palm Beach, Greensboro, Grant Park Music Festival, and Madison, Vienna and Linz, in Austria and in Jerusalem. He is also a resident artist with the Center for Black Music Research at Chicago’s Columbia College. In recent seasons, Mr. Albert has appeared as Rigoletto for Vancouver Opera, Amonaso in Riga, Latvia, and Phoenix, Alfio for the Orlando Opera, Iago for the Kentucky Opera, Il Giuramento for the Washington Concert Opera, Das lied von der Erde with Rhode Island Philharmonic, Elijah with the Southwest Florida Master Chorale, concerts with the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the Atlanta Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra for their performance of d’Indy’s Fervaal, Nashville Symphony, the Kentucky Opera as Germont, Latvian Opera as Giorgio in I Puritani, Prague’s National Theater as the Four Villains in a new production of Les Contes d’Hoffman, and the Semper Opera in Dresden for Keith Warner’s new production of Faust, in Paris for Aida, in Riga, Latvia for Otello, Madison Opera for La Traviata, and Washington Concert Opera for Adriana Lecouvreur. Future engagements includes appearances as Amonasro in Edmonton and in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff for the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen.

Mr. Albert may be heard on RCA’s Grammy Award and Grand Prix du Disque winning recording of Porgy and Bess, NOW’s recording of The Horse I Ride Has Wings with David Garvey on piano, EMI’s Frühlingsbegräbnis and Eine Florentinesche Tragodie by Zemlinsky conducted by James Conlon, and Simon Sargon’s A Clear Midnight on the Gasparo label.

Patti Wolf

Since being chosen at age nineteen as the youngest competitor of the 1985 Van Cliburn Competition, Patti Wolf has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has collaborated in recital with many of the world’s most distinguished musical artists, such as cellist Lynn Harrell, pianist Jon Kimura Parker, flutist Carol Wincenc, violinist Ilya Kaler, concertmasters Glenn Dicterow, Andrés Cárdenas, David Halen and Nina Bodnar, soprano Erin Wall, Chicago Symphony principal horn Dale Clevenger, and renowned German horn soloist and recording artist Hermann Baumann. In 2017, Ms. Wolf joined the faculty at the University of Texas, Austin, Butler School of Music, where she is assistant professor of practice in collaborative piano. She performs regularly with faculty members and has been a guest recently with the Austin Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Lyrica Baroque in New Orleans, and HeightsArts in Cleveland, Oh, performing with musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra.

James Maverick

James Maverick joined the Butler School of Music in 2021, where he teaches vocal accompanying and coaches singers. Since 2020, he has been music staff and Assistant Chorus Master at Cincinnati Opera, and has also been music staff at Austin Opera since 2023. He was chorus master and keyboardist for productions of Les pêcheurs des perles and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, where he was also a Resident Artist from 2017-2019. While in Kansas City, he served on the coaching faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory. He has prepared workshops of new operas through Austin Opera's LatinX Residency, Cincinnati's Opera Fusion: New Works program, and Opera Philadelphia. He has previously been a fellow with Wolf Trap Opera, the Merola Opera Program, and the Tanglewood Music Center, and he holds degrees in piano performance, choral conducting, and collaborative piano from Lawrence University and Indiana University.

Tamar Sanikidze

A “technically nimble and supportive pianist” (The New York Times), Dr. Tamara Sanikidze has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages and serves as the head of voice division, director, producer, and principal coach of the Butler Opera Center and artistic director of the Butler Opera International Competition. As an active recitalist, she partners with Nadine Sierra, Thomas Hampson, Leah Crocetto, Lianna Haroutounian, and Quinn Kelsey. By special invitation, Dr. Sanikidze performed at the White House for President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. She frequently coaches for the Merola Opera Program, Wolf Trap Opera Center, as well as Young Artist Programs at Washington National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro De’ll Opera di Roma, and Los Angeles Opera. In 2015 she joined the Lehrer Vocal Institute at the Music Academy of the West as Faculty Artist and Audition/Casting judge. Dr. Sanikidze is the recipient of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Award for Excellence in Vocal Accompanying. She holds her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is an alumna of the Wolftrap Opera Center, Merola Opera Center, as well as the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Opera Center, Cleveland Art Song Festival, and SongFest.

Liliana Guerero

Dr. Liliana Guerrero is Assistant Professor of Voice at the Butler School of Music, where she teaches Vocal Pedagogy and Applied Voice.

The daughter of Mexican and Cuban immigrants, her research focuses on advocating for Latin-American voices in classical music and she has received fellowship funding for this from the Society for American Music. She is a frequent lecturer and panelist on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the voice studio and serves as a member of the NATS DEI Task Force as well as the organizer for the NATS Latinx/Hispanic Teachers Affinity Group. She is a previous Faculty-First Look Fellow at NYU Steinhardt and a Future of Music Faculty Fellow at Cleveland Institute of Music. With a passion for community outreach, Guerrero serves as a Teaching Artist for Austin Opera, Membership Liaison for South Texas NATS, and Webmaster for Texoma NATS. Guerrero is also part of the founding committee for the Ibero-American Chapter of NATS and spends summers on the voice faculty of the Atlantic Music Festival.

Leah Crocetto

Described by the New York Times as possessing an “agile coloratura technique and a feeling for the Italianate style... with warmth, full penetrating sound and tenderness,” soprano Leah Crocetto continues to astonish audiences with her moving portrayals of opera’s greatest heroines. The 2022/23 season begins with her San Diego Symphony debut in Verdi’s breathtaking Requiem under the baton of Rafael Payare. She also returns to the Sydney Opera House for Opera Australia’s Aida and debuts the fiendish role of Odabella in Attila at Teatro Petruzelli. In recital, she will appear at the Butler School of Music in Austin, Texas, where she is currently on faculty as a lecturer in vocal arts. Hook ‘em Horns! Leah Crocetto also tours with her newly founded trio Momenti, featuring bass-baritone Christian Pursell and pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg, for their first concerts in San Francisco, Napa, and her native Adrian, Michigan. Aiming to create unique and empowering music, performing genre-less, yet extensive, rich, and innovative repertoire, they released their first EP on February 10, 2023.   

 Mikhail Smigelski

Hailed as “phenomenal” (The Harvard Crimson), “impressively epic” (schwäbische.de), and praised for his “wine-dark bass” (The Boston Globe), bass-baritone Mikhail Smigelski enjoys a versatile career spanning various genres, including opera, oratorio, early music, musical theatre, and contemporary music. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Mikhail has performed on some of the world's most prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Saint Petersburg and Moscow Philharmonias, Berliner Philharmonie, and Kölner Philharmonie. He has also collaborated with renowned European and American opera companies, such as Saint Petersburg Chamber Opera, Theater Aachen, Theater Solingen, Theater Leverkusen, Miami Lyric Opera, The Cleveland Opera, Opera in the Heights, among others. Smigelski’s performance portfolio features over 30 roles in classical and contemporary operas as well as other stage works. A passionate advocate for contemporary classical music, he has participated in numerous festivals, including New York’s Ferus Festival and the Cohen New Works Festival, and has premiered works with ensembles such as the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Density 512, and Rhapsode Guild.

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