Lidiya Yankovskaya / Conductor & Artistic Director
Russian-born conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya serves as Artistic Director of Refugee Orchestra Project and Music Director with Chicago Opera Theater. She is also a resident artist at National Sawdust in NYC. Until recently, Lidiya also served as a conductor with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, as a regular guest chorus master with Boston Symphony Orchestra, and as the Artistic Director of Juventas New Music Ensemble/Boston New Music Festival. Lidiya’s conducting engagements this season include Spoleto Festival USA, Washington National Opera, Stamford Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Wolftrap Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, Symphony New Hampshire, and a workshop of a new opera with The Metropolitan Opera. She was also featured in the 2017 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, and is a part of Marin Alsop’s Taki Concordia Fellowship and The Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors, and has previously served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival, where she regularly stepped in for Maazel in rehearsals and performances. Other previous positions include serving as Music Director with Harvard’s Lowell House Opera, where she was also a resident artist and Davis Center associate scholar. In her work as an artistic leader, Lidiya has become known as a champion of living composers and cross-disciplinary collaborative projects, alongside her work with traditional repertoire. Under her leadership, Juventas New Music produced annual operatic premieres and performances that cross disciplinary boundaries, including musical collaborations with robots, puppeteers, visual artists, circus performers, and more. Lidiya has also been an advocate for lesser known repertory and Russian operatic works, most recently conducting American premieres of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchej the Immortal, Symphony No.1 and Snegurochka, Rubinshteyn’s The Demon, and an upcoming U.S. premiere of Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei. Under her leadership, Chicago Opera Theater is establishing a new Vanguard Initiative, focused on composer mentorship and development of new work. More at www.LidiyaConductor.com
Allison Provaire / Co-Executive Director
Soprano Allison Provaire has been hailed for her "gleaming tone" as an up and coming artist in the Boston area where she has performed with several companies including Lowell House Opera, Opera Brittenica, Boston Opera Collaborative, Odyssey Opera and as a soloist with Calliope Music Ensemble of Boston. Recent credits include Mrs. Webb (Our Town), Mrs. Gross (Cover, Turn of the Screw), Lady Billows (Albert Herring), and Kitty Hart (Dead Man Walking).
Allison has also been seen abroad as a soloist with the International Lyric Academy of Rome as part of the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy under the direction of Timothy Leon of L.A. Opera, as well as in China where she was a soloist with the Cultural Arts and Music Festival of Shanghai. Allison has been an invited singer in masterclasses throughout Boston and abroad and has worked with The Metropolitan Opera's Nico Castel, renowned Baritone Anton Belov, and International Conductor Maestro Stefano Vignati, among several others. Allison also enjoys working with organizations in an administrative capacity and has served as the Development Assistant and Financial Officer for Boston Opera Collaborative. She currently volunteers her time as an Event Planner and Administrative Coordinator for a women’s advocacy group within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also works as an Executive Assistant and Development Assistant.
Allison has also been seen abroad as a soloist with the International Lyric Academy of Rome as part of the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy under the direction of Timothy Leon of L.A. Opera, as well as in China where she was a soloist with the Cultural Arts and Music Festival of Shanghai. Allison has been an invited singer in masterclasses throughout Boston and abroad and has worked with The Metropolitan Opera's Nico Castel, renowned Baritone Anton Belov, and International Conductor Maestro Stefano Vignati, among several others. Allison also enjoys working with organizations in an administrative capacity and has served as the Development Assistant and Financial Officer for Boston Opera Collaborative. She currently volunteers her time as an Event Planner and Administrative Coordinator for a women’s advocacy group within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also works as an Executive Assistant and Development Assistant.
Samantha Lovewell / Co-Executive Director
Samantha Lovewell is thrilled to join the Refugee Orchestra Project as the Co Executive Director. She is pursuing an MS in Arts Administration and Fundraising Management Certificate at Boston University. She also serves as Graduate Assistant to the Arts Administration Department, President to the Arts Administration Student Association (AASA), and Vice Marketing Director to the Museum of Contemporary Cuts (MoCC). Outside of Boston University, Samantha is a teaching fellow with the Boston Children's Chorus and a visiting teaching artist at the Wellesley Theater Project.
Samantha holds a BM in Music Education (Voice) and Minor in Theatre Arts from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. During her time there she lead the Off Broadway Players as President and performed in and worked on many shows as well as opera/musical theatre workshops. Samantha was a member of the Chamber Singers and participated in the Sarteano Choral Conducting Workshop in Tuscany, Italy on a scholarship during her time at UMass. Having taught music, theater, and chorus full time in the public school system for a couple years, Samantha has made it her personal and professional mission to work to advocate for the arts in order to achieve social justice.
Samantha holds a BM in Music Education (Voice) and Minor in Theatre Arts from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. During her time there she lead the Off Broadway Players as President and performed in and worked on many shows as well as opera/musical theatre workshops. Samantha was a member of the Chamber Singers and participated in the Sarteano Choral Conducting Workshop in Tuscany, Italy on a scholarship during her time at UMass. Having taught music, theater, and chorus full time in the public school system for a couple years, Samantha has made it her personal and professional mission to work to advocate for the arts in order to achieve social justice.
Channing Yu - Associate Artistic Director
American orchestra and opera conductor Channing Yu is Associate Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project. He is Music Director of the Mercury Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts and national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting. He recently served as Music Director of the Dudley Orchestra in Cambridge, Music Director of Bay Colony Brass in Watertown, Massachusetts, and Leader of the Powers Community String Orchestra in Belmont, Massachusetts. He has also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lowell House Opera, where he conducted over thirty fully staged performances with orchestra, including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini’s Turandot, Verdi’s Otello, and Puccini’s Tosca.
First trained as a pianist, Yu was divisional grand prize winner of the American Music Scholarship Association International Piano Competition and has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchèstra Nova. Anthony Tommassini of The Boston Globe praised his “imaginative piano work.” As violinist, he has served as concertmaster of the Brahms Society Orchestra and violinist in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and he currently performs with Camerata Notturna in New York City. As lyric baritone, he performed recently with New Jersey Verismo Opera and previously with the Boston Opera Collaborative and in the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Germany. He sings with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Grammy award-winning chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops.
First trained as a pianist, Yu was divisional grand prize winner of the American Music Scholarship Association International Piano Competition and has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchèstra Nova. Anthony Tommassini of The Boston Globe praised his “imaginative piano work.” As violinist, he has served as concertmaster of the Brahms Society Orchestra and violinist in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and he currently performs with Camerata Notturna in New York City. As lyric baritone, he performed recently with New Jersey Verismo Opera and previously with the Boston Opera Collaborative and in the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Germany. He sings with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Grammy award-winning chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops.
John Connolly / Director of Marketing & Communications
John has extensive experience in the arts, from his time as theatre manager at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester to his time with the Mayor's Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events in Boston. He has held other marketing leadership positions at the Boston Children's Chorus, Urban Nutcracker, and has served on various marketing committees with the Boston Harbor Islands Alliance, Boston Lyric Opera, Chu Ling Dance Company and is on the board of directors for the City Ballet of Boston. One of his favorite jobs though was when he was site supervisor for the Boston Landmarks Orchestra in 2003. He currently works in marketing in the higher education field.
Derek J. Weagle / Administrative and Communications Associate
Derek is an emerging composer, conductor, and music educator based in New York City. Involved in a wide variety of musical activities since a young age, he became hungry for the diverse experiences the arts have to offer. Weagle's compositional style has been hailed for its simultaneous nostalgic and contemporary flavors. His work draws on a varied palate of sound, not only in the art music idiom, but also indie, folk, R&B, film, and world traditions. Derek's compositional philosophy is focused on tearing down the social barriers that have emerged around "classical music," hoping to provide audiences with an experience to which they can connect.
Derek has independently produced and conducted several performances of his own work including the premieres of his Earthrise Mass in 2015, his Serenade for Bass-Baritone, Horn & Strings in 2016, and most recently, his English horn sonata, Resplendent Sorrow. His choral work Assembly was commissioned in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the New England Conservatory and will be premiered in the fall. Derek holds a B.M. in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where he studied composition with Michael Gandolfi and choral conducting with Erica Washburn.
Derek has independently produced and conducted several performances of his own work including the premieres of his Earthrise Mass in 2015, his Serenade for Bass-Baritone, Horn & Strings in 2016, and most recently, his English horn sonata, Resplendent Sorrow. His choral work Assembly was commissioned in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the New England Conservatory and will be premiered in the fall. Derek holds a B.M. in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where he studied composition with Michael Gandolfi and choral conducting with Erica Washburn.
Kristie Chan / Company & Stage Manager
Kristie Chan is an arts administrator whose passion lies in making the arts accessible to everyone. Starting out as a chemist in college, she fell in love with arts administration after being exposed to the career while working as an Artist Assistant at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Kristie now works as the Orchestra Management Assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, working under both Orchestra Personnel and Operations. She graduated with a B.A. in Music from Mount Holyoke College studying piano under Gary Steigerwalt and earned a Certificate in Arts Administration from UMass Amherst.
Kristie now works as the Orchestra Management Assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, working under both Orchestra Personnel and Operations. She graduated with a B.A. in Music from Mount Holyoke College studying piano under Gary Steigerwalt and earned a Certificate in Arts Administration from UMass Amherst.
Rose Whitcomb / Library Manager
Rose graduated from Harvard University in 2016 with a B.A. degree in Music. Currently, she is substitute teaching for students grades 7-12 at Prospect Hill Academy, a charter school in Cambridge. As an undergraduate, she performed on clarinet as a member of the River Charles Ensemble, and the Harvard University Wind Ensemble. She also taught private lessons through the Harvard and Radcliffe Musical Outreach to Neighborhood Youth program (HARMONY) of the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) and directed the Summer HARMONY program where she conducted music workshops with Boston and Cambridge students (ages 5-14). Rose is committed to working as a music educator and knows that the work of learning/performing music is essential formative work for learners of all ages.