Young Artists Training Program
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Jason McStoots, Associate Director, 2025
Jeffrey Grossman, Musical Director, 2025
Inaugurated in 2011 by BEMF Opera Director Gilbert Blin, the Boston Early Music Festival’s Young Artists Training Program nurtures talented young singers and dancers, offering them an invaluable chance to participate in the making of a fully staged Baroque opera from rehearsal through performance at the highest level. Young Artists spend four immersive weeks in Boston, working closely with BEMF’s world-class team of Directors – Artistic Co-Directors Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Opera Director Gilbert Blin, Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and Choreographer Hubert Hazebroucq – singers, instrumentalists, choreographers, dancers, actors, and technical personnel, as well as with visiting specialists and scholars.
Each young artist prepares a lead role dramatically as well as musically/choreographically, as if they were to perform it, and follows all of the musical and stage rehearsals for that part. During the course of rehearsals, and in special sessions conducted by the directors and other world-renowned specialists in music, staging, and dance, participants benefit from a consistent approach to the repertoire, and receive training in the physical aspects and body language on stage. Each Young Artist also performs one or more supernumerary characters in the staged opera, with some mime, dancing, and short choral segments when appropriate. Although these are often not fully sung or danced roles, performing these characters allows for thorough practical work on all non-singing and non-dancing aspects of the opera performance. Participants are encouraged to develop their technical knowledge of the music and text by reading and analysis, and also to learn about and improve their cultural approach to the early music styles.
The 2025 Young Artists Training Program will take place from May 19, 2025 through June 15, 2025, in Boston, MA. The program will be under the guidance of Associate Director Jason McStoots and will support our Festival Operatic Centerpiece, Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia, on a libretto by Barthold Feind, with four performances from June 8 to June 15, 2025. Participants to be selected following an audition process in late 2024. Young singers will also present a public performance of George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina on Friday, June 13, 2025.
If you have any questions, please contact Kathleen Fay by email at kathy@bemf.org or by calling 617-661-1812.
Previous Editions
Young Artists Training Program 2011
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Singers: Herman Berisso, Julia Cavallaro, Abigail Renée Krawson, Sean Lair, Alexander Nishibun, Brendan Quinn, Jay Lloyd Smith, Megan Stapleton*.
Young Artists Training Program 2013
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Ellen Hargis, Associate Director
Singers: Corinne Byrne, David Evans*, Patrick Kilbride*, Noelle McMurtry, Nola Richardson*, Corey Shotwell, Kathryn Summerset, Mark Williams*.
Young Artists Training Program 2015
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Christian Immler, Associate Director
Singers: Bradley J. King*, Brittany Fowler, Sarah Mitchell, Zachary Lenox, Michael Manning, Hanna Rose Stubbs.
Dancers: Melissa House, Maurice Dawkins*
Young Artists Training Program 2017
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Jason McStoots, Associate Director
Jeffrey Grossman, Répétiteur
Singers: Thomas Albanese*, Mindy Ella Chu*, Hannah De Priest, Daniel Fridley*, Ekatarina Gorlova, Suzanne Karpov, Devon Morin, Ashley Mulcahy*, Corbin Phillips.
Dancers: Julian Donahue*, Lindsay Gray*
Young Artists Training Program 2019
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Jason McStoots, Associate Director
Jeffrey Grossman, Musical Director
Singers: Cody Bowers*, Kevin Bryant, Samantha Dotterweich, Michael Galvin*, Sylvia Leith, Elijah McCormack, Gabriela Estephanie Solis, Karin Weston, Sinéad White
Dancers: Alex Meeth* & Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye*
Young Artists Training Program 2023
Gilbert Blin, Founder & Director
Jason McStoots, Associate Director
Jeffrey Grossman, Musical Director
SINGERS: Kristine Caswelch, Alissa Magee*, Mara Yaffee*, Richard Pittsinger*, Jason Rober*, Peter Schoellkopff
INSTRUMENTALISTS: Lydia Becker, Ryan Cheng, Chelsea Bernstein, Dani Zanuttini-Frank
*Denotes members of the YATP who have been offered further engagements with BEMF