Performer Biographies

Australian Simone Easthope is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she obtained a Bachelor of Music degree in classical voice, and she was awarded a Diploma of Opera from the Conservatorium Opera School. She is pursuing a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School in New York.

Ms. Easthope has performed the roles of Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring, the title role in Les Mamelles de Tiresias, the title role in Angélique, Lola (Gallantry: A Soap Opera), and Fiammetta (Prima Donna). She has had a continuing association with the Newcastle Festival Opera in Australia, for which she has appeared as Valencienne (The Merry Widow) and as Despina in Così Fan Tutte. For her portrayal of Despina she was nominated for a City of Newcastle Dramatic Award. As winner of the prestigious Lady Fairfax New York Scholarship, she undertook a period of study in New York in November 2011.

Ms. Easthope's recent concert engagements as soprano soloist include Haydn's Nelson Mass, Carmina Burana with the percussion ensemble Synergy, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Mozart's Requiem, and Stabat Mater by Pergolesi. Other credits include Handel's Messiah, Mass in C by Beethoven, Handel's Chandos Anthems with Coro Innominato, Mozart's Mass in C Minor, and the Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5 by Villa-Lobos.

Ms. Easthope will appear as soprano soloist with laVerdi in Milan in February 2012 led by Helmuth Rilling.

Canadian pianist Daniel Fung is an active performer as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative pianist. Performance highlights include concerts with the Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton Symphonies, and he has taken major prizes at the National Music Festival and Shean Competitions. He is an alumnus of the Académie Musicale Internationale "Barbara Krakauer," Mozarteum Sommerakademie, and Music Academy of the West.

In January 2011 he participated in The Song Continues! Celebrating Marilyn Horne at Carnegie Hall and recently worked as pianist and coach at Opera on the Avalon in St. John's, Newfoundland. Recent performances included a master class with the renowned pianist Alfred Brendel.

Mr. Fung is a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow in collaborative piano, a full-scholarship program at The Juilliard School, where he studies with Margo Garrett and Jonathan Feldman. Mr. Fung holds degrees from the University of Calgary, where he studied with Marilyn Engle. He is a passionate believer in outreach and education, and has worked with the Juilliard Drama Intensive in Ephraim, Utah; Juilliard in Aiken; and is a resident assistant at Juilliard. He received his Master of Music degree from Juilliard in 2011, when he also was awarded the William Schuman Prize, presented to a graduate student at commencement for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.

His studies have been funded generously by the Johann Strauss Foundation, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Alberta Scholarship Programs. In his spare time Mr. Fung enjoys traveling the world and seeking out and preparing new cuisines.

Raquel Gonzalez, who is from Lawrence, Kansas, is pursuing her undergraduate degree from The Juilliard School, where she recently performed the role of Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and will be seen this spring as Arminda (La Finta Giardiniera).

Ms. Gonzalez has also performed the roles of Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), and Une Pastourelle (L'enfant et les sortileges) at the Chautauqua Institute.

She has appeared in various programs as Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), First Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), and Elettra (Idomeneo).

She is a fourth-year student at Juilliard, where she studies with Marlena Malas.

Tobias Greenhalgh is making his third appearance at Juilliard in Aiken, where audiences especially remember his "Impossible Dream." He has sung the roles of Pokayne/Gestapo Officer (Kommilitonen!), Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), Mr. Brooke (Little Women), Demetrius (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Bob (The Old Maid and the Thief), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), and Marcello (La Bohème).

Mr. Greenhalgh is a frequent performer with the New York Festival of Song, and he performed in two recitals in Alice Tully Hall this past year. He recently appeared with the Peoria Symphony as one of the main superheroes in the premiere of a new operatic work, Justice, which combines the mythological heroic quest with operatic music.

During the summer of 2011 Mr. Greenhalgh traveled to Germany to participate in the International Meistersinger Academy, where he performed numerous concerts broadcast on National Bavarian Radio. Recent engagements include a Liederabend under the musical preparation of Ken Noda, "Invitation to Dance" (New York Festival of Song at Juilliard), and the premiere of "Six Cavafy Songs" with the New Juilliard Ensemble. Mr. Greenhalgh is a first-year Master of Music degree candidate who is studying with Dr. Robert C. White, Jr.

Rachael Wilson, a mezzo-soprano from Las Vegas, is in her first year in the master of music program at The Juilliard School. She recently appeared at Juilliard in the premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Kommilitonen! and in the New York Festival of Song, “Invitation to the Dance.” She has also recently performed the roles of Prince Orlofsky in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, and Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and she was a featured soloist in John Corigliano’s Fern Hill at Chapman University in Orange, California.

Ms. Wilson has participated in many master classes with such artists as Milena Kitic, Bo Skovhus, Linda Watson, and Vladimir Chernov. Ms. Wilson’s awards include an Alice Tully Foundation Scholarship, the LeRoy Custer Award, Chapman University’s Nancy Bramlage Award in Opera, and the Chapman University Vocal Talent Award. Upcoming solo engagements include a selection of Tchaikovsky songs directed by Gina Levinson in Juilliard’s Liederabend series, and Bach’s “Magnificat” with the Clarion Music Society in Alice Tully Hall.

Described by Elizabeth Ahlfors in Cabaret Scenes as "special, sensational, smashing," Jennifer Sheehan headlined a sold-out run of her critically acclaimed show at the Metropolitan Room in New York last year. You Made Me Love You— Celebrating 100 Years of the Great American Songbook was described by Stephen Holden of the New York Times as "smart and far-reaching." Ms. Sheehan has presented the show to enthusiastic audiences from Palm Beach to Pennsylvania and New York to Nebraska. Of her show's CD, Melody Breyer-Grell wrote in Cabaret Scenes: "It is rare that one singer has as much going for her as Jennifer displays on this new disc."

Ms. Sheehan made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2010, performing as a special guest of Michael Feinstein. In summer 2011 she made her Guild Hall debut in the Hamptons, performing in concert with Eric Michael Gillett and Alex Rybeck. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the Johnny Mercer Foundation's Margaret Whiting Award; she also received the Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in Cabaret. Previously, she won the Noël Coward Foundation's Cabaret Competition Award and was honored by the Mabel Mercer Foundation with the Julie Wilson Award for outstanding interpretation of the great American songbook.

Ms. Sheehan has performed as one of six vocalists in Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular. She also has appeared in shows at the York Theatre, the 92nd Street Y, Bard Summerscape, and Boston Musical Theater. She is making her Oak Room debut at the legendary Algonquin Hotel this year. Ms. Sheehan is a graduate of The Juilliard School.

James Followell has worked as a musical director, collaborative pianist, and arranger with many Broadway and cabaret luminaries, including KT Sullivan, Sharon McNight, Karen Mason, Ann Hampton Callaway, Kristin Chenoweth, Jeff Harnar, Shauna Hicks, Martin Vidnovic, Jennifer Sheehan, and the incomparable Hildegarde at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, Rose Hall at Lincoln Center, and in London at Pizza on the Park and the Prince Edward Theatre.

Mr. Followell’s theater credits as musical director include the Off-Broadway production of Jerry Herman’s Showtune (vocal and piano arrangements), and The Best of Times (featured pianist–vocalist) at the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End. Mr. Followell also served as musical director–pianist for the Off-Broadway hit Forever Plaid and toured with its first national company. He recently served in those capacities for the Buffalo Studio Arena, Cleveland Playhouse, and Jupiter Maltz Theatre productions of the sequel, Plaid Tidings, directed by Stuart Ross. Mr. Followell was the conductor-pianist for the international tour of Little Shop of Horrors in Stockholm and Hamburg.

Mr. Followell, who resides in New York City, is the musical director and arranger for Uptown Express, a four-man pops group. He was the recipient of the 2005 Dick Gallagher Award from the Mabel Mercer Foundation for outstanding work as a cabaret musical accompanist and arranger. He also was the musical director, pianist, and arranger for the 92nd Street Y’s tribute to Mercer in its Lyrics & Lyricists Series.