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Myah Rose Paden, mezzo soprano, October 2024

Myah Rose Paden (they/them) is a passionate mezzo-soprano and speaker originally from Columbus, GA, now thriving in Seattle, WA. With a master’s degree from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Myah has graced stages in both mainstage and chamber operas. Their journey led them to Seattle as the inaugural Announcing Fellow for Classical KING during the 2022 Seattle Opera Arts Fellowship. Myah’s vibrant presence at Seattle Opera includes several performances with the Seattle Opera Chorus, Opera On Tap, Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab, and the upcoming school tour production of Earth to Kenzie. Alongside their musical life, they host events and present pre-show lectures at the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. They also earned recognition as a District Finalist in the 2022-23 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.

Check out Myah singing Magaret Bonds’s The Negro Speaks of Rivers, one of the pieces on our Oct 12/13 Hold Fast to Dreams program.

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Richard L. Hodges, baritone, October 2024

Richard L. Hodges, is a native of Greensboro, N.C. and made is Metropolitan Opera debut as a Supporting Role/Friend in the revival of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. He first premiered this role with Detroit Opera and most recently in is debut with Seattle Opera. He has also performed other roles such as Lawyer Frazier and Undertaker in Porgy and Bess with the Greensboro Opera Company and the Preacher in Sweet Land with The Industry L.A. Dr. Hodges has also appeared as Michele in Il Tabarro, Hamlet in the opera Hamlet, Frank in Die Fledermaus, Porgy in Porgy and Bess and Peter in Hansel and Gretel, respectively. Richard is a 2019 nominee for Best Lead in a Musical with the Las Vegas Valley Awards for his role in Gianni Schicchi with Vegas City Opera. He was an Emerging Artist in the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices program and has received several awards. Most notable he was a finalist in the American Institute of Musical Studies, Meistersinger Competition. He was also one of the 2018 UNLV Concerto Competition Winners. He has been featured in numerous orchestral and chamber concerts which include performances of various operatic arias and scenes as well as master works. Most recently he performed the role of William Still in the oratorio Sanctuary Road with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Hodges recently was featured at the Jessye Norman School of the Arts Rising Stars concert. Some of his other featured solo and recitalist work have been with Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, Bellingham Chamber Chorale, Western Washington University Symphony Orchestra, Opera Noire, Angels Vocal Arts, The Industry LA, Vegas City Opera, Opera Las Vegas, Henderson Symphony Orchestra, the UNLV String Orchestra, the famed UNLV Wind Orchestras, Greensboro Opera Company, North Carolina Opera Company, and other organizations throughout his career. Dr. Hodges continues to give masterclasses and performs with other local and regional organizations. He is the Artistic Liaison with Vegas City Opera. Some of his recital performances include a Residency in Las Vegas and features such shows as Black Swan Records and Harriet Tubman with Vegas City Opera, of which he Wrote and Directed, along with his Recital of Black Composers sponsored by St. John’s in the Village, NYC. He currently serves as the Director of Voice Studies at Western Washington University.

Learn more about Richard via his website and enjoy his 2021 recital Lovely Dark and Lonely: Music by Black American Composers.

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Youth Speaks Seattle, October 2024

Since 2003, Youth Speaks Seattle has been one of Seattle’s premier collectives for youth spoken word poetry, creating avenues for youth voices through creative writing instruction and performance opportunities. Over the years, Youth Speaks Seattle has conducted residencies and visited classrooms in nearly all of Seattle’s public high schools, hosted a thriving monthly open mic series, transformative all-city writing circles and explosive poetry slam competitions. Our alumni list includes poets Mary Lambert, Hollis Wong-Wear, Troy Osaki, and Travis Thompson. Write with us.

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Serena Chin, Collaborative Pianist, October 2024, March 2025, May 2025

Serena Chin has had the pleasure of collaborating with Choral Arts NW since 2014. She is an active accompanist, vocal coach, and chamber musician in the Seattle area and currently serves as an accompanist for the University of Washington and Ballard High School. She is passionate about working with singers, especially young voices, and has performed with choirs from numerous organizations, including the American Boychoir, Interlochen Arts Camp, and Children’s Choir of Washington (DC) as well as national, regional, and state honor choirs for ACDA, NAfME, and OAKE. Other Seattle collaborations have included Northwest Girlchoir, Seattle University, Mirinesse Women’s Choir, and Opus 7. Serena received her Bachelor of Music in piano from Wheaton College and Master of Music in coaching and accompanying from Westminster Choir College.

Enjoy Serena’s lovely playing via these recordings from the CANW LIVE Music archive:
Renouveau (1911) – Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)

Rehearsal clip – Lauridsen Mid-Winter Songs, Mvt 5

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Sunam Ellis, Narrator, December 2024

Sunam Ellis earned her MFA from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program (PATP) in 2015; she has since worked in local productions with Seattle Rep, ACT, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Village Theater, Book-It Repertory, Seattle Shakespeare, Seattle Public Theatre, Sound Theatre, ArtsWest, and The Seagull Project. Among her favorite local roles are Dorothy in Mrs. Caliban, Margery in Hand to God (Gregory Award winner), and Bala in Sheathed (Gregory Award nominee). In addition to acting, Sunam also teaches theatre at local universities and works as a vocal coach with Jack Straw Cultural Center

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Reena Esmail, Composer-in-Residence, 2023-24

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces.

Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.

Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.

Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.

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Saili Oak, Hindustani Vocalist

A native of Mumbai, Saili Oak began studying music at the age of 3. A finalist on the popular reality TV series “Zee Marathi SaReGaMaPa,” Saili is a senior disciple of Dr. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, a leading vocalist of the Jaipur-Atrauli tradition. Saili won the All India Classical music competition when she was barely 17. She has completed her Sangeet Visharad in Hindustani vocal music and has earned prestigious awards to her credit. Her performances have been admired for her meticulous architecture of the khaya (composition), her systematic and well-crafted raga exploration and impressive command over the laya (rhythm).

Saili is also known for her distinguished work in the Indian/Western Classical music crossover space. She has performed with notable western music ensembles including the Albany Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Tonality, Bridge to Everywhere, and Salastina Music Society. She has been featured on several albums including Beyond, Sing About It, and KALA.

Saili serves as the Programs Director of the non-profit organization, Shastra, where she co-hosts the “Composing with Indian Voice” annual workshop in the U.S. and “Raga Meets Symphony” in India.

A passionate educator, Saili maintains a vocal studio, SailiMusic, where she trains the next generation of upcoming artists, and is a frequent guest speaker and panelist at conferences and universities across America. She has presented her work at the Composition in Asia Conference at the University of South Florida, taught master classes at the Salem State University, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, Kaufmann Music Center in New York, and University of Texas at Austin.

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Ravi Albright, Tabla

Ravi Albright is a professional tabla player and the Executive Director of Seattle Tabla Institute, a 501c3 non-profit organization, offering ongoing classes, workshops and musical events throughout the year in Seattle, WA. Ravi has also formerly served as Adjunct Professorship of Tabla at Lewis & Clark college in Portland, OR.

Born in Seattle, Ravi  has been a student of North Indian classical tabla drumming in both India and the U.S. since his youth. He is one of only a few ganda-banda ( formally recognized ) disciples of Pandit Anindo Chatterjee of Kolkata, India. 

In 2006 he was initiated into the Farukhabad Gharana, one of India’s traditional schools of tabla playing. His status was consecrated at a formal ceremony call a “puja”, in which the guru (revered instructor) ties a thread around the wrist of the shishya (student) to signify the bond between them and the commitment of the shishya to the art form. Ravi has dedicated his life to Tabla and will be a torch barer of this important school in the years to come.

In his youth, he also studied with the talented Debopriyo Sarkar, a very advanced student of Pt. Chatterjee in San Rafael, CA. Ravi is now a professional tabla player based in the Seattle area. He performs regularly in the Seattle area for classical Hindustani, Western classical, and fusion ensembles.

Ravi has studied accompaniment from and performed with many accomplished musicians such as Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ut. Shahid Parvez Khan, Pt. Tejendra Majumdar, Pt. Nayan Ghosh, Pt. Sugato Nag, Pt. Kushal Das, G.S. Sachdev, Deepak Ram, and many others. He has performed in the Seattle area, and throughout the United States and Canada.

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Hyo-Won Woo, Composer-in-Residence, 2022-23

One of Korea’s most prominent composers, Hyo-won Woo, has emerged as a formidable voice in choral society. Eloquent blends of traditional Korean musical elements and Western musical techniques and a unique way of using language-nuance characterize her groundbreaking works. She often uses Latin text besides Korean or English languages, sublimating the meaning of words into an artistic universe with playful spatial music.

Ms. Woo has been composer-in-residence with the Seoul Ladies’ Singers since 1996 and with the Incheon City Chorale, led by the world-renowned Hak-won Yoon, from 1999-2014. For over twenty years, the collaboration between Ms. Woo and Mr. Yoon has forged a new path for choral music in Korea.

Ms. Woo’s works are highly sought after worldwide and have been critically acclaimed at the 2009 ACDA National Conference, Polyfolia in France, and the IFCM choral symposium. Ms. Woo previously taught at the Seoul Theological Seminary and Hansei University and was a visiting fellow at the University of Michigan. She is currently faculty at the Chorus Center Academy in Seoul.

As a prolific composer, she produced a significant output, ranging from hymn & spiritual arrangements, solo songs, cantatas, requiem, polyphonic motets, and chamber music to monumental choral symphonic works that were commissioned by the Korean Ministry of Culture and premiered by the Korean National Chorus. Some of her works are published by Walton Inc. in the United States and the Seoul Chorus Center in South Korea. A large number of her works are in the process of being published in the States.

With her artistic partner, Dr. MeeAe Nam, Woo has recently co-founded the Ari project to birth a new choral performance platform introducing the history, spirit, and culture of South Korea. Woo is currently undertaking a groundbreaking new chorus genre, “Choral Drama,” under the Ari project, which will be world premiered in the States in 2023.

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