Guest Artists

Tonia D’Amelio

Called “extravagantly charismatic” by the San Francisco Chronicle and praised by Fanfare Magazine for her “rapt vulnerability”, soprano Tonia D’Amelio has sung with opera companies, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and vocal consorts across the U.S. and abroad.

A versatile singer with a repertoire spanning five centuries, Tonia has participated in several opera and concert premieres. She created the role of Celia Brooke in Allen Shearer’s Middlemarch in Spring for both the world premiere in San Francisco and the revival with Charlottesville Opera, and sang in the first performance of Ryan Brown’s oratorio Mortal Lessons at the 10th annual Switchboard Music Festival. Tonia also sang featured roles in the modern stage premieres of Rameau’s The Temple of Glory (1745) with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Pallavicino’s The Amazons (1679) with Ars Minerva.

Other favorite credits include Drusilla in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea with West Edge Opera, cantata recitals with Los Angeles Baroque Players, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and liturgical performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Mozart’s Requiem, and J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, as well as guest artist stints at the William Byrd Festival in Portland, Oregon, and the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy in Wiltshire, U.K.

Nikolas Nackley

In demand on the concert and operatic stage throughout West Coast and beyond, Nikolas Nackley has been heralded by the San Francisco Chronicle as “sonorous and heroic” and praised by the Boston Globe for his his ability to “continually impress with his beautiful voice and acting.” Recent credits include the title role in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, the Badger and Parson in The Cunning Little Vixen and Palante in Agrippina. He has been a featured artist with orchestras and opera companies including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Lyric Opera, and West Edge Opera, working with such conductors as Sir Roger Norrington, Harry Christophers, Pablo Heras Casado, Craig Smith, Gustavo Dudamel, John Harbison and Joana Carneiro in works ranging from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries.

Equally regarded for his work in academia and as a vocal clinician, Nikolas is on the faculty at the School of Music at San Francisco State University where he directs the chamber singers, teaches lyric diction, vocal pedagogy and opera workshop. Recently he directed Die Fledermaus at San Francisco State University, conducted the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus in Fauré’s Requiem and Vivaldi’s Gloria at Hertz Hall. He will direct Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera at SF State in Spring 2018. Nikolas is also on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he is director of the vocal studies program as well as director of the University Chorus.