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Faculty Artists
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 Val Underwood is distinctive for his equal skill in the vocal arts and as a pianist. A renowned vocal instructor, he maintains a busy teaching and Master class schedule traveling between New York, London and California. His students continually take top honors in major vocal competitions and can be heard in opera houses worldwide.
Also an accomplished pianist and chamber musician, he has collaborated with principal members of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and with such artists as Ofra Harnoy, Glen Dicterow, Mitchell Lurie, Yehuda Gilad, Jeannine Altmeyer, Eudice Shapiro, Eduardo Delgado, Jennifer McGregor and Juliana Gondek.
He was executive director of the highly acclaimed Strawberry Creek Music Festival in Malibu for several years, where he also headed the Festival's vocal program. He has been artistic director of the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival since it’s inception in 2005.
He was a full four-year scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied piano with Dora Zaslavsky. He continued piano studies in Argentina with Arminda Canteros. He studied voice with William Horner, Ernest St. John (Jack) Metz, for seven years with the legendary French baritone Martial Singher and served as accompanist in the studios of some of the great singers of our time, including Rose Bampton, Martial Singher, George London and Lotte Lehman.
He recorded the classical piano music for and appeared in the Exxon/Mobil Masterpiece Theatre production of Willa Cather's "Song of the Lark" on PBS and recently recorded the songs of Ricky Ian Gordon with soprano Jennifer McGregor.
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James Darrah is a stage director, production designer and visual artist/performer committed to new cross-collaborative projects and stories that merge the mediums of opera, theater, and film with innovative design.
He is the recipient of a national 2009 Princess Grace Award in Theater with work that includes Mozart, Purcell, Handel, Menotti, Brecht/Weill and Verdi, the musical theater of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown and the plays of Euripides, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Calderón, Genet, Orton and Churchill. He trained with the Croatian National Theater and the Split Summer Festival Opera, is an MFA candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles (2010) and most recently completed work with director Stephen Wadsworth (Handel's Ariodante) at The Juilliard School.
Upcoming projects include a new production of Poulenc’s La voix humaine in Los Angeles, co-production design for Cavalli‘s Giasone with Opera UCLA, Peter Brook's Bizet adaptation La tragédie de Carmen in Hawaii, and the U.S. West Coast premiere of Jonathan Dove’s highly acclaimed Flight at the UCLA Freud Playhouse.
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Juliana Gondek has performed with over 120 orchestras and opera companies throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, in collaboration with such legendary musicians as Aaron Copland, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Kleiber, James Levine, and Yehudi Menuhin.
Hailed internationally as a leading interpreter of Baroque, Mozart, Italian bel canto, and contemporary music, she has sung such leading roles as Mimi, Micaela, Hoffmann’s four heroines, Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, Mozart’s Vitellia, Countess, Donna Elvira, Pamina, Aspasia, and Fiordiligi, and a dozen Handel roles at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Scottish Opera, Netherlands Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, and the opera companies of Dallas, St. Louis, Miami, Baltimore, San Diego, Hawaii, Utah, and the Kennedy Center.
Engagements at the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals, the Göttingen and Halle Handel Festivals, Japans' Pacific Music Festival, Antibe’s Bel Canto Festival, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Avignon, Aldeburgh, Marlboro, Caramoor, Bard, Newport, Bowdoin, and Santa Fe Music Festivals have made her an audience favorite worldwide.
Gondek is a frequent soloist with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the Netherlands Radio Symphony and has recorded more than 20 commercial CDs – 5 winning international prizes - for such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Teldec, Naxos, and Channel Classics. She has sung dozens of premieres of roles written for her by some of the world’s most celebrated composers.
Formerly a professional violinist, Ms. Gondek gained the international spotlight by winning the “Prix Patek Philippe” and back-to-back Gold Medals in the Geneva International Singing Competition and the Barcelona “Francisco Vinas” International Opera Competition. She chairs the Division of Voice Studies at UCLA, and maintains an active private studio in Los Angeles. She frequently judges national and international competitions, teaches master classes at top music schools and conservatories worldwide, and serves as Visiting Artist at international conservatories and training programs in the U.S., Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. www.julianagondek.org.
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 The concertmaster of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra since 1997, Ignace Jang has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Mr. Jang has appeared for the Hawai’i Public Radio, the Kauai Concert Association, the Hawai’i Concert Society, the Maui Symphony, Ebb & Flow Arts and Chamber Music Hawaii. Jang is currently a faculty member at the University of Hawai’i, the Brigham Young-Hawaii University and teaches chamber music at the Punahou School and the Hawaii Youth Symphony.
Mr. Jang was a grand prize winner at the 1989 Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition, held in Italy, where he was also the recipient of the Jury’s Special Prize for outstanding musical personality. Jang also won prizes at the Lion’s Club of France Violin Competition and the Eastern Music Festival. He received the early part of his training from Professor Flora Elphege, before entering the class of Gerard Poulet at the Paris Conservatory. In 1985, he obtained the Premier Prix as the youngest laureate of that year. Various grants from the Franco-American Commission and the French Ministry of Culture allowed him to further his studies under the tutelage of Franco Gulli at Indiana University.
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 Conductor and Pianist Ming Luke is the Director and Conductor for the Berkeley Symphony's education programs, the Chorus Master for the Sacramento Opera, Music Director of the Modesto Symphony Youth Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Modesto Symphony, and the General Director of the Napa Valley Youth Symphony.
Prior to his appointments in Northern California, he was a staff conductor for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and helped prepare the choir for such conductors as Charles Dutoit, André Previn, Mariss Jansons, Michael Stern and Lucas Richman.
Recognized nationally for his work in music education, Luke has been involved with numerous youth ensembles during his career and was President of the largest collegiate chapter of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC). He has experience with the major music education systems and methods including: Orff, Gordon, Dalcroze, Kodály and Suzuki. He has served as a panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA).
Ming Luke holds a Master of Fine Arts in Conducting from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Piano Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Luke studied at the Pierre Monteux School and has served on the Grants and Cultural Committee of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission.
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 Soprano Jennifer McGregor began her professional career in her native Sydney, performing leading roles in music theater. Upon hearing her, Richard Bonynge invited her to join Opera Australia as one of his proteges. Her first role with the company was Fe-a-nich-ton in Offenbach's Ba-ta-clan. She went on to sing Ophelia with Sherril Milnes, Adele in Die Fledermaus with Dame Joan Sutherland, Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflote, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Xenia in Boris Gudonov, Musetta in La Boheme, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, (the first soprano to appear in that role following Dame Joan Sutherland), Rosina in Barber of Seville, Manon in Massenet's Manon, Blondchen in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, Oscar in Ballo in Maschera, Marie in La Fille du Regiment, Norina in Don Pasquale, Zerlina in Fra Diavolo, Juliette in Romeo and Juliette, and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Invited to Heidelberg as principal guest soprano, she added to her performance repertoire leading roles in Lulu, Die Schweigsame Frau, Rigoletto and Julius Caesar. Returning to Australia, she sang the Australian premier of the three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu, Leila in Les Pecheurs de Perles, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Lakme in Lakme, Violetta in La Traviata, the four heroines in Les Contes D'Hoffmann and Cleopatra in Julius Caesar. In the 2002-2003 season she sang her first Nedda in Pagliacci and in 2003-2004 sang the title role in Die Lustige Witwe and was invited to sing on the golden wedding anniversary gala for Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge.
In addition to her numerous performances with Richard Bonynge, she has appeared with such conductors as Edo de Waart and Sir Charles Mackerras and Simone Young. Her concert repertoire includes: Beethoven 9th Symphony, Mahler 4th Symphony, Bach B Miinor Mass, Gorezki 3rd Symphony, Verdi Requiem, Poulenc Gloria, Mozart Exultate Jubilate, Orff Carmina Burana, Villa Lobos Bachianas Braziliaras No. 5, Ravel Scherherazade and numerous others. She recently recorded a CD of the songs of Ricky Ian Gordon with pianist Val Underwood. She lives in London. 2010 will be her sixth season with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.
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 Franis Engel has applied Alexander Technique to many genres for freeing learning speed and undoing accidentally learned habits of movement. These have found expression in her many skills of being a fine artist and billboard sign painter, juggling teacher, public speaker, curing height and stage fright, as well as increasing driving and sitting stamina, eliminating sciatic pain, and improving speech patterns.
Applied to a love of singing, Alexander Technique revealed for Ms. Engel an unconscious habit of keeping half her throat closed. This unnecessary habit of tension had come from the removal of a congenital protruding gristle on her ear by rubber banding it when she was an infant. With this issue, tensing neck muscles throughout childhood does not have noticeable ill effects until skeletal structure matures. At seventeen, this mystery knee degeneration appeared that surgery did not solve and Engel's doctors were uninformed of the cause. Ms. Engel was attracted to Alexander Technique as a means to study Aikido, during her completion year at CA College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland, CA. But studying Alexander Technique also righted this mysterious chronic limp and hip problem.
In 1978, Engel joined the first certified teacher training program group of Frank Ottiwell and Giora Pincas in San Francisco. Halfway through the three year course, founder F. M. Alexander's first graduate Marj Barstow offered to teach Engel in exchange for writing about Barstow's original "Activity model" approach to group teaching.
Ever since, Ms. Engel has specialized in simplifying complex Alexander Technique principles in words. She offers demonstration lectures, has been a published author, was a featured student in an hour TV program for NE Edu. TV. She has worked as a reviewer for the profession's Direction Journal, as well as writing for alexandertechnique.com and wikipedia.org. On the subject Ms. Engel keeps a blog, has written handbooks and contributed to more than fifty web articles, as well as being a regular contributor to a google list server group AlexTech.
Currently Engel lives nine months of the year on the Big Island of Hawaii in Waikoloa, teaching private lessons. She returns to West Marin during the fall months to teach students in CA, as well as publish a community phone book and do mural art for a seasonal business as a window sign cartoonist. Ms. Engel has been a faculty member of Hawaii Performing Arts Festival since 2008.
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 Jennifer Hoppe, pianist and vocal coach is an active recitalist and coach based in New York City. Ms Hoppe joined the staff of Seattle Opera in October of 2009 for their Young Artist Production of Cosi Fan Tutte. In the summer of 2009 Ms. Hoppe joined the music staff of the Santa Fe Opera for their production of Don Giovanni and in February of 2008 Ms. Hoppe joined the music staff of Tulsa Opera for their production of Lakme and returned in 2009 for their production of Hansel and Gretel. In the summer of 2008 Ms. Hoppe joined the staff of Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York for their productions of I Capuleti ed i Montecchi and Kiss Me Kate. In the fall of 2008, Ms. Hoppe was the Associate Music Director for the production of Gallantry at New York University and the Music Director for the production of Norma on the Calvary Church Concert Series.
Ms. Hoppe, an adjunct professor at New York University, has also been on staff at the Westchester Summer Vocal Arts Institute, the Intermezzo Young Artist Development Program, The International Vocal Arts Program and at the Mannes College of Music. She has also been a performer on the Tuesday Musical Concert Series in Omaha, Nebraska with soprano Sarah Coburn, the Donnell Library Concert Series and the MOSA Concert Series in NYC, the Tappen Zee Music Festival and the Town and Gown Concert Series in New Jersey. In 2006 and 2007 she was heard on the Joey Reynolds Show, WOR Radio, NY, with Dicapo Opera Theatre.
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Brent McMunn has conducted and assisted on well over 100 productions of 80 different operas since his work in opera began. He made his Lincoln Center conducting debut with Les contes d’Hoffmann for the New York City Opera in 1998. He has since conducted main-stage productions for five seasons at the New York City Opera, has toured as conductor of their National Company, and has served as cover conductor for numerous productions. Other guest conducting engagements include Arizona Opera, Kentucky Opera, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Lake George Opera, New Jersey Opera (Princeton), and Calgary Opera.
McMunn came to opera after an established career as a pianist, known especially for his collaborations with a number of eminent string players, including Lynn Harrell, Cynthia Phelps, and Ronald Copes, now of the Juilliard Quartet, with appearances in the major Southern California venues as well as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Carnegie Hall.
McMunn’s work in opera began in 1989 when he became pianist/assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Opera, assisting on more than thirty operas with that company. Concurrent with his work in New York, he was on the music staff for two seasons at the Dallas Opera, and for six summers at the Santa Fe Opera, where he covered major works including the Strauss operas.
He has continuously enjoyed working with young singers, in the young artist programs of the major companies, and as a coach at the Juilliard School, and a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival. In his current position as Music Director of Opera at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, he and colleague Ken Cazan have built an exciting program, including co-productions with Juilliard and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Wagner’s rarely heard 2nd opera, Das Liebesverbot, as part of Ring Festival, LA.
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 Laurence Paxton, Professor of Voice at the University of Hawai`i since 1985, is a tenor educated at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and a recipient of a performance degree from Indiana University. He has performed more than 30 operatic roles with the companies of Santa Fe Opera, Memphis, Dallas, Fort Worth, St. Louis and Hawaii. His credits also include modern opera world premieres and telecasts and appearances with such symphony orchestras as San Francisco, Dallas, Indianapolis and Honolulu. He has also performed at the Sydney Opera House. Prof. Paxton won the Metropolitan Opera Regional Auditions, was a finalist in the San Francisco Merola Competition, and took first place in the Beethoven Vocal Competition.
Equally at home in musical theatre, he has established himself as an award-winning director whose Diamond Head Theatre shows have included Sunday in the Park with George, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Critics have praised his performances with Grand Hotel at Manoa Valley Theater, West Side Story at the University of Hawaii's Kennedy Theatre, the title role in Sunday in the Park with George and the the lead role of Guido in a specially mounted production of Nine at Diamond Head Theatre.
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Mr. Sacks is a Grammy Nominated composer/producer. He has conducted and written orchestrations for more than fifty symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Denver Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Montreal Philharmonic, National Symphony, New Orleans Symphony, Osaka Symphony in Japan, Pittsburgh Symphony, Rochester Symphony, Toronto Philharmonic and Vancouver Symphony.
He has written the music for such television shows as "Hollywood Squares," NBC's "Caesar's Challenge," "ABC After School Specials," the PBS Specials, "Lamb Chop's Chanukah Surprise" and "Lamb Chop's Special Passover" and the CBS Late Night series, "Personals," on which he appeared daily.
In addition to being the composer, orchestrator and Musical Director for Jimmy Nederlander’s Limited Engagement musical “Lambchop on Broadway” at the Richard Rogers Theatre in New York, Mr. Sacks has served as musical director for productions of numerous musicals including “A Chorus Line,” “AIDA,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Beauty And The Beast” “Fame,” “Fiddler On The Roof,” “Grease.” “Gypsy,” “Man of La Mancha,” “Oklahoma,” “RENT,” “Sony Pictures Broadway,” “The Who’s TOMMY,” and “West Side Story.” In the past eight years he has created, produced and musical directed ten full length theatrical reviews: “One Night Only,” “Magic To Do,” “HairDo ‘N Blue,” “Wintertime In Oz,” “A Rising Star,” “These Are A Few Of My Favorite Songs,” “Cards,” “More Magic To Do,” “More Magic To Do, Two,” and “Tis The Season.”
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