Roy Stevens, General Director
Roy Stevens, a native of Modesto, has been an international opera singer since 1987. His career includes leading performance in theaters and with symphony orchestras in 20+ countries, on 5 continents and in 14 languages; from the national theaters of Albania and Guatemala to Milano’s famed Teatro Alla Scala. As Producer, Organizer and Casting Director, he has led leading international operatic productions in Albania, Panama and Nepal, as well as organizing other major events locally and regionally. Roy looks forward to continuing to fulfill Buck Townsend’s dream of professional opera in Modesto and the Central Valley.
Annalisa Winberg, Artistic Director
Annalisa Winberg is a Modesto-based international opera singer who has performed with orchestras and opera theatres around the world, including the Dallas Opera, Boston Opera Theatre, German National Theatre of Weimar, New Israeli Opera, Kamptal Festpiele, Tirole Festspiele, National Theatre of Guatemala, New York Opera Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and many others. Annalisa made her debut as opera Stage Director with Opera Modesto’s 2018 production of Madama Butterfly and she looks forward to collaborating with Roy Stevens to develop future programming, collaborations and educational training opportunities for regional youth.
Ryan Murray, Music Director
Ryan Murray’s dynamic conducting, natural musicality and deeply held passion for the arts have allowed him to steadily build a robust career since his professional debut at the age of 22. Ryan Murray is the Music Director of Opera Modesto. He is also the Artistic Director and Conductor of Music in the Mountains and the Principal Pops Conductor for the Modesto Symphony Orchestra. Ryan previously served as Music Director for Fresno Grand Opera and as a staff conductor for the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI) and The Opera Academy of California in San Francisco. Ryan is also the director of Orchestra and Opera at CSU, Sacramento and conducts the orchestra at CSU Stanislaus. Ryan was the winner of the 2016/17 American Prize in Opera Conducting for his highly lauded production of A Streetcar Named Desire He was a 2016 semi-finalist for the American Prize: Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music for his production of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.Ryan is also a past winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s prestigious Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors. Ryan attended the 2017 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music’s Conductors Workshop as a Conducting Associate, and was one of just eight conductors worldwide to be invited to the Time of Music Summer Festival Masterclass in Finland led by Musical America’s 2017 Conductor of the Year & Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki. He also attended a contemporary music symposium led by Alan Gilbert featuring the New York Philharmonic.
Caleb Yanez Glickman, Associate Conductor
Praised for his “superb” leadership of the orchestra, Caleb Yanez Glickman is a conductor and coach based in Los Angeles. With Opera Modesto this season, he worked at the Summer Opera Institute before conducting the world premiere of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant in January, and assisted Music Director Ryan Murray on Tosca this spring. Caleb is also the music director of the Harmony Project’s Hollywood Youth Orchestra, an El-Sistema style orchestra program. He is also a frequent conductor for Pacific Opera Project. This season he was the music director of POP’s productions of Scalia/Ginsburg, Trial by Jury and Die Fledermaus. Last year he was the music director of the award-winning production of POP’s The Pirates of Penzance. He has additionally worked on music staff with Opera Southwest, Opera in the Ozarks, Savannah Opera, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and Opera Saratoga. In addition to being an accomplished singer and pianist, Caleb is also a violinist and flutist. He is a zealous advocate of both new music and new approaches to bringing music to communities. In addition to his work with the Story Into Song Initiative, he is the music director of a first ever double bill entitled Transport, of Jake Heggie’s Another Sunrise and Handel’s Judas Maccabeus with The Why Collective which will be receiving its premiere this December in New York.
