Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Russian masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 16 operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, Ms. Yankovskaya has led the Chicago premieres of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Rachmaninov’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride. Her daring performances before and amid the pandemic earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which praised her as “the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it,” while naming her 2020 Chicagoan of the Year.

Karen Quisenberry joined Minnesota Opera as Production Director in August 2013. Prior to coming to Minnesota she served as the Production Director and Director of New Work at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the Director of Level21 (the BFA and MFA division of Design, Technology, and Management) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. While at Krannert Center she oversaw the creation of new works by Mikel Rouse, Bebe Miller, Ralph Lemon, The Builders Association, and Karole Armitage, among others, while developing educational interactions for students in the fields of theatre, opera, dance, and performance art. Before making the move to Illinois, Karen taught stage management at the Yale School of Drama and was the Production Stage Manager at the Yale Repertory Theatre, having moved there from her initial artistic home of Seattle, Washington.