OUR FACULTY

MATTHIAS KUNTZSCH
Maestro Matthias Kuntzsch was born in Karlsruhe, Germany and attended the Conservatory of Music in Hannover, where he studied piano with the famous Mozart pianist Karl Engel.  In the summers Kuntzsch continued his studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in Switzerland, attending courses of Lovro von Matacic, Hermann Scherchen, Herbert von Karajan and Pablo Casals.  His first professional position was as Assistant Conductor at the Staatstheater of Braunschweig. He also appeared in the summers at the Bayreuth Festival as Musical Assistant to Wolfgang and Wieland Wagner.  Next he was engaged as Principle Conductor at the Theater in Bonn and at the Mannheim National Theater, followed by the Hamburg State Opera and the Nationaltheater, Munich, where he assumed the position of Staatskapellmeister.  Maestro Kuntzsch then became the General Music Director and Conductor of the Opera and Symphony Orchestra in Lübeck.

In these years Kuntzsch was named Professor of Conducting at the Conservatory of Music, Hamburg.  He also had not lost track of the Nationaltheater in Munich which continued to recruit Matthias for many opera productions, alternating performances with Karl Böhm, Carlos Kleiber, Rafael Kubelik and Wolfgang Sawallisch.  His next position was General Music Director and Conductor of the State Theater of the Saarland in Saarbrücken.  He resided there with his family for over twelve years.  During this period Maestro Kuntzsch conducted over 100 concerts and accompanied many famous soloists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Ruggiero Ricci, Radu Lupu, Eugene List, Stephen Hough, Andre Watts, Sylvia Anderson, Evelyn Lear, Thomas Stewart, Birgit Nilsson and Placido Domingo.  In the Saarland years Matthias Kuntzsch conducted Wagner's entire "Ring" cycle, with many famous Bayreuth singers, Verdi's operas, all of Mozart operas, and most of the operas of Richard Strauss and Puccini.  He was a pioneer for composers such as Christof Penderecki, Carl Orff, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Günter Bialas, and Gyorgi Ligeti.  In the many years at the Saarländisches Staatstheater, Kuntzsch conducted over 75 operas as well as many guest engagements outside of Germany. 
Of the many orchestras that Maestro Kuntzsch conducted the following are of primary importance:  Brussels Philharmonic, Nouvel Philharmonic Paris, RAI Milano, Napoli Symphony, Orchestra of La Fenice, Venice, Bologna Symphony, NHK Tokyo, Hamburg Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Symphonie Orchester, Essen Symphony, Bochum Symphony, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Staatsorchester Braunschweig, Staatsorchester Hannover, Stuttgarter Philharmonie, Vancouver Opera, Sadlers Wells, London, Teatro del Liceo, Barcelona, Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, Bruxelles, Amsterdam Stichting, San Carlo, Napoli, Teatro Verdi, Trieste, Rome Opera, Rio de Janeiro, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt Symphonies.  In the U.S. Maestro Kuntzsch has conducted the Colorado Symphony, Utah Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Boulder Philharmonic.  He has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, San Diego, Opera Colorado, Portland Opera, Columbus Opera, Utah Opera, Sacramento Opera, San Juan Opera, and many others.  Kuntzsch was Music Director and Conductor of the Basque National Orchestra in San Sebastian, Spain, for six years and performed regularly also in Madrid, Bilbao and Pamplona.
From 1992 to 2014 Maestro Kuntzsch was Music Director and Conductor of the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI), a training ground for young singers preparing for a career in opera.

TIMOTHY BACH
Timothy Bach is founder and director of the Collaborative Piano Program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has appeared in performances in the United States, Europe and Asia with artists such as mezzo-soprano Elena Obratsova, soprano Jane Marsh, tenor David Gordon, violinists Chee Yun and Jennifer Koh and cellists Hai-Ye Ni and Wendy Warner. He has recorded on the Crystal and Cantabile labels and has been broadcast on National Public Radio. He has also been official keyboardist at the Carmel Bach Festival, Music Academy of the West, Banff Festival of the Arts, I.M. Klein International String Competition and the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Cello Seminars. He is a founder of California Summer Music. In addition, he has assisted many artists in master classes including Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Zara Nelsova, Janos Starker, Hans Hotter, Peter Pears, Martial Singher, Gerard Souzay and Thomas Hampson. Bach completed a D.M.A. with highest honors at the University of Southern California, after studies with Gwendolyn Koldofsky, Brooks Smith and Adolf Baller. He also has served as acting dean of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

MILENA GEORGIEVA BACH
Milena Georgieva Bach is founder and artistic director of Bach-Millennium Music.  Miss Georgieva made her operatic debut in Europe and performed roles in Aida, La Boheme, Tosca, Il Trovatore, Tannhäuser and others in France, Italy, Germany and Bulgaria.  Miss Georgieva is a regular soloist in the San Francisco Bay Area, performing opera and oratorio repertoire.  Performances include roles in Der Freischutz, Der Rosenkavalier, Il Trovatore, Suor Angelica, Il Tabarro and others.  Concert work includes Messa da Requiem by Verdi, Te Deum by Dvořák, 9th Symphony by Beethoven, War Requiem by Britten, Lobgesang by Mendelssohn and solo recitals.  Milena Georgieva Bach holds Master’s and Professional Studies diplomas from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Bachelor’s diploma from the State Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Miss Georgieva is founder of Association Opera Sofia, a performing non-profit organization in Bulgaria and has previously worked as program director for BASOTI, a San Francisco non-profit.  Milena Georgieva Bach is an active teacher and adjudicator.  

ALEXANDER KATSMAN
Alexander Katsman is the Artistic and Music Director for Livermore Valley Opera.  Alumni of the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Mr. Katsman received his M.M. from St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory and his B.M. cum laude from Mussorgsky College of Music in St. Petersburg, Russia. Since his arrival in the United States, Alexander has been sought after as a conductor and collaborative pianist. He conducted for Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Martinez Opera, Bayshore Lyric Opera, Berkeley West Edge Opera, Oakland Lyric Opera, Solo Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Opera Academy of California, Peninsula Teen Opera, Diablo Light Opera, Town Hall Theater, and also at CalState University East Bay and Diablo Valley College.  Recently Alexander was rehearsal conductor for Castleton Festival’s Berkeley performances of Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia. He was also Artistic Director for the Alexander Vocal Series, premier vocal recital series in Piedmont, California.
His conducting credits include over 60 opera, operetta, and musical theater productions, including Orfeo et Euridice, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, The Magic Flute, The Impresario, The Apothecary, La Cenerentola, L’italiana in Algeri, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Un Ballo in maschera, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, La bohème, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, Andrea Chénier, Pagliacci, Cavaleria Rusticana, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Fledermaus, Faust, Romeo et Juliette, La Juive, Carmen, Manon, The Bartered Bride, The Merry Widow, Mikado, Trouble in Tahiti, Kismet, Sweeney Todd, The Student Prince, Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Carousel, and The Most Happy Fella.
Mr. Katsman serves on conducting faculties of Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute and Opera Academy of California. He is also on the coaching staff at the San Francisco Conservatory.

JANE RANDOLPH
Jane Randolph’s 25 years of experience teaching voice to students has led her across North America, from L’Atelier de L’Opéra de Montréal and L’Université de Montréal to establishing private studios in San Diego, San Francisco and New York. Her students have sung in major national and international opera companies and have been winners of countless prestigious competitions, such as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the San Francisco Opera Auditions and the Operalia-Domingo Competition.
After completing her studies at the University of California–Santa Barbara, the University of California–Los Angeles and the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany, Ms. Randolph spent four seasons as a coloratura soprano at the Staatstheater in Luzern, Switzerland. She subsequently enjoyed an extensive career in opera, recital and oratorio in the United States, Europe and Australia. Ms. Randolph is renowned for her commitment to her students as well as her passion for the art of singing.

CATHERINE COOK
Catherine Cook, mezzo soprano, has excelled in a wide range of roles with leading opera companies throughout the United States. A former Merola participant and Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera, she has performed more than 50 roles in over 300 performances with San Francisco opera over a span of 25 years. A National Winner of the Metropolitan Opera competition, Ms. Cook has also performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Santa Fe opera. A Champion of new music, Catherine has sung in World premieres by Tobias Picker (Dolores Claiborne), Jake Heggie (Dead Man Walking), Tom Cipullo (After Life and The Parting), and Stewart Wallace (Bonesetter’s Daughter). Her discography includes Dead Man Walking/Erato, Beethoven Ninth Symphony/Centaur, After Life/Naxos, and The Parting/Naxos. Ms. Cook received a BM from Millikin University, an MM from Wichita State University, and an Artist Diploma in Opera from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. As an educator, Catherine has been on the Voice Faculty at SFCM since 2006, where she currently holds the Frederica von Stade Distinguished Chair in Voice.  Her students have been invited to participate in the Young Artist Programs at Santa Fe Opera, Des Moines Opera, Central City Opera, Portland Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Arizona Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and Teatro Nuovo. Ms. Cook is a frequent guest master class teacher,  adjudicator, and gives workshops on audition technique. Catherine lives in Daly City with her husband and two children. 

MOLLY FILLMORE
Molly Fillmore made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Helmwige in Die Walküre, conducted by James Levine, which won a Grammy award for Best Opera Recording. During her seven seasons at the Met, she also appeared as Mrs. Naidoo in Satyagraha by Philip Glass; both of these productions were broadcast worldwide in movie theaters and on PBS television. Fillmore made her solo operatic debut with the Washington National Opera while a sophomore at American University and was named a principal mezzo-soprano soloist with Oper der Stadt Köln (Cologne Opera) upon completion of her MM degree from the University of Maryland. Ms. Fillmore sang the title role of Salome with San Francisco Opera, and recently sang Marietta in Die tote Stadt with Theater St. Gallen. Other operatic roles performed include Tosca, Orfeo, Carmen, Cherubino, Dorabella, and Hänsel. As a concert soloist she has sung with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, Spoleto Festival, and Tanglewood Festival. She recently made her professional directorial debut in a production of Carmen in which she also had a role debut as Micaela. Ms. Fillmore is a Chair of the Division of Vocal Studies and Professor of Voice at the University of North Texas College of Music. 

SYLVIA ANDERSON
Sylvia Anderson was born in Denver, Colorado, and received her Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music.  She won a Fulbright Stipend for post graduate study at the Cologne, Germany, Conservatory and over the next years was honored for her singing on three continents with a Doctor of Musical Arts in 1973.
Miss Anderson spent 30 years singing in the major houses of Europe, South America and the US, including 26 roles with the San Francisco Opera, the Portland Opera, San Diego Opera, Columbus Opera and the New York City Opera.  In her years abroad Miss Anderson was engaged at many opera houses such as the Frankfurt Opera, the Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart operas, the Saarbrücken, Düsseldorf and Cologne Operas, Teatro Liceo, Barcelona, Teatro Verdi, Trieste, Reggio Emilia, Ravenna, the Rome Opera, Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, Bruxelles, Amsterdam Opera Stichting, Opera Toulouse, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Teatro Rio de Janeiro and many others.
​Miss Anderson performed major roles with the Athens Festival of Greek Tragedy, the Salzburg Festival and the Bayreuth Festival.  Her most memorable roles include “Carmen,” “Octavian,” “Dorabella,” the “Countess” in Le Nozze di Figaro, “Fiordiligi,” in Cosi fan tutti, “Tosca,” “The Marshallin” in Der Rosenkavalier, “Venus” and “Elisabeth” in Tannhäuser, “Elsa,” in Lohengrin, “Kundry,” in Parsifal, and “Lady Macbeth of Msensk.”
She joined the full-time faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1990 and opened the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute in 1992.  Her students have won major competitions, such as the Metropolitan Opera auditions, and have been accepted into prestigious young artist programs such as the Florida Grand Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Merola Program of the San Francisco Opera, and opera companies such as the Paris Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, Opera Lyon, the Karlsruhe Opera, the Baltimore Opera, the Bolshoi Opera, the Metropolitan and many others.

PATRICIA CRAIG
Renowned American operatic soprano Patricia Craig made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1978 as Marenka in The Bartered Bride, and has performed leading roles in Madame Butterfly, Dialogues of the Carmelites, La bohème and Mahagonny. Her performing career spans over three decades of major roles in the world's leading opera houses, specializing in Puccini and Verdi heroines. Credits include performances with the New York City Opera; Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy; the Festival of Two Worlds in both Spoleto, Italy, and Charleston, South Carolina; L'Opera de Marseilles; Frankfurt Opera, Frankfurt, Germany; and the companies of Cincinnati, Miami, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. A faculty member of the New England Conservatory from 1990 to 2009, Craig also teaches at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, the Chautauqua Institution and the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute. She received a B.S. from Ithaca College, pursued postgraduate studies in opera at the Manhattan School of Music, and gained her first critical vocal acclaim as a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

MARCIE STAPP
Marcie Stapp, Professor of Lyric Diction at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, is the author of The Singer’s Guide to Languages, a well-known vocal coach, accompanist and translator whose operatic translations are performed by leading music schools and professional companies across the country. She taught English and French at the Mangold Institute in Madrid, served as conductor/coach for the Academy of Vocal Arts, the Curtis Institute of Music, Indiana University, the Mozart Opera Studies Institute in Austria, Japan’s Osaka College of Music and Sakai City Opera, the Gernot-Heindl Opera Studio of Munich, San Francisco Opera Center and Hawaii Opera Theatre, among others. Stapp has accompanied the master classes of Margaret Harshaw, Renato Capecchi, Max Rudolf, Jess Thomas and Gerhard Hüsch and has appeared in recitals with members of the Metropolitan, San Francisco and New York City opera companies. The Metropolitan Opera’s renowned diction coach Nico Castel selected her as the editor of his popular Opera Libretti Series, and the two collaborate annually on the Castel-Stapp Master Classes in San Francisco.

PIANISTS

HAO WU 
Hao Wu is Associate Professor of Accompanying at Shenyang Conservatory of Music and a guest graduate instructor at Shandong Normal University in China. After finishing his Professional Studies Diploma in Collaborative Piano under the guidance of professor Timothy Bach, he started to serve as a staff pianist at San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2018.
During his 17-year career, Mr. Wu has directed, conducted and played more than 200 concerts and recitals throughout China and the San Francisco Bay Area. As an accompanist and vocal coach, he has worked with such world-class singers as Yijie Shi, Ao Li, Ying Huang, Xiuying Li and Chuanyue Wang. He also served as visiting coach for the China National Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
Mr. Wu received his Bachelor Degree in Piano from Shandong Normal University and a Master Degree in Accompaniment in Shenyang Conservatory of Music. Following that he was sent by the Chinese Government to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory for further study on full scholarship and came back with distinguished honors. During his time in Russia, he studied Piano Accompanying and minored in Chamber Music under the guidance of professor Irina Sharapova.
Mr. Wu's recent performances include recitals with bass-baritone Ao Li, the First Place winner of 2013 Domingo Operalia, at the Radio and Concert Hall of Flagey and the University of Leuven in Belgium.  Mr. Wu also was the 2017 Kristin Panconin Award winner at the San Francisco Conservatory.

SHUYI XIE
Shuyi Xie holds her Masters and Professional Studies Certificate in Collaborative Piano under the guidance of Dr. Timothy Bach from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She also served as a collaborative pianist in the Pre-College and Continuing Education of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 2020-2022.  

In 2022, Shuyi Xie was admitted to the Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in collaborative piano at the University of Texas at Austin, where she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant of Dr. Colette Valentine.

YEO-JIN SEOL
Pianist and Accompanist, Yeo-Jin Seol is native of Seoul, Korea. She received her doctorate in Collaborative Piano from Arizon State University. She holds additional performance degrees from San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Han- Yang University in Seoul, Korea.  Upon completion of her studies, she was a teaching assistant in Collaborative Piano at Arizona State University, also received Honors Outstanding Achievement in Collaborative piano at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Dr. Seol has worked with the numerous music festivals as a staff accompanist, including Aspen Music Festival and Schools, Viandn Festival, Songfest. She currently serves as a staff accompanist and performer at lyric Opera Theater at Arizona State University, Arizona School for the Arts and Fountain Hill Chamber Players and Bach-Millennium Music.

GUEST PRESENTER

KIP CRANNA
Clifford (Kip) Cranna, Dramaturg at San Francisco Opera, has served on the staff since 1979 and was Director of Music Administration for over thirty years. In 2008 he was awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal, the company’s highest honor, and in 2012 he received the Bernard Osher Cultural Award for distinguished efforts to bring excellence to a cultural institution. In 2014 he received the Star of Excellence Award for outstanding service to the programs of the San Francisco Opera Guild.  He holds a B.A. in music from the University of North Dakota and a Ph.D. in musicology from Stanford University. For thirty years he was Program Editor and Lecturer for the Carmel Bach Festival. He lectures and writes frequently on music, teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Fromm Institute at USF, and moderates the SF Opera Guild “Insight” panel discussions. He was Dramaturg for the 2016 production of Wagner’s “Ring” at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.