Claïs Lemmens Boon received her degree as a musicologist at University of Leuven and as an arts manager at Berklee College of Music. She has previously been employed at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, the baroque ensemble B.O.X and music magazine Gonzo (circus). She currently works as a general director for development organisation MORPHO in Antwerp and has founded an arts management organisation by the name VILT, focused on young and diverse musicians. She is a member of the funding committees for the Flemish Government and commits her time and expertise in different boards of directors through the culture and arts.

Sabrina Avantario is an Italian pianist, opera vocal coach, Expert in Artistic Vocology also trained as singer, composer and (choir)conductor, currently based in Antwerp (Belgium), with vast experience in Italian repertoire. She has worked in numerous international opera productions and extensively in Lieder recitals (winning several chamber music awards).

Her international experience includes working in Belgium (regularly at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and de Munt/la Monnaie), Greece (Greek National Opera), Switzerland (Luzern and Bern Opera House), Ireland (Wexford Festival Opera), Germany (Staatstheater Kassel), Japan (Otsu and Tokyo Bunkamura Hall), Lebanon (Al Bustan Festival, Beirut), Bahrein and many theatres in Italy (Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Festival dei due mondi of Spoleto, Ferrara Musica, a.o.). Conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Ottavio Dantone, Vladimir and Dmitri Jurowsky, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Alberto Zedda, Alexander Joel; the composer Giancarlo Menotti; directors such as Michael Hampe, Luca Ronconi, Graham Vick, are some of the personalities she has worked with throughout her over thirty years of activity.

Sabrina Avantario worked from 1995 to 2015 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as chief pianist and coach (Responsabile musicale).

She is Studienleiter, i.e. Head and Faculty member of the singing department at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, where she also founded a Vocology Laboratory.

She gives regularly Masterclasses at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and has collaborated with the Royal Conservatory of Wallonia in Liège.

She is since 2023 founder and president of G.I.V.A., the Italian Group of Artistic Vocologists.

Hein Boterberg is Head of Music and repertoire coach at the IOA and works as a visiting vocal coach at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK). He is also an acclaimed accompanist for song recitals.

He studied at the Conservatoire in his birth city of Ghent. At the Royal Scottish Academy and the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama he specialised in singing accompaniment. He was also holder of the Geoffrey Parsons Junior fellowship at the Royal College of Music.

In de Munt | la Monnaie in Brussels, he assisted Antonio Pappano and Renato Balsadonna and worked in productions with singers such as Susan Graham, José van Dam, Jonas Kaufmann and Joseph Calleja. He has also played for conductors such as Kazushi Ono and Alessandro de Marchi. In addition to this, he has worked with singers for the Filharmonie, the Flemish Radio Choir, the Flemish Opera, Covent Garden, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and the Collegium Vocale, Ghent.

In song recitals he has played in Europe, Asia and Australia in venues such as the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room in London, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and many more, for singers such as Sophie Karthäuser, Christian Immler, Malin Christensson, and Jonathan Lemalu. In 2006 he started the recital series Vocal Journey, for which he devised and played concerts with young singers from all over the world.

He was coach and pianist for singing courses in the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Portugal and France. He was official accompanist for vocal masterclasses by Sir Thomas Allen, Robin Bowman, Emma Kirkby, Ann Murray, Loh Siew-Tuan, Graham Johnson and Dame Margaret Price.

Muriel Corradini completed her vocal and musical studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and the New England Conservatory of Boston (USA), where she graduated with a Master in vocal performance in 1989.

Since 1992, she has been much in demand as a language and vocal coach for the French and Italian repertoire. She has worked for l’Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, the Amsterdam and Brussels Opera Houses, as well as the festivals of Glyndebourne and Salzburg.

For the last 25 years, Muriel has been a guest coach in many opera studios, like L’Académie de l’Opéra de Paris, the Young Artist Program of the Royal Opera House in London, the International Opera Academy in Ghent, the Amsterdam Conservatorium, the Young Singers Project of the Salzburg Festival, the Hochschule in Freiburg and the Irish Opera studio in Dublin.

At the same time, Muriel has kept studying vocal technique with Michelle Wegwart. Over the last 10 years, she has developed her activity as a voice teacher in a private studio in Paris.

Dutch conductor and pianist Enrico Delamboye (1977) was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He studied piano with Joop Celis and orchestral conducting with Jan Stulen at the Conservatorium Maastricht (Netherlands).

Enrico Delamboye made his debut as an opera conductor in May, 1999 during the Internationale Maifestspiele at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden with Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.

Between 2000 and 2009 he was engaged as Conductor (1. und 2. Kapellmeister) at the Wiesbaden State Theater, Mainz State Theater, Wuppertal Opera and the Cologne Opera. From 2007-2014 he was professor for orchestral conducting at the Conservatorium Maastricht. From 2009-2019 he has been Chief Conductor of Theater Koblenz. Since 2018 he is First Guest Conductor of the WDR Funkhausorchester (Radio Orchestra Cologne).

Enrico Delamboye was invited as a guest conductor to the Komische Oper/Berlin, Theater Basel, Theater Bonn, Teatro Sao Carlos/Lisbon, Volksoper Wien and the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. He conducted symphonic concerts with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Beethovenhalle-Orchester Bonn, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Südwestfälische Philharmonie, Württembergische Philharmonie (Germany), Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland) Filharmonija Artur Rubinstein Lodz (Poland), Zagrebacka Fiharmonija (Croatia), Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (Thailand), Orchestre National de Montpellier LanguedocRoussillon (France) and Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Phion and Philharmonie Zuidnederland (Netherlands).

His diverse repertoire includes Baroque (Monteverdi), the classic period (Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann) via the romantic core-repertoire (Bellini, Berg, Donizetti, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Verdi) up to contemporary pieces (Simons, Trojahn, Berio, Adams) in symphonic and operatic style.

Sára Gutvill is an Amsterdam-based singer and language coach (German, Hungarian, and Yiddish) for singers. Hungarian by birth, Sára studied German Literature and Linguistics in Vienna, and later classical singing at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Pierre Mak.

Sára works as a lecturer at Amsterdam University College, teaching the course Music and Text, and teaches German for Singers at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and German Language Coaching at the International Opera Academy in Ghent. She also works as a German and Hungarian language coach a.o. at the Nationale Reisopera and the Groot Omroepkoor.

A grant from the Conservatory of Amsterdam for 2024–2025 allows Sára to conduct research into the education of languages at Dutch conservatories.

As a singer, Sára specializes in German Lied and Yiddish art song. Her album “Akh, nit gut!” was published in 2023.

Dr. Elien Hanselaer is an actor, theatre maker and acting tutor in the United Kingdom and Belgium. Having completed her studies at KASK in Belgium and East 15 Acting School in the UK, Hanselaer performed with renowned international companies, including Dash Arts, Odin Teatret, and KVS.

In 2018, she received the esteemed Northern Bridge award, providing funding for her practice-based research on co-performer connection. Hanselaer’s research delves into the intricate dynamics of performers’ connections, exploring avenues for improved connectivity and investigating the transformative potential of a creative ideology that places co-performer connection at the core of the artistic process. Her research also translates to her work as an acting and spatial awareness tutor at Conservatorium Antwerpen and the International Opera Academy.

Currently, Hanselaer spearheads Korte Keten, an ambitious four-year arts project in Belgium that centers on nurturing cultural connections, encouraging artistic collaboration and forging meaningful relationships between artists and communities. For this project, she will direct two participatory productions this season. In addition, she will also be performing with DESCHONECOMPAGNIE in a Falstaff production.

Rachel Harland studied music as an undergraduate at Manchester University. As a postgraduate she trained in Musical Theatre at Central School of Speech & Drama and in Opera at Flanders Opera Studio. She also has an LRSM in vocal teaching.

As a singer she has performed in Belgium, U.K, U.S. and Canada for opera companies including Opera Holland Park, Carl Rosa Opera, Royal Opera La Monnaie and The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.

An experienced solo recital singer in French and English song repertoire, Rachel has given recitals across Belgium and the U.K. and for Theatrical Adventures cruises on the Douro, Rhine, Danube and Nile.

As a teacher, she has led music workshops and coached for Aldeburgh Music, Music in Prisons, Manchester International Festival, Daniel Adamson Preservation Society, Agalin Music Camp in Thailand and Royal Conservatoire of Music in Antwerp.

Rachel is creative director of RHOK Show, directing singing groups, workshops and youth opera boot camps. In addition to teaching at the IOA, she is currently a singing teacher at Liverpool University, and director of youth productions at The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival.

Born in Spain and trained in singing and piano, Mireia Pintó studied in Spain and later completed her vocal studies in France and Italy. She was rewarded with the most important prizes in several singing competitions in Spain and in Italy. Her wide repertoire, ranging from baroque to contemporary music, includes the genres opera, oratorio and Lied. She has taken part in several opera performances, music festivals and concert cycles in Italy, Russia, Holland, Germany, Greece, France, Andorra, Monaco, Japan, Czech Republic, Colombia and Spain. She has worked with conductors such as L. Maazel, G. Dudamel, P. Maag, R. Bonynge, H. Rilling, P. Goodwin, E. Ericson, A. Zedda, J.C. Malgoire, O. Dantone, M. Armiliato, R. Frizza, M. Benini and many others.

Since 1992 she performs as a duo with pianist Vladislav Bronevetzky, carrying out a substantial performing activity which has brought them to several countries.

Mireia is Professor of Singing at the ESMuC (High Music School of Catalonia-Spain), Vocal Advisor at the IOA in Ghent and in many masterclasses in several countries (Japan, Colombia, Portugal, Denmark…). She is the founder and artistic director of the International Music Festival in St. Fruitós de Bages-Spain, which has already celebrated 30 editions. She has been awarded by different Spanish cultural institutions for her contribution to music and culture.

Born in Manchester, England, Darren Ross studied at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. In 1988 he moved to France to dance in many creations with the ‘Compagnie de Brigitte Farges’. From 1992 he dances with the ‘Compagnie Larsen’, directed by Stéphanie Aubin, on different contemporary dance pieces and opera (Armide by Luly, Orphée et Eurydice by Glück).
In 1998 he choreographed his first opera La Traviata (Nancy, Rennes, Montpellier). This started a long collaboration as movement director and choreographer with director Jean-Claude Berutti. Together they worked on La Bague Magique by Giovanna Marini (Opéra de Nancy, Théâtre du Peuple Bussang), Faust (Lyon), Rusalka (Lyon, Tel Aviv, Bilbao), La Bohème, Wiener Blut and Othello (Nancy), Le Roi Candaule (Nancy and Liège) and Tannhaüser (Bordeaux).

He also collaborated with Jean-Claude Berutti for theatre: L’île des Esclaves — Marivaux (Brussels); Le Mariage de Figaro — Beaumarchais (Liège); Beaucoup de bruit pour rien — Shakespeare, La Cantatrice Chauve — Ionesco, L’Envolée -Granouillet, Family Art — Sales (Saint-Etienne); A tu et à toi, a ‘tour de chant’ with Yvette Théraulaz (Saint-Etienne, Genève, Lausanne)…

Together with director Caroline Petrick he worked on Weisse Rose — Zimmermann (La Monnaie Brussels) and The Golden Vanity, opera for children, by Benjamin Britten (La Monnaie Brussels, Royal Opera Stockholm).

With theatre company NUNC and Benjamin Van Torhout, he worked on Raisonnez (Ghent, Antwerp) and Het geslacht Borgia (Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven, Bruges). Together with Axel De Booseré and the Compagnie Arsenic, he worked on Le Dragon and Le Géant de Kaillass (Liège, Brussels, Paris). In January 2006, he directed Mozart onvoltooid/Mozart inachevé, a co-production of Pantalone, La Monnaie (Brussels) and Dschungel (Vienna).

Darren Ross also teaches movement and dance to singers (at the Chapelle Musicale de la Reine Elisabeth of Brussels, since 2004; Musikhochschule Frankfurt; Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et danse de Paris) and actors (amongst others, students of the Ecole d’Art Dramatique du CDN of Saint-Etienne).

With director Marguerite Borie he worked on Salome by Richard Strauss (Monte-Carlo, Liège, Vienna) and Reigen by Philippe Boesmans (Paris, CNSMDP). He also signed the choreography for Requiem for the Gods, a creation by Joachim Brackx with Nabla Muziektheater, co-produced by Concertgebouw Bruges. With Ivan Fisher, he collaborated on Le Nozze di Figaro — Mozart (Budapest, New York and Berlin).

Since 2019, Jan Vandenhouwe is the artistic director of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp and Ghent). After studying musicology at the universities of Leuven and Berlin, Jan Vandenhouwe started working for the Belgian newspaper De Standaard as a music and opera critic. From 2005 to 2008, he was dramaturg of the Opéra national de Paris and worked closely with the artistic director Gerard Mortier. In those years, he was also responsible for the artistic programme of l’Amphithéâtre Bastille. From 2009 to 2011, he was responsible for the concert programme (of classical and contemporary music) at Concertgebouw Brugge. Since then, he has worked as a freelance music dramaturg for various organisations, including Teatro Real (Madrid), Ensemble InterContemporain (Paris) and Klarafestival (Brussels).

He has also collaborated with directors such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Così fan tutte in Paris, Mitten wir im Leben sind/Bach6Cellosuiten at the Ruhrtriennale, The Six Brandenburg Concertos at Volksbühne Berlin), Alain Platel (C(H)ŒURS in Madrid, nicht schlafen at the Ruhrtriennale), Ivo van Hove (Macbeth in Lyon, Brokeback Mountain in Madrid, Salome in Amsterdam, Boris Godunov and Don Giovanni in Paris) and Johan Simons (Fidelio in Paris, Boris Godunov in Madrid, Das Rheingold and Alceste at the Ruhrtriennale). From 2015 till 2017 he was Executive Dramaturg (Chefdramaturg) at the Ruhrtriennale.

Martin Wölfel was born in Potsdam, where he also grew up, received his first musical training and had his first experiences on stage and in front of the camera.

After his initial desire to become an actor (he had an admission to the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch Berlin for 1990), he was drawn to music after all and began studying singing in Dresden in 1990, finishing under Margret Trappe-Wiel.

After unsuccessful attempts at tenor singing, he found his destiny as a countertenor in 1993. Since then his career has taken him to the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Korean National Opera Seoul, the Welsh National Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Norske Opera Oslo, the Theater Basel and the Oper Frankfurt, to which he has been a guest since 2006.

As a concert singer, he has toured with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, among others, and has performed in Tokyo, Osaka, Toulouse, Cairo, Athens, Barcelona, Valencia and Amsterdam.

Numerous radio, television and CD recordings document his work.

Since 2007 he has taught at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where he was appointed to a professorship in 2017, and shares his experience in workshops and masterclasses (Kronenburg Classes, Conservatoire de Lille, Conservatorio Superior de Música da Coruña, International Opera Studio Frankfurt).

In 2020 and 2021 he was a lecturer at the “Gesangspädagogisches Zertifikat” (GPZ) of the Bundesverband Deutscher Gesangspädagogen (BDG).

Since 2020 he has been Vocal Adviser at the International Opera Academy Ghent.

With The Mystic Lamb, the first name of the platform founded in 1987 to promote classically trained musicians next to visual artists, Pascale Montauban made her first steps in cultural management. Being trained as a singer, actress and visual artist herself, the platform became a fully-fledged management agency under her proper name in 1989. The agency broke through two years later when it acquired a satellite in Salzburg as a partner of the Salzburger Schloßkonzerte, a legendary institution that made a name for itself with its ‘international young talent stage’ next to multiple concerts series at Schloss Mirabell, Mozarteum and Salzburg Residenz, with members of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and many others.

Pascale co-founded the Brüssel-Salzburg-Festival which alternated between Brussels and Salzburg from 1991 to 1995 (i.e. until Austria joined the EU). Equally noteworthy was the Festival coproduced with the Stiftung Mozarteum Argentina in Brazil, to finish the Mozart Year 1991 in style.

Upon her return to Belgium in 2015 Pascale was offered a merger between her agency and the Concert Agency Gaston Ariën, managed at the time by her Lied coach baritone Albrecht Klora. Founded in 1928 by Gaston Ariën, the agency was the first to reinvite the Berliner Philharmoniker to Belgium and stood at the cradle of the renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, today Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

In 2028 the Ariën Agency will celebrate its 100^th Anniversary. Today’s activities include career coaching and worldwide promotion of Belgian and foreign artists with a focus on conductors, opera directors, classically trained opera and concert singers, next to various chamber music ensembles, solo instrumentalists and orchestras.

Since 2007 Pascale is a regular guest lecturer at the conservatoires of Ghent and Antwerp, where she gives audition training. Occasionally she enlarges this activity to opera studios.

At home she served as a jury member at the first edition of the International Competition for Opera Conductors by the Polycarpe Foundation & Royal Opera House of Wallonie (2017), next to the competitions of Verviers, Namur (CIALN) and Brussels (Triomphe de l’Art).

Abroad, repeatedly at the International Singing competitions of Pienza, Filignano (Mario Lanza), next to Pamplona and Cologne (MHKöln).

Pascale is the driving force behind Castellaria, the first multinational Children’s Opera Festival that will open Summer 2027 with the world première of Jungle Book- The Opera.