G. Richard Ames

G. Richard Ames lives in Burlington with his cat Janis. He is a graduate of Saint Michael’s College with degrees in drama and English.

As on stage, Rick has played many roles in life: banker, counselor, roofer, graphic designer, mall Santa Claus and proofreader, to name a few. He last appeared onstage as Cléante in Tartuffe at Lost Nation Theater where he has also been featured in several Fall Foliage Shakespeare productions, and will next appear in The Rainmaker with the Shelburne Players.

When not acting and temping, Rick can be seen browsing at local thrift shops, picking up litter, visiting animals and the elderly, penning songs, lyric poetry, drama and letters to the editor, or as the announcer on Survey Says!, Vermont’s hottest game show sensation, on VCAM-15.

Ellen Blachly

Central Vermont actor, singer, dancer and Irish fiddler, Ellie Blanchly recently won acclaim for her performance astray Maria Callas in Lost Nation Theater’s world premiere production of Callas on Callas for WINTERFEST 2007. Previous Lost Nation Theater productions have included The Winter’s Tale and The Cradle Will Rock.

A company member of the Unadilla Theater, she has portrayed virtually all the soprano leads in their ongoing Gilbert & Sullivan productions as well as leading dramatic roles in Art, Death and the Maiden and The Cherry Orchard among many others. She has, also, performed with The Plainfield Little Theater, The Barre Players, Earnest Productions, Celebration Theater and WGDR Radio.

This past season Ellie sang the role of Dona Anna in The Echo Valley Community Arts Production of Don Giovanni. Offstage, Ellie has created a successful business in the arts of costume design and construction and fine upholstery.

Daniel Bruce

Daniel received degrees in Piano Performance and Conducting from the Hartt School of Music and Northwestern University, and is now widely sought after as a musical director, pianist, and teacher. Currently Mr. Bruce teaches Instrumental Music at Peoples Academy in Morrisville, and he has been on the faculties of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, as well as in the Northfield and Barre, Vermont school systems.

He has also been on the staff of the Monteverdi Music School, has appeared as a guest conductor with several musical festivals, and was twice nominated to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.

He has performed extensively as a solo and collaborative pianist in every musical style from classical to Broadway to jazz, including acclaimed performances with the Vermont Philharmonic, Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, and Vermont Jazz Ensemble.

Mr. Bruce is an accompanist and soloist performing regularly in the Bruce Klavier Duo with Alison Cerutti, as well as with violinist Ray Malone. He also accompanies vocalist Carol Ansell Spradling, for whom he arranged jazz trio and orchestra scores for a 2005 concert appearance with the Onondaga Civic Symphony. Mr. Bruce is the Music Director of the Amateur Musicians Orchestra in Burlington and was a past conductor of the Barre Choraleers and the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has directed music and/or played piano and/or percussion in over sixty amateur and professional musical productions in Vermont, New York, and Illinois, and was most recently Coordinator of Music for Syracuse Children’s Theatre and Syracuse Civic Theatre before relocating to Vermont.

Returning to Vermont, Mr. Bruce has performed with Lost Nation Theater having appeared as music director for 1940’s Radio Hour, The World Goes Round, Something for Everyone and Musical of Musicals , the Musical.

Margot Button

Margot Button has appeared in opera, oratorio and recital in the U.S.A., England, Australia, and her native New Zealand. She has recorded for radio, television and short film. Her operatic roles have included Rosalinda, Santuzza, Fiordiligi, Electra, Clemene, Dido, Regina Giddens, and the Mother in both Amahl and the Nightvisitors. She has appeared as a soloist with Opera New Zealand, the Wellington City Opera, New Zealand, the Bathurst Opera Festival, Australia, the Boston Conservatory Alumni Opera, the Masterworks Chorale, and the Aldeburgh Festival Opera in England among others. Locally Margot has performed with the Sky Meadow Trio, Onion River Chorus, Otter Creek Choral Society, VT Opera Theatre, Lost Nation Theatre, Paine Mountain Arts Council, Echo Valley Arts, the Monteverdi Music School, and the VT American Contemporary Opera Project, of which she is a founding member.

Prior to her move to Vermont Margot performed regularly as a soloist throughout Massachusetts and was an Artist-educator for Brown Bag Opera in Boston. She guest lectured for the Opera Departments of the Boston Conservatory and the Longy School of Music and maintained voice studios at both the Wellesley, and Gardiner Public Schools, MA.

Margot holds a 3-year Post Graduate Certificate in Opera Performance and was recipient of a 3 year Artistic Merit scholarship from the Boston Conservatory of Music. A winner of several major Aria, and Art Song competitions in New Zealand and Australia she also holds a Diploma in Dramatic Performance from the New Zealand Academy of the Performing Arts.

She currently studies voice with Elisabeth Phinney Boston, MA, and coaches with Lorraine Nubar, in New York. Her former teachers include Prof. Rae Woodland of the Royal College of Music in England, and Emily Mair, Head of Music, Victoria University in New Zealand. She has coached with Dame Janet Baker, Warren Jones, Dalton Baldwin, Phyllis Curtain, Rudolf Piernay, Prof.
George Shirley, Cecelia Schieve, Patricia Weinmann, Bernd Benthaak, John Mathieson, and Bruce Greenfield.

A former Executive Director of the Vergennes Opera House Margot has been a faculty member of the Flynn Theatre of the Performing Arts for four years.
She currently teaches voice at the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier, and privately in Burlington and also directs the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Opera for Harvard University, and the Annals of Improbable Research, in Boston.

Simon Chaussé

French Canadian baritone Simon Chaussé has sung in recital and concert in Europe, Japan, Canada and the USA. In recital he often collaborates with Dalton Baldwin who invited Mr. Chaussé for a concert tour of Japan in November 1999.

Mr. Chaussé has won several prizes in International Art Song Competitions in France, Spain, Canada and USA. He has studied interpretation with such artists as Frederica Von Stade, Jose Van Dam, Gerard Souzay and Elly Ameling. With opera companies in New York and Vermont he has sung the roles of: Papageno, Belcore, Malatesta, Schaunard, Dandini, Silvio, the Father in “Hansel and Gretel” and Sam in Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti” among others.

In 2000 he sang Antoine in the World premiere of “A Fleeting Animal” by Vermont composer Erik Nielsen’s. In 2006 Mr. Chaussé sang in concert the role of Horace Giddens in Marc Blitsztein’s opera “Regina” with the Vermont American Opera Project, Lord Dunmow in Lennox Berkeley “A Dinner Engagement” with the Opera Company of Middlebury under Troy Peters and Fiorello in “Il Barbiere Di Siviglia” with the Green Mountain Opera Festival conducted by Giovanni Reggioli.

This past year Mr. Chaussé sang the tile in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Barre Opera House with Echo Valley Community Arts and Yamadori in the acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly by the Green Mountain Opera Festival also at the Barre Opera House. He also performed the role of Mr. Lindquist with the Opera Company of Middlebury production of “A Little Night Music”and on July 8th he premiered a new song cycle by Vermont composer Erik Nielsen at the Rochester Chamber Music Society in Rochester VT.

Mr. Chaussé currently teaches voice at Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier.

Paula Ennis, pianist, holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University where she was a graduate teaching assistant to Menahem Pressler.

A very active performer in Vermont, she has performed solo and chamber music throughout Europe and the U.S. After study in Köln, Germany, on a Fulbright Grant, she taught on the music faculties of SUNY at Albany, NY; Williams College, MA; Lawrenceville School, NJ; and Johnson State College, VT.

Her recordings of solo and chamber music appear on Grand Prix, Musical Heritage Society, and Coronet Recording labels. The New York Times has characterized her playing as "versatile and highly communicative."

Wendy Hoffman Farrell

Mezzo soprano Wendy Hoffman Farrell began her vocal career with the Essex Children's Choir, and went on to receive both Bachelors and Masters Degrees in vocal performance.

Wendy has performed nationally with Atlanta Opera, The Atlanta Lyric Theatre, and The Peter Harrower Opera Workshop. Regionally, Wendy has been featured with a number of Vermont based ensembles, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Mozart Festival, Vermont Youth Orchestra, f y d o, and Vermont Opera Theater. She will be singing her first Musetta in La Boheme with The Opera Company of Middlebury this coming August.

An enthusiast of contemporary music, Wendy has premiered the works of several American composers, including those of Vermont composers Erik Nielsen and Troy Peters. She has been on the applied faculties of St. Lawrence University and Middlebury College. Wendy lives and snowboards in Bolton Valley with her husband Tim and their three children.

Lisa Jablow

Lisa’s checkered career as a performer began at age three, when she played a character named Mrs. Buttonnose in a community theater production in Shrub Oak, NY. Her elementary school debut came at age seven, when she played a library book.

Other roles followed and in junior high school, she entered the preparatory division of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She arrived at college as a theater major; but received degrees in choral conducting with a minor in voice. During this time, she performed a great deal of opera and musical theater, mostly on stage, but sometimes conducting in the pit.

After graduate school, Lisa spent nine years at New York City Opera also performing with Opera Orchestra of New York, Skylight Opera, Boise Opera, the Milwaukee Symphony, Long Wharf Theatre and Lost Nation Theater. She also joined the music faculty at Johnson State College where, among other things, Lisa directs the musical theater program.

William Pelton

Bill, a Syracuse University graduate with a degree in Visual and Performing Arts, has worked many times with Montpelier’s Lost Nation Theater in, among others Mother Courage, Othello and the award-winning Stone.

Some favorite shows and roles include Bruce in Beyond Therapy, Constable Dull in Love’s Labors Lost, Antonio, Feste and Andrew Aguecheek in multiple productions of Twelfth Night, and company member in the musicals Sweeny Todd, A Little Night Music, Threepenny Opera, Working, The Cradle Will Rock, Side by Side by Sondheim, Cole and Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, as Tyrone in O’Neill’s poignant, A Moon for the Misbegotten, and Escalus in Measure for Measure.

Presently studying with Cameron Thor Studios and auditioning for film, Bill has worked locally on Nora Jacobson’s, Nothing Like Dreaming, and George Woodard’s, The Summer of Walter Hacks presently in post-production.

Mary Jane Austin-Reynolds

Mary Jane Austin-Reynolds earned her bachelor's degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Olga Radosavljevich and Vivian Weilerstein.  She then pursued her graduate studies in vocal coaching and accompanying, studying both art song and opera at Duquesne University with Warren Jones and Claudia Pinza.

In the field of opera, she has worked as an accompanist and coach for six summers at the EPCASO opera program in Oderzo, Italy, where she worked with mezzo soprano Vivica Genaux and baritones Richard Bernstein and Michael Chioldi, among others.  

Closer to home, she co-founded the Sky Meadow Chamber Players in 2003, has worked at the Green Mountain Opera Festival as the pianist for their Young Artist Program, and played with the Mad River Chorale, Onion River Chorus, Vermont Opera Theater and Echo Valley Community Arts.  She has also played for several silent films at the Vergennes Opera House.   She currently teaches private piano lessons at the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier.

Mary Jane is married to violist Paul Reynolds.  They are the proud parents of their two daughters, Chloe and Mia.

Carol Spradling

Carol Spradling is a professional actor and singer who moved to Vermont recently from upstate New York.  Vermont audiences saw her most recently as the mezzo-soprano soloist with the Vermont Philharmonic's annual performance of Handel's Messiah for the last three years. 

She frequently appears with Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier, most recently as June/Junita/Junie Faye/Jeune/Junie in their sellout production of Musical of Musicals: The Musical, as well as Something For Everyone, The World Goes Round, and 1940's Radio Hour.  Opera highlights include one of the lead roles in the world premiere of Matthew Walton’s opera Sundance, about the life of Native American political prisoner Leonard Pelltier.  She was nominated for a Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) award for her critically acclaimed role as Alice in Closer for Rarely Done Productions. Her jazz trio headlined with the Syracuse Summer Jazz Festival for three years.

Past concert performanes include Mahler’s Lieder eine fahrenden Gesellen with the Onondaga Symphony, as well as Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, Steven Stucky’s Spirituals For Mezzo-Soprano and Guitar, and Schubert’s Schwanengesang.  Other past theatrical roles include The Witch (Into the Woods), Nancy (Oliver), Miss Hannigan (Annie), My Way: a Tribute to Frank Sinatra, and The Taffetas.  Her voice has been heard on books on tape for Full Cast Audio including Lady Macbeth.  

Ms. Spradling is a graduate of the University of Miami.   She teaches vocal music and theater arts at Peoples Academy in Morrisville, where she recently directed Drood, Guys and Dolls, The Music Man, The Wiz, and Grease.  She and Daniel Bruce live on the side of Mount Elmore with their three children, a rambunctious beagle puppy, and more sound equipment than they know what to do with.

Eliza Thomas

Eliza Thomas studied piano accompaniment with Margo Garrett at the New England Conservatory. Since moving to Montpelier in 2000, she has worked as an accompanist with a number of organizations, including Echo Valley Community Arts, Vermont Opera Theater, the Vermont American Opera Project, and participates regularly in workshops given by Dalton Baldwin and Lorraine Nubar at the annual Fall Foliage Art Song Festival, sponsored by the Vermont Opera Theater.

She teaches piano at the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier and freelances as a writer and editor.

J.D. Williams

J.D. Williams began piano lesson at the age of six in his home state of West Virginia. He graduated from Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory in 2001 with a Bachelor of Music Performance degree.

He has participated in the Banff, Aspen, Tanglewood and Meadowmount Music Festivals as a chamber musician and soloist, as well as the International Holland Sessions. J.D. lives in Plainfield, VT and has teaching studios at Montpelier’s Monteverdi Music School and in Norwich, VT.

When not performing or teaching, he plies his other trade as a Carpenter.