CO-FOUNDER, ARTISTIC & MEDIA DIRECTOR

Paul Zaborac is a versatile saxophonist known for his creativity as a performer. Well versed in jazz, classical, and contemporary music, he seamlessly bridges musical boundaries.

As an entrepreneurial musician, he has organized and managed performance tours and produced or co-produced several albums including Actualize, Paul Zaborac Quartet:Live, Long Way Out, and Russian Romantic Music for Saxophone. He regularly features new compositions and arrangements in his performances and recordings.

Presenting concerts throughout the United States, he has been invited to perform at multiple universities and national conferences, and has performed internationally in China, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, and Australia. He has appeared with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, and the National Repertory Orchestra.

Paul has been a visiting professor at the University of Denver and has coached chamber music as a guest artist at several schools and festivals. He is currently active as a teacher and performer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

www.paulzaborac.com

CO-FOUNDER, ARTISTIC & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

Pianist Cecilia Lo-Chien Kao is a dynamic performer that is in demand as a chamber musician. She has collaborated with several distinguished artists including Lynn Harrell, Stefan Jackiw, Robert McDuffie, Bion Tsang, Gerardo Ribeiro, David Coucheron, and Jennifer Stumm, among many others.

Kao has appeared at Carnegie Weill Hall and can be heard on Bion Tsang’s album The Blue Rock Sessions. She was a member of the Boulder Altitude Directive, a modern music ensemble dedicated to commissioning new music, and a chamber music artist at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.

Kao is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Collaborative Piano Artist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. She is also the coordinator of collaborative piano at the prestigious Meadowmount School of Music. She has been a collaborative pianist at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, University of Colorado, and a fellow at the Music Academy of the West and Aspen. Cecilia is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

www.cecilialo-chienkao.com

DIRECTOR OF OUTREACH & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF VOCAL MUSIC

Soprano Jen Townsley is a skilled collaborator, soloist, and stage director. She has championed the premiere of new chamber works such as Lauren Courbier's "From The Chrysalis", "Creatures Great and Small" by Gergon Bastista, and Ingrid Stölzel's The Gorgeous Nothings arranged for soprano, flute, soprano saxophone, and piano. Jen stage directed and produced SMF's 2024 children's opera The Three Little Pigs, a Mozart pastiche opera adapted by John Davies. She is passionate about community outreach and educational opportunities that enrich people's lives through music. 

Jen is an Instructor of Voice at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri and an adjunct at the University of Missouri Kansas City. Her expansive teaching includes opera workshop, language diction, vocal pedagogy, contemporary commercial singing styles, and both classical and musical theater applied voice lessons.  She has a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from UMKC conservatory. Her doctoral research includes LGBTQIA+ inclusion in collegiate voice studies, opera curriculum development, contemporary singing styles in music education, and novel research on French composer Charles Koechlin and his Shéhérazade songs. 

Recent directing credits include Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium paired with a scene from Daid Conte's The Gift of The Magi, a 1950s themed production of "Songs, Scenes and One Acts", Scheherazade Music Festival's children opera The Three Little Pigs, Atlantic Music Festival’s Dido and Aeneas (assistant director),and Cedar Rapids Opera Theater’s production of Menotti’s The Telephone.. Recent dramatic roles include the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, L'Ensolliead in Massenet's Chérubin, and Mariann Paroo in the musical The Music Man.Description goes here

BOARD MEMBER & UMKC LIAISON

Mezzo soprano Aidan Soder joined the UMKC Conservatory voice faculty in 2007. A graduate of Rice University’s prestigious Shepherd School of Music, Dr. Soder has performed throughout the US in concert, opera, and recital with the Alabama Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Glimmerglass Opera, Delaware Symphony, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Houston Symphony, as well as abroad in Austria, Bulgaria, India, and England. Her diverse repertoire includes performances of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Berio’s Circles, Massenet’s Werther, Britten’s Albert Herring, and Mahler's Das klagende Lied, Kindertotenlieder, and Symphony #2.

Well-regarded as a pedagogue and technician, Dr. Soder has presented master classes throughout the U.S. and Europe. Early in her teaching career, she participated in the NATS Intern Program; was a founding faculty member of the International Performing Arts Institute (IPAI) in Kiefersfelden, Germany; and taught Voice and Acting for Singers at Michigan’s prestigious Interlochen Arts Camp from 2011-17. Her students have participated in numerous Young Artist programs throughout the US and in Europe; they hold full-time academic appointments at various colleges and universities; and they have been the recipients of several prestigious awards, including the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship, the Fulbright Award, and a PEO Scholar Award, among others, all which have allowed for scholarly and performing opportunities in Scotland, Germany, and France. 

Dr. Soder’s scholarly and performing interests include the music of Schoenberg, performance practice-related issues in contemporary music, French mélodie of the early 20th century, and art song of living American composers. Dr. Soder premiered and recorded two song cycles by composer Karim Al-Zand: Orange Torches Against the Rain (Studies in Nature – Centaur Records) and Tagore Love Songs, featured on the CD Tagoriana (Albany Records), which is collection of songs set to the poetry of Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. 

Dr. Soder’s book Sprechstimme in Arnold Schoenberg’sPierrot Lunaire: a Study of Vocal Performance Practice, published by The Edwin Mellen Press, received the Certificate of Merit by the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) in 2009. Dr. Soder is the recipient of the Conservatory’s Kauffman Award, both for Excellence in Teaching (2011) and  Excellence in Service (2018); the UMKC Trustees Faculty Scholar Award (2012), and most notably, a Fulbright Scholar Award (2014-15), which provided Dr. Soder the opportunity to live, research, teach, and perform in Kolkata (West Bengal), India.