NYELA BASNEY
Director, Orvieto Musica
M.Mus., Eastman School of Music
Keyboard Chamber Ensemble, Mixed Ensemble

Currently Artistic Director and Conductor of the Allegro Chorale and Orchestra in Midland, Texas, Nyela Basney energizes orchestras with her rare combination of interpretive insight and dynamic baton technique. She was recently Music Director of the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale. In addition to her experience conducting Masterworks concerts, Pops concerts, headliner concerts, Tiny Tots, educational and run-out concerts in Texas, Miss Basney also guest conducts, having recently worked with the Toledo Symphony and Virginia Symphony in community concerts. She is Associate Conductor with the El Paso Opera and recently conducted Britten's Rape of Lucretia at Colorado State University.

Formerly Associate Conductor of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana, Miss Basney conducted over 60 performances a season, including subscription concerts as well as pops, run-out concerts, in-school presentations, Tiny Tots and Candlelight concerts. Miss Basney guest conducted the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of community concerts, and also in a Gala Benefit Concert with Metropolitan Opera star Renee Fleming at the Eastman Theater. In 1994 Maestra Basney made her guest conducting debut with New York's Little Orchestra Society, and returned to conduct four more concerts with the ensemble in 1995. She has also guest conducted the Voices of Change Orchestra in Dallas, the Glens Falls Symphony in New York, the Virginia Symphony in education concerts, and served as cover conductor for John Nelson at the National Symphony and for Andrew Litton at the Dallas Symphony. Next season she will guest conduct the Midland-Odessa Symphony.

Miss Basney's previous experience includes serving as Artistic Director and Conductor of Premiere Ensemble of New York, a professional orchestra which presented New York debuts of rising young singers, instrumentalists and composers. From 1999 to 2001 she was Principal Conductor of the Massapequa Philharmonic of New York, and from 1994 to 1997 she was an Assistant Conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra for whom she led concerts featuring Peter Schickele. Ms. Basney was also Music Director of the West Side Symphony in New York City, and Conductor of the Western Massachusetts Youth Orchestras. In 1992 she led the performances of Amahl and the Night Visitors in a professional production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Miss Basney was invited to conduct the Curtis Institute Orchestra in a Master Class led by renowned conductor Max Rudolf, as well as the Eastern Wind Ensemble, the New World Symphony, and the Manhattan School Chamber Orchestra in Master classes under the direction of Fredrick Fennell, Michael Tilson Thomas and Jorge Mester.

In addition to her impressive record in symphonic repertoire, Nyela Basney has had significant experience in the field of opera. For three years, she was staff pianist at the Juilliard School where she studied conducting with Vincent La Selva, "the best Verdi and Puccini conductor living today" (Opera Magazine). Recognizing her "extraordinary talent," Maestro La Selva appointed her Assistant Conductor and Chorusmaster for the New York Grand Opera, in which appointed capacity she participated in 18 productions. Since 1982, she has provided professional role preparation and musicianship training for singers, in more than 55 roles from 25 operas.

Miss Basney was invited by the United States Information Agency to serve as an Arts America Cultural Specialist in Uruguay in 1993 at the National School of Opera in Montevideo. In 1992 she was a fellow at the Conductor's Institute and was one of five conductors chosen to participate in the American Composers and Conductors Forum. In 1991 she served as Conductor and Opera Coach of the Sessione Senese per La Musica e L'Arte in Siena, Italy. Miss Basney conducted at the Aspen Music Festival in 1989 and 1990, where she assisted John Nelson and premiered a work by Dan Welcher.

Over the years, Nyela Basney has achieved first-hand knowledge of a wide repertoire by participating in more than 500 performances as violist, pianist and conductor. She attended the Eastman School of Music on a coveted Alumni Scholarship, receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees with highest distinction. 

AMY GILREATH
Brass Coach, Orvieto Musica

Amy Gilreath enjoys an active professional career as both a teacher and performer. Since joining the faculty at Illinois State University in 1990, Dr. Gilreath was promoted to the level of Full Professor in 2004. While at Illinois State, she has been awarded the 2007 College of Fine Arts Research award, the 2007 School of Music Research Award, the Outstanding Teacher Award by the ISU School of Music and College of Fine Arts and was honored by the ISU School of Music students as Teacher of the Year.  Dr. Gilreath has former students performing in the United States “Pershing’s Own” Army Band and the United States Coast Guard Band as well as teaching music education throughout the United States and in other parts of the world. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the International Trumpet Guild and served as co-host of the 2003 and 2006 International Women’s Brass Conference.

Amy is currently Principal Trumpet in the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Chamber Orchestra, the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, and the Sugar Creek Symphony and Song. She is also an extra/sub with the St. Louis Symphony, a member of the Illinois State University Faculty Brass Quintet, brass instructor for Orvieto Musica in Orvieto, Italy and a former member of Dallas Brass.  Dr. Gilreath has lectured and performed in Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, England, and Hungary. Along with her numerous solo performances and master classes, Amy has been a featured soloist with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Chamber Orchestra and the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and been an invited soloist at the International Trumpet Guild Convention Festival of Trumpets and the International Women's Brass Conference. She also participated in the inaugural tour of Monarch Brass and subsequently toured with the Monarch Brass Quintet to Germany.  She was privileged to be a finalist in the first Ellsworth Smith International Trumpet Competition in 1988. Amy has completed her first solo CD entitled Enjoying Life.

Dr. Gilreath earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and a Master of Music degree in Trumpet Performance from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Eastern Kentucky University.

NICOLA HEINRICH
String Coach, Orvieto Musica

Nicola Heinrich enjoys a thriving career on two continents as a chamber musician, pedagogue, and orchestra musician. After beginning her musical training in her native Regensburg, Germany she studied at Munich’s Richard Strauss conservatory with Jan Polacek, and received the prestigious Friends of the Gasteig Culture Prize upon her graduation in 1991. She continued her education at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, where she studied with Janos Starker. She also served two years there as one of Starker’s teaching assistants. In 1994 she returned to Germany to begin an orchestral career, first as Assistant Principal Cello in the orchestra of the Giessen Opera and then in the Bielefeld Philharmonic, where she was Acting Assistant Principal Cello from 1996 to 2001. In 2001 she took a leave of absence from her position in Bielefeld to assume an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Cello at the Ithaca College School of Music in Ithaca, New York. During her year in Ithaca, in addition to teaching cello and chamber music, she was a member of the college’s resident Ariadne String Quarted, played and recorded with Cornell University’s professional new music group Ensemble X, and served as Principal Cello of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. In the summer of 2002 she appeared at the Bach and Beyond Festival in Fredonia, New York and was on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory in Steamboat Springs Colorado. In 2002 she returned to her position in Bielefeld, where she appears often as a chamber musician and enjoys a flourishing private cello studio.

ROBERT RISELING
Woodwind Coach, Orvieto Musica

Robert Riseling is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario where he taught from 1970 to 2003. Other university positions include schools in Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Illinois and Nova Scotia and France. He holds a BME (Illinois Wesleyan University), MM (Composition) and a DMA (Performance-Clarinet, University of Michigan).

An active solo, chamber musician and adjudicator, he has performed extensively in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Scandinavia, Iceland, Israel and Asia. Numerous broadcasts for CBC Radio Canada have included some of the more than forty works written for him. He has performed six times at the International Clarinet Association's annual Clar-Fests and numerous other festivals and conferences in North America and abroad.

A regular faculty member of Domaine Forget (Quebec) since 1993 and the Hungarian Clarinet Camp since 1995, he has also taught at the Interlochen Arts Center (2002), ARIA International Summer Academy (2002) and the Orord Arts Centre (Quebec, 2003). Invited to China six times to teach clarinet, coach chamber music, and perform and conduct school ensembles in various cities and schools, he was named an Honorary Professor at the Sichuan and Wuhan Conservatorties. His extensive performance of Hungarian composers has resulted in awards from ARTISJUS, including the medal PRO ARTIBUS. As a conductor he has worked with many amateur and professional groups in The United States, Canada, Hungary and China.

NATALIA RIVERA

Pursuing a career that embraces song recitals, chamber music, and opera, Natalia Rivera achieved early success at the age of fourteen when she won the Jesus Maria San Roma Concerto Competition in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and performed as soloist with the Puerto Rico Symphony. She had previously spent five years studying in Naples, Italy with the Director of the Piano Department of the Conservatory of Naples, Nunzio Zappulla. She completed successfully the fifth year placement examinations in piano and solfeggio at the age of thirteen.

Ms. Rivera earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory and the Master of Collaborative Arts degree from the University of Minnesota. She continued her studies in the Professional Studies program at the Juilliard School of Music where she accompanied in the studios of Marlena Malas, Edward Zambara and Dorothy Delay. Ms. Rivera’s teachers include Jeffery Kahane, Veronica Jochum, Brian Zeger, Margo Garrett, and Samuel Sanders. She has also served as an accompanist in the masterclasses of John Wussman, Graham Johnson, Yo-Yo Ma, Regine Crespin, Craig Ruttenberg, Michael Eliason, Robert Merrill, Thomas Hampson, Simon Estes, Denyce Graves, Phyllis Curtain, Anna Moffo, and Pamel Frank.

In the summer of 1992 Ms. Rivera received a full scholarship to study with Martin Katz at the Music Academy of the West summer festival. She was also one of four vocal coaches chosen to participate in the Merola Opera Program of San Francisco Opera. During her two summers as an apprentice opera coach she was awarded the Jan Popper Memorial Award and the Otto Guth Memorial Vocal Coach Award.

As a vocal coach and pianist, Ms. Rivera has collaborated at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, with the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, and members of the Vienna Philharmonic; with the San Francisco Opera; the Santiago Opera in Chile; and the Bellas Artes Opera of San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has performed recitals throughout the United States including duo piano performances with pianist, Maria Rivera. She has also performed recitals in Italy, Austria, Japan, and at the prestigious Alice Tully Hall in New York.

ALESSANDRO CERVO

Bio coming soon

LENORA CLAYTON
Administrator, Orvieto Musica

Lenora Clayton teaches at Milam Elementary, a magnet school for the visual and performing arts, where she directs the Milam Minstrels, an auditioned choir of 4-6th grade students. Additionally, she is the Founder and Director of West Texas Choristers, a community children’s choir for elementary students in Midland/Odessa, Texas. Miss Clayton is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.