Our Team
Leadership
Ryan Brown
Founder & Artistic Director
Ryan Brown is the founder and artistic director of Opera Lafayette, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in the 2019/2020 season. Through his work with Opera Lafayette, Ryan has gained an international reputation for his role in the revival and reassessment of significant works from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. His discography of twelve sound recordings for Naxos has focused on the French repertoire, including well-known works by composers such as Lully, Rameau, and Gluck, as well as premiere recordings of operas by Rebel/Francœur, Monsigny, Philidor, Grétry, Sacchini, and Félicien David. Ryan has also created two DVDs with Opera Lafayette for Naxos, including the modern premiere of Gaveaux and Bouilly’s Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal, the model for Beethoven’s Leonore, the latter which Opera Lafayette will present in its 25th anniversary season, as well as Rameau’s Les Fêtes de L’Hymen et de L’Amour, ou Les Dieux d’Egypte, a collaboration with the New York Baroque Dance Company, the Seán Curran Dance Company, and Kalanidhi Dance.
Ryan has also led performances of operas by Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Paisiello, and Cimarosa. He regularly appears in Washington, DC and New York with Opera Lafayette and has also conducted in San Francisco, Seattle, and at The Glimmerglass Festival, and the Opéra Royal de Versailles. Ryan was raised in a musical family in California and performed extensively as a violinist and chamber musician before turning his attentions to conducting. His teachers included Dorothy DeLay and Gustav Meier. He is a recipient of La Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Culturel from La Renaissance Française, and when not conducting spends his time in southwestern Colorado.
Patrick Dupre Quigley
Artistic Director Designate
Opera Lafayette has announced Brown’s successor, appointing Patrick Dupre Quigley as Artistic Director Designate. Quigley’s new role is effective immediately, and he will work closely with Brown for the next two seasons along with the musicians, audience, staff, and board to ensure the continuation of the vibrant, decades-long standard set by Brown and Opera Lafayette.
Quigley is known for his engaging performances of historically-informed programming that draw in new audiences and delight regular concertgoers. A ceaseless advocate for a more inclusive concert experience, Quigley’s programs regularly span more than 1000 years of musical history. Through recordings, performances, and new editions, Quigley has championed the culturally relevant voices of Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, the 11th century polymath and saint Hildegard of Bingen, and 18th century Cuban composer Esteban Salas y Castro. Quigley deeply respects music traditions outside the Western European canon and has developed concerts and collaborations highlighting the music of the Babylonian Jews, New Orleans’s Black Gospel tradition, Latin Pop, and the Baroque music of North and South America.
Recent and upcoming programs include Bach’s orchestral suites and violin concerti with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Gil Shaham at Carnegie Hall, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and La Servante Maîtresse with Opera Lafayette at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a return to Chicago’s Music of the Baroque in the music of Purcell and Handel, conducting debuts with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and scenes from Jean Philippe Rameau’s Castor et Pollux with Seraphic Fire.
Other guest conducting invitations have come from the Charlotte Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Mobile Symphony, ARTIS Naples, the New Jersey Symphony, New World Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and the Utah Symphony.
Quigley, along with co-founder Joanne N. Schulte, established the indie-classical ensemble Seraphic Fire in 2002. The ensemble presents a full season of live concerts of historical and contemporary music in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Collier counties. Seraphic Fire invests in its own local, regional, state, and national communities through its education programs running from 3rd grade through post-graduate level students. The ensemble has most recently commissioned works by Alvaro Bermudez, Sydney Guillaume, and Tawny Olson; and has given modern, regional, national, international, and recording premieres of contemporary and historical works by Hildegard of Bingen, Shawn Crouch, Susan Labarr, Thomas Luis de Victoria, Nico Muhly, Esteban Salas y Castro, Greg Spears, Christopher Theofanidis, and Ileana Perez Velazquez, among others. The Seraphic Fire Media recording catalogue contains 16 titles, representing diverse musical voices: Two titles have received Grammy nominations. The ensemble has also recorded with the international pop star Shakira.
Quigley holds an undergraduate degree in Music Theory and History from the University of Notre Dame, studying under Daniel Stowe, Alexander Blachly and Walter Ginter. Quigley studied conducting with Marguerite Brooks while earning a Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music. He has assisted Michael Tilson Thomas in rehearsals, performances, and recordings at the San Francisco Symphony. Quigley is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Lisa Mion
Managing Director
Before serving as Opera Lafayette’s Managing Director, Lisa served as Opera Lafayette’s Production manager for seven years.
During Mion’s tenure with Opera Lafayette, she has overseen productions ranging from chamber works to fully-staged operas in an equally diverse assortment of venues, including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, the Opera Royal at the Palace of Versailles, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Brooklyn Academy of Music, among others. Mion began the management leg of her career more than a dozen years ago at the Helen Hayes Award-winning Rep Stage. Since that time, she has mounted over 50 productions, including five international and six regional tours in genres encompassing theatre, dance, and opera. She is delighted to have made Opera Lafayette her home.
Natalie Rose Kress
Orchestra Personnel Manager
Praised by the New York Times for her “splendid playing,” Natalie Rose Kress is a violinist based in Washington, D.C. She is the recipient of several prizes including the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center, the Mercury Chamber Orchestra Fellowship, the English Concert in America Juilliard Fellowship, the US Embassy in Tanzania Diplomacy Grant, and the Chamber Music America Emerging Artist Grant.
She performs as a core member of Relic, Quartet Salonnières, Repast, and Musicivic Baroque and can be seen playing frequently with The Handel and Haydn Society, the Washington Bach Consort, The English Concert, and Opera Lafayette among others. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in early music performance and pedagogy at the University of Maryland where she directs the Early Music UMD concert series and training orchestra. She performed the historic world premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s “Music for String Quartet” at The Tanglewood Music Center with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2021 and is featured on the first commercial recording of it released in 2023 by PARMA Recordings. Natalie attended Stony Brook University where she studied with Soovin Kim and The Juilliard School where she studied with Cynthia Roberts and Rachel Podger.
Kara Hess
Director of Finance & Operations
Currently the Director of Finance and Operations, Kara has been with Opera Lafayette for over 6 years. She holds a Master’s Degree in Arts Management from American University, as well as two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Music and Music Business from Lebanon Valley College. An avid traveler, Hess spent a summer in Russia as a fellow with the Carmel Institute, studying museum culture at the Hermitage and a summer in Brazil as an Arnold Grant recipient, participating in a cultural exchange program teaching handbells. She currently volunteers as a grant reviewer for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and as an application reviewer for the National Parent Teacher Associations’s Reflections program. She also serves as fundraising Co-Chair for the Hershey Area Playhouse. Originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, she enjoys playing piano and singing in community choirs in her free time.
Alexis Aime
Director of Artistic Administration
Alexis Aimé, a passionate promoter for classical arts, has worked in artistic nonprofits including the YoungArts Foundation, Seraphic Fire, Opera Theatre of St. Louis (OTSL), and Opera Lafayette.
After receiving vocal performance degrees from both Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Maryland, Ms. Aimé performed a variety of soprano roles in houses and concert halls across the US and Europe. As her interest in casting, artistic planning, programming, and production grew, she transitioned from performer to Artistic Administration. After a successful term as Director of Artistic Operations and Planning at Seraphic Fire, a Grammy nominated choral ensemble specializing in early music, Ms. Aimé joined OTSL in 2022 where she worked in Artistic Planning. While working as artistic liaison and contractor for special events at Opera Theatre, she also generated the Festival Season schedule, planned and supported auditions and mainstage casting.
Ms. Aimé is excited to join Opera Lafayette as the Director of Artistic Administration where she will work closely with Artistic Director Patrick Quigley casting, contracting, and planning for upcoming productions. Merging her passion for underperformed works, collaborating with multiple artistic disciplines, and presenting opera in a new light, Ms. Aimé is delighted to join a company with such a rich history in developing such works and to continue that legacy in the future.
Accentuating her passion for casting and contracting, Ms. Aimé has also created her LLC, Artistic Consulting Advantage, where she works with multiple musical performance organizations and performers to further their artistic growth.
Emily Bidinger
Development and Communications Manager
Emily joined Opera Lafayette as the part-time Development and Box Office Associate in September 2023 after graduating from the College of William & Mary with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and History in May of 2023. In the spring of 2024, Emily also worked as the Publications Intern at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Since June of 2024, Emily has served as Opera Lafayette’s full-time Development and Communications Manager.
Today, Emily lives in Arlington and sings with the Arlington Chorale. In her free time, you can find her exploring new coffee shops, visiting museums, collecting vinyl records, and going to concerts. Emily has always known she wanted to pursue a career in the performing arts and is thrilled to begin her professional journey at Opera Lafayette, where she is certain her passion for music will continue to thrive.