PORT(AL)

May 1-3, 2025
Agger Fish Building / Brooklyn Navy Yard

BROOKLYN YOUTH CHORUS
Dianne Berkun Menaker, Founder and Artistic Director

Music by Paola Prestini and Jad Abumrad

Libretto by Jad Abumrad and Jessica Grindstaff

Directed and Designed by Jessica Grindstaff

Co-Created by Dianne Berkun Menaker, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff

Conceived by Dianne Berkun Menaker

Commissioned by Brooklyn Youth Chorus in association with VisionIntoArt
Co-Produced by Brooklyn Youth Chorus, VisionIntoArt, and Pomegranate Arts

DESIGNERS

Jessica Grindstaff and Ogemdi Ude, Choreographers
Brian H Scott, Lighting Designer
Darron L West, Sound Designer
Kylee Loera and S. Katy Tucker, Video and Projection Designers
Gary Graham, Costume Designer
Erik Sanko, Foley Designer & Music for ‘Rusty Brown’

Anne DeMelo, Associate Director
Ryan Hall, Associate Sound Designer
Amanda Roberge, Associate Costume Designer
Dava Huesca, Choreographer’s Assistant

Featured Performers

Cynthia Hopkins is ‘Rusty Brown’
Tara Khozein (on film) is ‘Eugenia Farrar’

Production

Jared Klein, Production Manager
Randi Rivera, Stage Manager
Romi Moors, Associate Production Manager
Omi Furst and Erica Zippel Schnitzer, Assistant Stage Managers
Jeff Rowell and Andy White, Audio Engineers
Emma Bizzack, Wardrobe Supervisor
Andrew Carey, Jess Dunn, Omi Furst, Will Keener, Otto Martinian, Liam D. O’Brien, Dylan Salinger, Koji Taylor, Load In & Strike Crew
Lindsey Eifert, Fabric Dyer
Daniel Oxenhandler, Additional Video Capture
Jonah Brumbach, Production Assistant

Rachel Katwan, Creative Producer
Duncan Sutherland, Producer
Ras Dia, Producer

Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Dianne Berkun Menaker, Founder and Artistic Director
Megan Lemley, Executive Director

VisionIntoArt
Paola Prestini, Co-Artistic Director
Jeffrey Zeigler, Co-Artistic Director
Ras Dia, Producing Director

Pomegranate Arts
Linda Brumbach & Alisa E. Regas, Executive & Creative Producers

Brooklyn Youth Chorus

Dianne Berkun Menaker, Concert Ensemble & Junior Ensemble Conductor
Liz Geisewite, Junior Ensemble Conductor
Scott Semanski, Bass Ensemble Conductor
Caitlyn Douglas, Concert Ensemble Chorus Manager
Christa Chiovarelli, Junior Ensemble & Bass Ensemble Chorus Manager
Aleeza Meir, Concert Ensemble & Junior Ensemble Pianist
Rachel DeVore Fogarty, Bass Ensemble Pianist
Ona Linna-Hipp, Assistant Chorus Manager and Production Assistant
Elspeth Collard, Assistant Chorus Manager

Concert Ensemble

Áine Alexander-Mullen
Emily Avram
Boji Azmanova
Lydia Bach
Safira Berrada-Riggs
Simone Braunstein-Coulston
Milena Broesche-Jones
Mae Burke
Maggie Callahan
Evelyn Cribbs
Greta Currah
Zadia Danon
Zelda de Zayas
Josie Devlin
Margaret Dicus
Kai Don
Laïa Dorais
Pia Dorosin
Zoe Drubetskoy
Matilda Endres
Laila Gilabert
Charlotte Golden
Tessa Goldwasser
Talia Greenland
Kendall Hollmon
Victoria Johnson
Vivian Kravet
Gertrude Lipkin
Melina Mays
Lucy Mellon
Lucy Nadoban
Maahika Nair
Sylvie Oates
Hanah Park
Jadesola Pedro
Sofia Rossa Bologna Gitti
Stella Santos Hendricks
Savannah Savas
Niko Sembo
Livia St. Lewis
Nefertiti Stanton
Vaikuntha Tamayo
Eve van den Brulle
Arlo Zidell

Bass Ensemble

Martino D'Agostino
Chenaniah Enderes
Carter Hollmon
Kadin Hussein
Phineas Kelly
Conor Landauer
Ruslan Lymarenko
Naveen Menezes
Paul-Eric Pawa
Raymond Penalo
Kevin Russell
Finn Sethi
Isaac Stobbe
Owen Swift

Junior Ensemble

Gretta Adams
Ridley Apthorpe
Daniela Avrekh
Esme Chou
Neve Ellis
Perrin Fornatale
Kalina Francois
Peyton Francois
Maxine Goods
Luca Greer
Sheen Heady
Dorothy Keener Schrager
Jane Lundquist
Sammy Meskill
Percival Moran
Dzintra Morgan
Ariana Negron
Raphaela Newman
Abigail Pena
Chloe Puliga
Sylvia Sanders
Maia Schechter
Alba Scheers-Masters
Una Schmidt-Aguirre
Exa Sherman
Liliana Slotnick
Ivy Snow
Bee Sollors

About the Artists

BROOKLYN YOUTH CHORUS is a Grammy Award-winning ensemble, led by Founder & Artistic Director Dianne Berkun Menaker, that has collaborated with an impressive range of organizations and artists including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The National, David Byrne, Davóne Tines, Wye Oak, Bon Iver, Shara Nova, International Contemporary Ensemble, William Brittelle, London Symphony Orchestra, Barbra Streisand, Sir Elton John, and Grizzly Bear.

Recordings of the Chorus have been featured in major motion pictures, commercials, and live events, including several tracks on The National’s concept album I Am Easy To Find, a new work by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke for rag & bone’s Spring 2016 collection, Chanel Paris’s 2019 Capsule campaign featuring Pharrell Williams, and Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s OTR II World Tour. As a bold commissioner and producer of new music, the Chorus has introduced into the repertoire more than 120 original works and world premieres by contemporary composers, including collaborations with Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Caroline Shaw, Tania León, and David Lang, the influential and visionary composer/pianist Philip Glass, Blues and R&B powerhouse Toshi Reagon, iconic British DJ Bishi, The National’s Bryce Dessner, and ubiquitous indie-classical superstar Nico Muhly.

In 2002, the Chorus made its debut with the New York Philharmonic in John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls, the recording for which the Chorus won a Grammy Award in 2005.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus has garnered a strong reputation as an arts producer. In 2019, Silent Voices: Lovestate premiered Off-Broadway at The New Victory Theater. Previous productions include the first two installments of the inclusive, social justice-oriented Silent Voices series (BAM 2017; National Sawdust 2018); Black Mountain Songs (BAM Next Wave Festival 2014); and Tell the Way (St. Ann’s Warehouse 2011). The Chorus has released two albums through New Amsterdam Records—Silent Voices (2018) and Black Mountain Songs (2017)—and has appeared at important contemporary music festivals including the Ecstatic Music Festival, MusicNOW, 21c Liederabend, Barbican Mountain and Waves Festival, and the PROTOTYPE Festival.

Most recently, the Chorus collaborated with acclaimed opera singer and Brooklyn Youth Chorus Artist Mentor Davóne Tines and Brooklyn Youth Chorus Artistic Advisor Arreon A. Harley Emerson to create AND SING!, a concert at BAM that examined choral music of the Black Diaspora and featured singers from all three of the Chorus’ performing ensembles.

With the support of a generous innovation grant from The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, the Chorus has created the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Youth and Contemporary Music Initiative to expand its emphasis on the importance of contemporary music, including commissioning, collaborating with living composers and performers, and deep explorations on the repertoire and performance practices of different musical genres. Through this major initiative, choristers work with artists such as Melanie Charles, Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, Laquita Mitchell, Karen Slack, and Davóne Tines as artist mentors and masterclass clinicians, as well as composers-in-residence including Kenyon Duncan, Yaz Lancaster, Alev Lenz, and Angélica Negrón.

Founded in 1992, Brooklyn Youth Chorus has served nearly 10,000 students, with more than 500 students a year currently enrolled in its after-school and public-school programs. The Chorus’s professional faculty teach a wide range of repertoire and styles using founding artistic director Dianne Berkun Menaker’s proven Cross-Choral Training® method, emphasizing healthy and versatile vocal technique, music theory, sight-singing and ear training. Classes take place at their Cobble Hill headquarters and neighborhood locations in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Heights, and Carroll Gardens.

DIANNE BERKUN MENAKER is the Founder & Artistic Director of Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Under her visionary leadership for 33 seasons, the Chorus has become one of the most highly regarded ensembles in the country and has stretched the artistic boundaries for the youth chorus.

Hailed by The New York Times as "a remarkable choral conductor," Ms. Berkun Menaker has prepared choruses for performances with acclaimed conductors including Alan Gilbert, Marin Alsop, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Lorin Maazel. She has also collaborated with an impressive range of organizations and artists including the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Joe Hisaishi, The National, David Byrne, Wye Oak, Bon Iver, Shara Nova, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Barbra Streisand, Arcade Fire, Sir Elton John, and Grizzly Bear. In 2002, she prepared the Chorus for its debut with the New York Philharmonic in John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, the recording for which the Chorus won a Grammy Award in 2005.

Ms. Berkun Menaker has also prepared the Chorus for recordings with The National, Bon Iver, Fatoumata Diawara, Tyondai Braxton, Paola Prestini, Philip Glass, Wye Oak, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Grizzly Bear.

She has developed an active commissioning program, born out of a desire to showcase the Chorus's versatility and uniquely beautiful sound and has collaborated with some of the most important composers of our time, resulting in more than 120 original works and world premieres by contemporary composers, including collaborations with Pulitzer Prize-winners Caroline Shaw, Tania León, David Lang, Nico Muhly, Angélica Negrón, Bryce Dessner, Paola Prestini, Nathalie Joachin, Paul Moravec, Toshi Reagon, Alev Lenz, Anna Clyne, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John King, and William Brittelle.

Ms. Berkun Menaker also has a strong reputation as an arts producer, having developed numerous original choral/theater productions for the stage, with the most recent production, Silent Voices: Lovestate, premiering Off-Broadway at The New Victory Theater in 2019. Previous productions include the first two installments of the inclusive, social justice-oriented Silent Voices series (BAM 2017; National Sawdust 2018); Black Mountain Songs (BAM Next Wave Festival 2014); and Tell the Way (St. Ann’s Warehouse 2011). The Chorus has released two albums through New Amsterdam Records—Silent Voices (2018) and Black Mountain Songs (2017)—and has appeared at important contemporary music festivals including the Ecstatic Music Festival, MusicNOW, 21c Liederabend, Barbican Mountain and Waves Festival, and the PROTOTYPE Festival.

In 2022, Ms. Berkun Menaker served as Associate Music Producer for Euphoria by Julian Rosefeldt, commissioned by Park Avenue Armory and starring Cate Blanchet.

Ms. Berkun Menaker is a regular choral clinician and teaching artist for such organizations as the New York Philharmonic and The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and has also presented workshops and master classes for New York University, New York State School Music Association, the American Choral Directors Association, and the New York City Department of Education. In 2023, she was recognized by the American Academy of Teachers of Singing with their 2023 AATS Award for outstanding achievements in the field.

She is the creator of Cross-Choral Training®, a proven holistic and experiential approach to developing singers in a group setting encompassing functional voice training pedagogy for healthy, authentic singing across a range of musical styles and music literacy and sight-singing approaches based on experiential and sequential learning. Cross-Choral Training is now available as a digital course produced by Anthony Roth Costanzo, in collaboration with his organization SCENE.

JAD ABUMRAD (Co-Composer, Co-Librettist, Co-Creator) (b. Syracuse/New York) is a composer, musician and storyteller who lives in Brooklyn.He is the host and creator of several podcasts (Radiolab, More Perfect, Dolly Parton’s America) that collectively are downloaded over 130 million times a year.He's been hailed for his unique ability to combine cutting edge sound-design, cinematic storytelling and a personal approach to explaining complex topics, from the stochasticity of tumor cells to the legal foundations of the war on terror. Jad studied creative writing and music composition at Oberlin College in Ohio.He wrote much of the music for Radiolab and continues to compose music for film, television, theater and live ensembles.Amongst his many current collaborations, he’s scoring a new commission for the Dance troupe Pilobolus, composing an album of Nocturnes along with a “sleep opera” (i.e. an opera performed by live waking performers but conducted via brainwave by a sleeping human).Jad has received three Peabody Awards, the highest honor in broadcasting. And in 2011 he received the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. He’s currently a Distinguished Professor of Research at Vanderbilt University.

JESSICA GRINDSTAFF (Co-Librettist, Co-Creator) is a New York City-based visual artist, writer, director and co-founder of Phantom Limb Company. For the past decade, Jessica has created a trilogy exploring humans’ relationship to nature or the environment, through several different lenses with her partner Erik Sanko. This work has taken her to Antarctica; on an expedition to discover the oldest living tree in the world; and finally to Fukushima, where the tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdown of 2011 have devastated a tremendous area of Northern Japan to this day. These pieces have been performed across the United States and internationally. Her work in theatre is collaborative, image based, and intuitive, using a collage-like approach while centering on the intersection of puppetry, movement, and storytelling. Recently, Jessica has extended an arm into television and film. She is currently writing, directing, and executive producing several projects with a focus on women that have transcended all ideas of what it is to be a woman and a creative phenomenon. She continues to collaborate with her partner Erik Sanko and will travel to Norway in 2025 for a residency for their next Phantom Limb theatrical collaboration: an existential circus work. She has taught, workshopped, and lectured around the world at AFUK in Copenhagen Denmark, NYU Abu Dhabi and NYC, The New School, Victoria College of Art, Melbourne Australia, Dartmouth College, Maryland Institute College of Art, UCLA, CAL Arts, and others.

PAOLA PRESTINI (Co-Composer and Co-Creator) has collaborated with poets, filmmakers, and scientists in large-scale multimedia works that chart her interest in themes ranging from the cosmos to the environment. She has created, written and produced projects such as the world's largest and first communal VR opera, The Hubble Cantata, and the eco-documentary The Colorado. Her opera Sensorium Ex dives into community impact and AI-bridging her love of collaboration with system building. Her work has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, Bellas Artes, and at the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Italy. She has been a resident at MASS MoCA, the Park Avenue Armory, the American Academy in Rome, and at Sundance. Prestini is a Co-Founder of VisionIntoArt, a non-profit new music and interdisciplinary arts production company in New York City and is the Co-Founder/ArtisticDirector of the non-profit music organization National Sawdust.

ANNE DEMELO (Associate Director) is a director and writer working across theatre, opera, and film. She develops and directs energetic, genre-melting interdisciplinary and intertextual work that often draws on and re-frames old stories, archival materials, and historical texts. Music, collaboration and community-making are at the core of her practice. Her stage direction has been seen at Ars Nova’s ANTFest, The Bushwick Starr, Exponential Festival at The Brick, JACK, LaMama Galleria, Pipeline, Prague Fringe, LPAC, and Columbia University, among others; her production of Ellen McLaughlin’s The Trojan Women was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. In 2023, Anne was the Creative Director for GRAMMY Award-winning duo Rodrigo y Gabriela’s national tour, In Between Thoughts. Her debut short film, I Have Love In Me, is currently on the festival circuit. As an Associate and Assistant Director, Anne has collaborated on two world premieres subsequently recognized by the Pulitzer Prize, several international opera tours, and at cultural institutions including BAM Next Wave, LA Opera/REDCAT, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Detroit Opera, Atlantic Theater Company, and the Prototype Festival. She is an Associate Editor at 53rd State Press. Anne completed her MFA as a John Wells Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in May 2022. www.annececeliademelo.com

GARY GRAHAM (Costume Designer) Clothing designer Gary Graham launched his first collection of women's apparel in New York City in 1999. Respected for its exquisite detailing, sophisticated craftsmanship and historical erudition, the line was sold at select luxury retailers worldwide (Barney’s Japan, Dover Street Market, Trois Pommes Switzerland) and beginning in 2009, at the Gary Graham flagship retail store in downtown New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. In 2018 Graham relocated to rural Franklin, New York and his eponymous brand was reborn as GaryGraham422. Production has been reconfigured as small-batch fabrication, featuring unique interventions to one-of-a-kind fabrics. The studio’s rural locale has inspired new historical narratives and encouraged experimentation with rare antique textiles, while expanding production of Graham’s signature custom print fabrics and custom engineered jacquards. Raised in Delaware, Graham studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was honored as a CFDA/Vogue award finalist in 2009 and received the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Legend of Fashion award in 2010. Outside of designing his own line, he has created textile collections for commercial interiors fabric manufacturer Pollack NY, designed a collection of single piece one-of-a-kind women’s wear in a collaboration with Asian retailer Joyce Hong Kong, and has licensed 2 seasons of a ready-to-wear line to online retailer Amazon. In 2024 he designed the costumes for Kara Walker’s SFMOMA installation, Fortuna and The Immortality Garden (Machine) currently on view. His work has been exhibited at Hancock Shaker Village, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum, and is held as part of the permanent collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, the Phoenix Museum of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

RYAN HALL (Associate Sound Designer) New York: Cult of Love, Breaking the Story, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (2021 Update), Toros, Spun, Making Myth, Promised, Uproute, Versus, A Serious Banquet. Regional: Uncle Vanya, Next Fall, Ruined, Frindle, and Oh, What a Lovely War!

CYNTHIA HOPKINS (‘Rusty Brown’) MA, MT-BC is a Doris Duke artist, music therapist, yoga instructor, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and internationally acclaimed musical performance artist. She has produced eight performance works, eight albums of original music, and one museum installation. Her work has been honored with many awards, including a 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award and a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship. Ms. Hopkins also collaborates with others as a performer, composer, and musician, and most recently released Blackbird at the Well, a collection of Fellwalker songs (fellwalkermusic.com). She believes in the power of creativity to transform suffering into magnificence.

TARA KHOZEIN (‘Eugenia Farrar’ , on film) is a soprano, theatre-maker, improviser, teacher, and song-maker. As a multidisciplinary performer, she explores the intersections of classical singing, pan-idiomatic vocal sounds, concert music, and physical theatre. After her formal education in classical singing and physical theater, Tara lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she directed circus, immersive, operetta, and children's performances, and established her vocal improvisation practice. While in New Mexico, she became a company member of Theater Grottesco, and contributed vocal recordings to multiple projects in Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return, where she later served as the primary content director for immersive performance. She moved to Budapest, Hungary at the end of 2019, and established an online voice studio during the pandemic, where she continues to teach students from around the world. Her recent creative projects include central roles in two world premieres by Ondrej Adámek: Connection Impossible (Ensemble Modern, Bregenzer Festspiele) and INES (Oper Köln); vocal performance in Once Within a Time, by Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass; creative and music direction for Stereo Akt's secret public space concert SoundFishing in Budapest; and the central role in Samu Gryllus's interactive documentary opera, Geiseloper. She is a member of the improvisation bands Kat and the Devil and PONT; JazzaJ's Budapest Improvisers Orchestra and Timo Kinnunen's International Experimental Orchestra; and she is a familiar face in the Central European free improvisation scenes, and a new face in New York’s. She has released four duo improvisation albums: Amuse-Bouches (2025) with Rhonda Taylor; Live at Lumen (2023) with singer/composer Thea Soti; Burdeo - Buda - Bridges (2022) with Etienne Rolin; and Iterations (2021) with Carlos Santistevan. She also has a live-performance-only solo voice anti-album called Until there is nothing left to forgive (2025) which she made with fine artist Zahra Marwan. She contributed a song used in Aida Shirazi’s “Yearning, Every Dawn” which premiered at Ojai Festival in 2023, and has an ever-evolving solo show called “in-to-out” (2019-2025). A vocal improvisation album with visual artist and gibberish emperor Brian Belott and one with pianist/composer/vocalist Ernő Rubik are also in the ether. Tara is based in Brooklyn, NY

ERIK SANKO (Foley Designer & Music for ‘Rusty Brown’) is best known as a fixture of the NYC downtown music scene, having recorded and toured with John Cale, Yoko Ono, Gavin Friday, Jim Carroll, James Chance and the Contortions among others as well as being a 16-year veteran of The Lounge Lizards and his own band, Skeleton Key. He recently started Knife Thrower, a new rock band inspired by the paintings of Franz Kline and is presently playing with SQÜRL, founded by film maker Jim Jarmusch. Erik is also the co-founder and co-artistic director of Phantom Limb, a theater company founded with his wife, director and set designer Jessica Grindstaff in which he is puppet designer and composer. He has taught Puppetry and Performance and Biomimicry and Puppetry at Rhode Island School of Design and Puppetry/Object Manipulation at NYU and The New School. He holds a B.F.A. from Cooper Union.

BRIAN H SCOTT (Lighting Designer )

S KATY TUCKER (Video and Projection Designer) designs video and projection for live performance, working frequently in opera, theater and collaborating with composers and musicians. Her work has been seen internationally, including Broadway, The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, New York City Ballet, Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue Armory, BAM, San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dutch National Opera, Sydney Opera House, and the Canadian Opera Company, among others. She began her career as a painter and video installation artist, exhibiting her work at a variety of galleries, such as the Corcoran Museum, Dupont Underground, Artist’s Space in New York City and a video installation co-designed with Blake Manns titled Stone Memory, commissioned by The Kennedy Center. Tucker periodically works in television and on events for Drew Findley Productions as a screens producer and animator. For DFP she has worked on The Emmy’s, Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow 2, the American Music Awards, The Soul Train Awards, and BlizzCon. Tucker was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Letters from Max, a Ritual. Recent productions include Smashon Broadway with director Susan Stroman, Das Rheingold and Die Walkure at Teatro alla Scala, Tannhauser (Houston Grand Opera), Medea with Sir David McVicar (Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company and Greek National Opera), Florencia en al Amazonas, Eurydice, Peter Grimes, Verdi’s Requiem, and Prince Igor (Metropolitan Opera), Florencia en el Amazonas (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and Washington National Opera), Rebecca Das Musical (Vereinigte Bühnen Wien), Klangwolke 23 (Brucknerhaus), and Turandot, MacBeth, Fidelio, Elektra, Don Giovanni, and Samson and Delilah (Washington National Opera). Upcoming: The Ring Cycle (La Scala), Lunar Eclipse (2nd Stage), Medea (Lyric Opera of Chicago) and (Re)volution of Steve Jobs (Washington National Opera).

KYLEE LOERA (Video & Projection Designer) is video designer and content creator/editor for live theatre based in New York. Some design credits include: 92nd Street Y Kaufman Concert Hall (LOUDER THAN WORDS: THE SONGS AND LEGACY OF JONATHAN LARSON, REBEL WITH A CAUSE: NINA SIMONE, SOUL PICNIC: THE SONGS AND LEGACY OF LARA NYRO, COCKEYED OPTIMIST) 59e59 Theaters (THE LIGHT AND THE DARK) Washington National Opera Kennedy Center (GODS AND MORTALS, FIDELIO) The Kennedy Center (CHRONICLES OF NINA: WHAT NOW?) The Muny St. Louis (FROZEN, LA CAGE AUX FOLLIES, JERSEY BOYS, ANYTHING GOES, BEAUTIFUL, LEGALLY BLONDE, CAMELOT) Shepherd School of Music Rice University (GHOSTS OF VERSAILLES) Theater Under the Stars Houston (NEWSIES) Pittsburgh CLO (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, THE COLOR PURPLE). Associate Designer MET Opera (FLORENCIA EN EL AMAZONAS, CHAMPION) Orpheum (BIG GAY JAMBOREE). More at kloeradesign.com

OGEMDI UDE (Choreographer) is a dance and interdisciplinary artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. Her performance work focuses on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at The Kitchen, Gibney, Harlem Stage, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Center for Performance Research, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. As an educator, she has taught at The New School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of the Arts. She is a 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, a Live Feed Residency Artist at New York Live Arts, and a 2024/2025 BAX Artist-in-Residence. She has been a 2022-2024 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Artist-in-Residence, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. In January 2022 she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. Most recently, she has published a book Watch Me in a collection edited by Thomas DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press.

DARRON L WEST (Sound Designer) is a TONY and OBIE award-winning sound designer whose nearly 40 year career spans theater and dance, on Broadway, Off Broadway and regional theaters too numerous to list here. His work has been heard in over 700 productions all over the United States and internationally in 15 countries. Additional honors include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award, among many others. Thirty year company member designing the productions of Anne Bogart’s SITI company.

RAS DIA (Producer) is a Brooklyn-born producer and arts administrator whose work has been described as “stirring” (Washington Post), “bracing, compelling, and heartbreaking” (Musical America), and “grippingly produced” (The Boston Globe). He serves as Deputy Director, Creative Projects at National Sawdust, and as Producing Director of VisionIntoArt (VIA), where he leads commissions and productions supported by National Sawdust such as Primero sueño with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sensorium, a groundbreaking opera and social impact project at the intersection of disability and artificial intelligence, and We Were Fridays, a cultural heritage and music project inspired by diaspora, collective imagination, and co-creation, in addition to producing creative initiatives such as the National Sawdust/VIA Impact Lab Fellowship program. Ras previously served as the Creative Producer at Little Island, a public park and arts organization developed by the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, where he helped to lead and curate its first three seasons, as the Assistant Producer of the Metropolitan Opera’s Peabody- and Emmy award-winning Live in HD series, and as the Managing Director of the New York City Master Chorale, in addition to marketing, development, production, and administrative roles with the National Children’s Chorus, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Carnegie Hall, and The New School, where he supported programs for immigrant, refugee, and survivor communities across New York City. Past projects include Heartbeat Opera’s BREATHING FREE: a visual album, the Frederick R. Koch Foundation’s Townhouse Series, San Francisco Symphony’s MTT25: An American Icon, and San Francisco Opera’s In Song. Ras is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Purchase College (SUNY), and the Boy’s Choir of Harlem.

RACHEL KATWAN (Creative Producer) is an arts administrator living in Brooklyn, New York. She currently serves as the General Manager for Pomegranate Arts, a Creative Producer dedicated to the realization of international performing arts projects. Since 2016, Katwan has served on Pomegranate’s core producing team for large scale works by artists including Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs, Taylor Mac, Robin Frohardt, Bassem Youssef and for North American multi-city tours of the Batsheva Dance Company and Japan’s Sankai Juku. In 2023, on behalf of Pomegranate she served as the lead festival producer for the Onassis Foundation’s Archive of Desire: A Festival Inspired by the Poet C. P. Cavafy curated by composer Paola Prestini. Katwan previously served in various roles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from 2004-2016 and was a key member on the internal producing team for some of the Academy’s most ambitious programming initiatives including the city-wide Muslim Voices: Art & Ideas (2009), The Bridge Project international tours (2009-12), multi venue Si Cuba Festival (2011), three seasons of RadioLoveFest (2014-16), and the beloved annual DanceAfrica program.

JARED KLEIN (Production Manager) is an Artist-in-Residence and the Technical Director for the Skidmore College Theater Department. Select ligh'ng design credits at Skidmore include: Eurydice, Somewhere, Radium Girls, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, We Used To Wear Bonnets & Get High All The Time, 33 VariaEons, Let The Right One In, Balm In Gilead, Fragments, Who Will Carry The Word, Our Town and Blood Wedding. Select visiting artist design collaborations include: Joel Mellin, Phil Soltanoff, Joe Diebes, Sara Juli, Howard Fishman, STREB, SITI and NYSSSA Dance. Previously, Jared was the Production Manager and Technical Director for BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn where he opened their state-of-the-art facility in the heart of downtown Brooklyn’s cultural district, and production managed the inaugural season. Prior to that, Jared spent six years as the Technical Director and Resident Designer for the Tech and Design program at Adelphi University. In addition to more than a decade of educational experience, Jared has twenty years of professional experience as a Technical Director, Lighting/ Video Designer, and Produc'on Manager for both theatrical and industrial design companies throughout the US and Europe. He was a member and resident Lighting/Video Designer with the New York-based experimental theater company, Fovea Floods, and a founding member of the Obie award-winning Bushwick Starr Theater in Brooklyn. International lighting design and technical direction credits include: Movement Live (NYU Abu Dhabi & Lincoln Center), Big Art Group’s House of No More, Shelf Life, and Flicker. NYC design credits include: Cassandra (Helga Davis, BRIC),Minority and Glee (Nina Winthrop & Dancers, The Flea Theater),The ResisEble Rise of Arturo Ui (Fovea Floods, Ontological-Hysteric Theater), One for the Road (Fovea Floods, CSV), The Maids (Fovea Floods, Bushwick Starr), and House of No More (Big Art Group, PS122).

ROMI MOORS (Associate Production Manager)

RANDI RIVERA (Stage Manager) is a native New Yorker from the Bronx. She has been a freelance Stage Manager and Lighting Director since 2009, working both in NYC and on the road. A few favorite colleagues include Tina SaHer & Half Straddle, Keigwin & Company, Dance Heginbotham, Harlem Stage, Faye Driscoll, Doug Elkins Choreography Etc, Sidra Bell Dance NY, The Chocolate Factory, Andrew Schneider, Ivy Baldwin, Cathy Weis, Gallim Dance, Sean Donovan, Leslie Cuyjet, and Ballez. Rivera served as Associate Director for the Broadway run of Half Straddle’s Is This A Room in 2021. She has been working with Jessica, Erik, and Phantom Limb Company since 2011 and is thrilled to be on the Port(al) team. All of her work is for her family.

DUNCAN SUTHERLAND (Producer)

AMANDA ROBERGE (Associate Costume Designer) is a New York-based costume designer for theater, opera and film.Recent works include the Climate Change Operas, (BAM, world premier), Ford/Hill (Public theater/ Wooly Mammoth), Pamela Palmer (Williamstown, world premier), Glass Menagerie, And Then There Were None (Alley theater) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Berkshire Theater Group). MFA NYU Tisch School of Design for Stage and Film.

ERICA ZIPPEL SCHNITZER (Assistant Stage Manager) (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based Theater Maker. Recent credits include Bunny Bunny by Raja Feather Kelly (The Feath3r Theory), Seagull F*cker (Under The Radar), TERCE (PROTOTYPE), Summerworks 2024 (Clubbed Thumb), Sonic Sphere (The Shed), Preparedness (The Bushwick Starr), The Collision by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper (Two Headed Rep @59E59), Plastic Bag Store by Robin Frohardt (Pomegranate Arts), Fandango for Butterflies and Coyotes by Andrea Thome (EnGarde Arts), and The Recipe By Kristin Worrall (The Momentary). Erica is a resident stage manager at Mercury Store in Gowanus and a 2024-2025 member of TAG, The Tank’s writer/director cohort. For upcoming projects and additional credits go to ericaschnitzer.com

OMI FURST (Assistant Stage Manager) is thrilled to be involved with the Brooklyn Navy Yard premiere of Port(al)! Working with such a wonderful team of friends, old and new, to bring life to such beautiful history is a joy. Omi is a stage manager and theatre artisan by trade, passionate about facilitating conversations and space to learn through play for a wide range of artists and audiences alike. They would like to thank the team for welcoming them into this production, and congratulate the Brooklyn Youth Choir on their hard work and achievement to be here today!

DAVA HUESCA (Choreographer’s Assistant), recently named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2025, is an Obie Award-winning freelance performing artist and choreographer. A graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia Arts High School and SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, she has performed in a range of productions across concert dance and musical theater, including hit off-Broadway revival CATS: The Jellicle Ball (as Rumpleteazer and Assistant Dance Captain), Yin Yue Dance Company, and VIM VIGOR. Known for her vogue femme and grounded contemporary movement, Dava continues to expand her creative practice through performance, choreography, and immersive storytelling. As a freelance choreographer, she has received commissions from Whim W'Him, Dance Lab New York, and Yale University's Summer Drama Cabaret. She has also worked as an associate to Tanisha Scott, Laja Field, and others. In 2021, Dava was honored as the first Springboard Danse Montreal-nominated recipient of Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation's AIR Founder's Residency and was among the inaugural choreographers for Gallim's Moving Women residency in 2020 under her dance collective LLAB Rats.

JONAH BRUMBACH (Production Assistant) graduated from Macalester College last May, where he majored in American Studies while working as a stage manager and ceramics studio assistant. Since then, he has been bouncing around between Minneapolis, Europe, and New York. He currently lives in Brooklyn and works as a freelance production assistant across various theater and film projects.

EMMA BIZZACK (Wardrobe Supervisor) With costume production experience under Machine Dazzle for the tour of Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music, and the Emmy Award winning HBO documentary about the show’s creation, she trained in Apparel Design and Merchandising at College of Alameda in her hometown of Oakland California.

VISIONINTOART (VIA) is an interdisciplinary arts production company, led by composer Paola Prestini, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and creative producer Ras Dia. VIA creates, produces and curates visionary art and music projects which expand the frontiers of culture - pioneering creative practices guided by the belief that equity is a central driver of artistic innovation. Through this work, VIA strives to empower and uplift artists in building new modes of expression, grounded in their unique experiences and identities, all while expanding the ways in which audiences and local communities can engage with the creative process and artistic works. Major works include: Primero Sueño, a processional opera commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Live Arts (MetLiveArts) and VIA, co-composed by Paola Prestini and jazz icon Magos Herrera, and directed by Louisa Proske, and made for The Met Cloisters (January 2025) which will make its Mexican premiere and subsequent tour in December 2025. The world premiere of Sensorium Ex - an ambitious new opera by librettist Brenda Shaughnessy and composer Paola Prestini, co-directed by Jerron Herman and Jay Scheib, and music directed by Elizabeth Askren - synthesizes artificial intelligence, disability, and the arts in a groundbreaking and innovative artistic work. The project is focused on devising community-centered practices for artists with disabilities and presented at Common Senses Festival in Omaha, NE (May 2025), and was most recently developed as part of UnMute ArtsAbility Festival in Cape Town (Africa's premier disability-led inclusive arts festival), as well as in collaboration with The Shed, Performance Space NY, and with The REACH and Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. We Were Fridays is a project exploring relationships between diaspora, music and memory, in development with the Penn Center and National Sawdust with music by Tamar-kali, Etienne Charles, Hannah Ishizaki, Jeffrey Zeigler, and choreography by Reggie 'Regg Roc' Gray. And, a forthcoming opera project commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA with music by Paola Prestini, libretto by Robin Coste Lewis, and executive produced by Ava DuVernay. VIA projects are made possible with generous support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mellon, Ford, Doris Duke, Achelis & Bodman, and Alphadyne Foundations.

Since 1998, POMEGRANATE ARTS has worked in close collaboration with a small group of contemporary artists and arts institutions to bring bold and ambitious artistic ideas to fruition. Creative and executive producers Linda Brumbach and Alisa E. Regas, along with their committed team at Pomegranate Arts, have produced the Olivier Award-winning revival of Einstein on the Beach; Taylor Mac’s epic A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Holiday Sauce, and now – their third collaboration together, along with composer Matt Ray – a rock opera meditation on queerness calledBark of Millions; the touring production of Ambrose Akinmusire and Aszure Barton’s A a | a B : B E N D; Available Light by John Adams, Lucinda Childs and Frank Gehry; Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store and Home Depot Parking Lot; Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s Shockheaded Peter; and the Drama Desk Award-winning production of Charlie Victor Romeo. In recent years, Linda and Alisa have expanded the vision of the company by producing in non-performative mediums, including their first feature documentary film Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music (HBO Original Doc), the film short Taylor Mac’s Whitman in the Woods (ALL ARTS), and museum installations for Machine Dazzle. Their first book, a special box set edition of Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1-20 with Essays by Fellow Artists, was published by Artisan Books in October 2023. In addition to our own productions, Pomegranate Arts is proud to support North American touring for Batsheva Dance Company and Sankai Juku. www.pomegranatearts.com

Special Thanks

Lindsey Eifert
5Ohm
Duggal Visual Solutions
PRG
Brian Floody and the Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra
Skidmore College Theater Department
Kate Russell Photography
Linda Brumbach
Alisa Regas
Flo Trioux
Elena Messinger

Brooklyn Youth Chorus Annual Support

Brooklyn Youth Chorus is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Special funding is provided by Councilmembers Shahana Hanif and Lincoln Restler. Our programs are also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. The Concert Ensemble of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

With the utmost gratitude to the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Youth and Contemporary Music Initiative for their generous support.

When you support Brooklyn Youth Chorus, you’re investing in world-class music education that empowers young people from all backgrounds. As our Chorus has tripled in size over the past three years, we now need to raise $1.4 million annually to sustain our impact and meet growing demand.

Your gift to the Annual Fund helps provide the rigorous, inclusive programming that defines Brooklyn Youth Chorus—from need-based scholarships and free public school programs to college and career readiness support.

It also fuels our groundbreaking New Music initiative, where young singers work directly with composers to create and premiere original works, like what you are seeing today in Port(al). These collaborations go beyond traditional music education, encouraging authenticity, creativity, and deep artistic engagement. With over 140 new works and ten major music-theater pieces commissioned to date, this music challenges our singers and expands the possibilities of youth choral performance.

Support for the Annual Fund ensures that we can continue to train, inspire, and amplify the voices of tomorrow—both in our classrooms and on the world’s stages.

Visit www.bychorus.org/give to give today.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus Board of Trustees

Jessica Holloway, Chair
Kara Hailey, Vice Chair
Jordane Rollin, Treasurer
Kathleen Emberger, Secretary

Jacqueline Aguanno
Lauren Ashcraft
Kristi Avram
Katherine Bartholomaus
Sabina Chatterjee
Naomi Gardner
Tracy Garrison-Feinberg
Nick Grabar
Young Hah
Nancy James
Anna McNeil
Sam Nana-Sinkam
Karen Rockey
Jonathan Rouner
Johari Jenkins Taylor
Amanda Van Doorene
Blake Zidell

Trustees Emeriti

Judy Berkun (in memoriam)
J. Barclay Collins II
Charlie J. Hamm
Narcissa Titman
Dick Yancey (in memoriam)

Trustee Ex Officio

Dianne Berkun Menaker, Founder & Artistic Director

Artistic Advisory Board

John Adams
Deidre Chadwick
Rufus Collins
Anthony Roth Costanzo
Julian Crouch
Bryce Dessner
Jeremy Geffen
Andrew Hamingson
Hilda Harris
Jim Keller
Beth Morrison
Paola Prestini
R. Douglas Sheldon
Ted Sperling
Theodore Wiprud
Michelle Yagoda, M.D.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus Staff

Dianne Berkun Menaker
Founder & Artistic Director

Megan Lemley
Executive Director

Angela Batchelor
Training Divisions Program Manager

Marjory Bruno
Registrar & Finance Associate

Christa Chiovarelli
Chorus Manager, Bass Ensemble & Junior Ensemble

Caitlyn Douglas
Chorus Manager, Concert Ensemble

Liz Geisewite
Director of Choral Education

Meghana Goli
Development Assistant

Julie Griffith
Director of Development

Kyle Henning
Director of Program Operations

Ruben Llopiz
Finance & Business Manager

Jared Mathis
Development & Special Events Manager

Ryan Pointer
Director of Marketing & Communications

Duncan Sutherland
Director of Production & Audio

Travis Horton
Bookkeeping Consultant

Bryony Romer
Institutional Fundraising Consultant

Dianne Berkun Menaker, Sydney Anderson, Jaquetta Bustion, Liz Geisewite, Julianna Grabowski, Kayla Schwartz, Scott Semanski, Seth Velez, Kristen Von Bargen, Katie Willey, and Kiena Williams
Conductors

Sean Cameron, Rachel DeVore Fogarty, David Lancelle, Elizabeth Leddy, and Aleeza Meir
Pianists

Sydney Anderson, Sebastian Armendariz, Will Evans, Julianna Grabowski
Electives Faculty

Ona Linna-Hipp, Mara Montez, Nicki Sekhar, and Sarah Sotomayor
Program Assistants

PORT(AL)

DESIGNERS

Featured Performers

Production

Sponsors

Program Order

A Note from dianne berkun Menaker

A Note from paola prestini

A Note from jad abumrad

A note from Jessica Grindstaff