Ubaldo Fabbri

Guest Faculty - Vocal Coach

An expert in bel canto style who has collaborate with some of the major singers of our time, inclduing Luciano Pavarotti.

Maestro Ubaldo Fabbri served as musical collaborator and coach at the Rossini Opera Festival from 1986 through 2001. A member of the faculties at The Rossini Conservatory and the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro, Italy, he has collaborated with some of the major singers of our time, including Luciano Pavarotti, appearing in a documentary on the tenor’s career. He was also the official accompanist/coach for the Maria Callas International Competition. His master classes on the art of bel canto have been presented in the US at the Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College. Additionally he is in demand internationally, offering classes in Japan, England, Belgium and Poland. He has served as the primary coach for the Italian operatic repertoire for Voci nel Montefeltro for fifteen seasons.

Soon to be published in English is Maestro Fabbri’s A Practical Study of Italian Diction and Phonetics for Opera Singers.

www.vocinelmontefeltro.org

Raphael Fusco

Conductor & Vocal Coach

An award winning keyboardist, conductor, and composer throughout the US and Europe.

He has led productions with New Opera NYC, Morning Side Opera, Amato Opera, Boston University, and Company XIV and has appeared as guest conductor at Teatro Grattacielo, Harlem Opera Theater, Oregon Bach Festival, and Siena Summer Music Festival.

Since 2010 Mr. Fusco has been music director for ¡Figaro 90210!, the critically-acclaimed, modern adaptation of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro by Vid Guerrerio.

The New York Times hailed, “Raphael Fusco led with verve and precision,” while Plácido Domingo raved, “Figaro 90210 is hands-down the best opera update I’ve seen.”

He has performed as harpsichordist and pianist in Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, The Kimmel Center, Tuscia Opera Festival, Teatro degli Astrusi and other renowned venues. Praised “a lively player and fine improviser” by the Los Angeles Times, he has worked with world class artists and ensembles including Branford Marsalis, Daniel Rowland, American Ballet Theatre, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras.

He has received awards from the Alienor Harpsichord Competition, American Prize for Music, Bohuslav Martinu Composition Competition, and two artist residencies at the Piccola Academia di Montisi. Mr. Fusco holds degrees in composition and piano from the Mannes College of Music and completed studies at the Conservatorio G. Verdi di Torino, Vienna Konservatorium, and Paris Schola Cantorum.

www.raphaelfusco.com.

Daniel Isengart

Resident Stage Director & Performance Coach

A trained dancer, entertainer, director, and performance coach who helps singers to analyze, shape and master the physical aspects of their on-stage expressivity.

Born in Germany and raised in France and Germany, Daniel moved to New York City to become an entertainer. A noted specialist in the Franco-German Chanson repertoire of the early 20th Century, he has brought his multi-lingual one-man shows to Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, the BAM Café at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts, Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie Museum, the Neuberger Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Berlin’s Spiegeltent Bar Jeder Vernunft, and SF MOMA. He has hosted and directed numerous cabaret-style variety shows at venues around New York City and beyond, including The Museum of Modern Art, the Gershwin Hotel, the Playboy Casino in Cancun, and the Night Hotel in Times Square, where his weekly, multinational Foreign Affairs cabaret ran for over a year. Working with conductor Edwin Outwater, he has been featured as a solo artist with the concert:nova ensemble, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, and the Sun Valley Music Festival. More recently, Daniel has staged operas with the KWS, directed the 2020 winter concert series at Sun Valley Music Festival, and taught a Masterclass on the art of the Master of Ceremonies at the En Piste Circus School in Montreal. He has taught a course on the history of vaudeville and the cabaret art form at NYU and given Masterclasses at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Bard College, and Wilfrid Laurier University. His ultimate aim is to vitalize the classic recital art form as he coaches singers and performers in stage craft, interpretative skills, body language and mime.

Daniel serves on the advisory board of the award-winning series Living the Classical Life, hosted by Zsolt Bognár.

Glenn Morton

Artistic Director

Glenn Morton, a faculty member at New York’s three music conservatories, is proud to serve as the Artistic Director of all three Classic Lyric Arts Programs.

One of New York City’s most sought-after vocal coaches, he is honored to coach and mentor every singer and pianist attending Classic Lyric Arts workshops.

Mr. Morton currently serves on the faculties of Mannes College the New School for Music, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School, teaching courses in Italian Diction, French Vocal Literature, and Song Interpretation.

He received a Bachelors degree in piano performance from the Hartt School of Music and a Master of Music degree in collaborative piano from the Manhattan School of Music.

His work includes a wide variety of collaborations with companies such as the Opera Company of Boston, Tulsa Opera, New Orleans Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Santa Fe Opera, and Glimmerglass.

Mr. Morton serves as the founding Artistic Director of Classic Lyric Arts, Inc., a non-profit organization encompassing CLA Italy in Novafeltria, Italy, founded in 2009, and CLA France in the Périgord region of France, founded in 2012, providing advanced training in the techniques and traditions of French and Italian lyric music to emerging opera singers.

John Viscardi

Career Coach & Alumni Advisor

John Viscardi, alumnus of CLA Italy 2009 and CLA France 2014, lives in Philadelphia with his wife Molly and two children, Jack and Noa. Throughout his operatic career, Mr. Viscardi has performed with Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, New York City Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Opera Carolina. After a few years performing the tenor repertoire, Mr. Viscardi realized that his voice possessed a lower range, and he moved into the baritone repertoire, where his credits include the title roles in David DiChiera’s Cyrano at Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Carolina, Erich in Dear Erich at the New York City Opera, and a forthcoming Pelléas in Pelléas and Mélisande at Opera Southwest. In addition, he has sung Valentin in Faust at Michigan Opera Theatre, and Papageno in The Magic Flute at the Toledo Opera. It was his work as a high baritone that enabled him to free the upper part of his voice, and he is now a Lyric Tenor, studying a variety of roles, among them Don José in Carmen and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.

Mr. Viscardi is featured in collaboration with Glenn Morton on Brilliant Classics’ complete recording of the works of F.P. Tosti – available on Spotify and Apple Music. Mr. Viscardi’s performances with orchestra and in recital includes Carmina Burana with Opera Philadelphia, the Duruflé and Fauré Requiems, and Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs (the latter three in Carnegie Hall), Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center, and a recital of Tosti songs in Tokyo. Mr. Viscardi has appeared in both recital and concert at venues that include Carnegie Hall (New York), Geffen Hall (New York), Tokyo Opera City (Tokyo), Verizon Hall (Philadelphia) and Avery Fisher Hall (New York). Winner of both the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition and Concorso Internazionale F.P. Tosti, Mr. Viscardi is a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts and New York University.

A multi-faceted artist, Mr. Viscardi is incredibly experienced in running and growing a variety of organizations. He is the co-founder of ArtSmart, a national arts mentoring organization that empowers students in underserved communities to find their path through mentorship with paid professional artists. Additionally Mr. Viscardi is the creator of Heartbridge, an app that explores the dimensions of sight, sound, and touch, and how they coalesce within Live Streamed performances. The app uses the vibrating motor in a cellphone to make it vibrate in time with the artists’ heartbeat so that the audience can feel what the artist is experiencing. Mr. Viscardi also serves as a board member of The Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (PVLA).