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2024 Judges
Anthony Roth Costanzo
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of
11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, lm, and on Broadway. As of June 2024, he
is the General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia. Costanzo has appeared with many
of the world’s most prestigious companies including the Metropolitan Opera, PAC NYC,
Versailles, Madison Square Garden, The Guggenheim, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco
Opera, Opera National de Paris, Teatro Real, New York
Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony,
Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, Berlin Philharmonic, NDR at the Elbphilharmonie in
Hamburg, and the London Symphony Orchestra, among others. His performance in the title role
of The Metropolitan Opera’s Akhnaten won him a 2022 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording.
As a producer, he has created projects for, The New York Philharmonic (including their
Bandwagon Initiative), The BBC Proms, WQXR, and St. Ann’s Warehouse among others. Costanzo
was nominated for an
Independent Spirit Award for his performance in a Merchant Ivory lm and graduated with
honors from Princeton University, and Manhattan School of Music, where Makers Award from
the New York Historical Society, and has been a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a
distinguished visiting scholar at Harvard University.
Jason Hardy
Jason Hardy, Knoxville Opera’s General Director and CEO,
served previously at Opera Memphis and Opera Delaware.
Before this work, Hardy had an 18-year career as an
operatic bass, singing leading roles in many of the
country’s most prestigious opera and concert halls.
Mr. Hardy received a Master’s Degree and Artist Diploma
from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins
University after his studies in business and music at
Emory University. Her is a graduate of Leadership
Knoxville’s agship program, OPERA America’s Leadership
Intensive Program, and currently serves on the board
of OPERA America.
Rachelle Jonck
Rachelle Jonck is a vocal coach based in New York City specializing in the historic tradition of
the bel canto style of singing. She received her musical training at the conservatory of the
University of Stellenbosch majoring in both piano and musicology. For her contributions to opera
in South Africa, she was awarded a FNB/Vita award and the Nederburg Opera Prize – South
Africa’s premier opera award. She moved to the United States in 1998 as Head Coach of Bel
Canto at Caramoor. She served on faculty at Manhattan School of Music and Westminster
Choir College and has been a visiting coach at universities across the United States. In addition
to her two decades at Caramoor she taught at Palm Beach Opera's Benenson Young Artist
Program and The Steans Institute at Ravinia. During the COVID-19 pandemic she established
Bel Canto Boot Camp - now a non-profit organization striving to make high level teaching
accessible to everybody breaking the often prohibitive barriers of distance, cost, time, and
audition-only programs. BCBC’s signature course, The Vaccai Project, explores the bel canto
style through the lens of the classic lessons of Vaccai. It sells worldwide through Amazon. In the
Spring of 2024 Rachelle embarked on an extensive European coaching tour which included a
master class and coaching at Guild Hall in London, a workshop in Berlin, and coaching singers
at Stuttgart Opera, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Stadttheater Bern and Dutch National Opera.
rachellejonck.com belcantobootcamp.com