ABOUT US
The Hunter Opera Theater (HOT) is a college program that mentors singers and composers and resides at Hunter College, CUNY in New York City. HOT produces new works that provide unique opportunities for talented, young artists from all over the country. HOT’s biannual Richard Burke Pocket Opera Project supports the work of up-and-coming composers and librettists and fosters interdepartmental collaborations between Hunter students. In addition, HOT singers have the opportunity to work with some of the finest professionals in the business in our annual series of Master Classes with such artists as Martina Arroyo, Claudia Catania, Warren Jones, Andreas Scholl, Ira Siff, and Willie Anthony Waters. HOT alumni are engaged as performers in venues around the world from the Metropolitan Opera to festivals and opera houses in France, Germany, and beyond. Many alums have continued on to pursue doctoral degrees and work in higher education while others have made careers in arts administration and work as producers, directors, and more. HOT was founded in 2007 by Professor Susan Gonzalez and the late Professor Richard Burke, and is a proud partner with American Opera Projects as well as members of the NY Opera Alliance & National Opera Association.
ARTISTIC STAFF
Susan Gonzalez, soprano is Director of the Vocal Performance Program and the Hunter Opera Theater which has been showcasing fully staged productions of new works in the Kaye Playhouse since 2007. Among these include the premieres of Nicholas Flagello’s opera The Sisters, Richard Burke’s Game of Poker and The House as well as various student compositions featured in our Pocket Opera Project. As a singer, Susan has appeared in leading roles with numerous opera companies and symphony orchestras including the Chicago Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Lake George Opera, Eugene Opera, Dayton Opera, New Orleans Opera, and Bolshoi Opera. She most recently headlined at the Festival de Musique de Huy in Belgium, among performers ranging from classical singers to reggae artists. Susan received an Emmy nomination for the role of Rosina in il Barbiere di Siviglia filmed for television under the direction of Richard Pearlman. She has appeared as featured soloist in major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Annapolis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra. Some of her honors and awards include the Metropolitan Opera, the George London Foundation, Leonard Warren and Baltimore Opera Competitions as well as the Liederkranz Foundation and American Opera Association. Susan’s love of new works is reflected in her recordings of works by Nicholas Flagello, Ruth Schonthal, Elizabeth Fabregas and Elizabeth Austin on Naxos, Artek and Leonarda
labels as well as two projects for the ROUSSEL Foundation in Paris, France on the Azur label. She currently serves on the Artistic Advisory Council for American Opera Projects and is board member and New York State Governor for the National Opera Association. In addition she sits on Opera America’s Performer Development Forum.
Artistic Director/Producer
Winner of the 2019 Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, David Fulmer has garnered numerous international accolades for his bold compositional aesthetic combined with his thrilling performances. A Guggenheim Fellow, and a leader in his generation of composer-performers, the success of his Violin Concerto at Lincoln Center in 2010 earned international attention and resulted in immediate engagement to perform the work with major orchestras and at festivals in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and Australia. Fulmer made his European debut performing and recording his concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Matthias Pintscher in 2011. That same year, Fulmer made his debut at Tanglewood appearing with the work. A surge of recent and upcoming commissions include new works for the New York Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, BMI Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, Washington Performing Arts, Kennedy Center, Fromm Music Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, and Tanglewood.
As conductor, Fulmer recently led the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Elision Ensemble, Sydney Modern Music Ensemble, along with appearances at the New York Philharmonic Biennial, Tanglewood Music Festival, and Lucerne Festival. Recent and upcoming highlights include important debuts leading the Ensemble Intercontemporain, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, South Netherlands Philharmonic, and assisting concerts and projects with the New York Philharmonic. Fulmer made a triumphant return to the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra last season, which included a collaboration with IRCAM. This season he will return as Director, curator and conductor of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble in programs of 20th and 21st Century music, and continue his close collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble. Recently appointed as the Music Director and Conductor of the Hunter Symphony, Fulmer will lead the orchestra in his second season featuring the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Debussy, Schubert, and Fauré. He made his debut appearance in 2014 on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series at Walt Disney Concert Hall. During the summer seasons, Fulmer has led concerts at the Chamber Music Northwest Festival, and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
Fulmer was recently the recipient of both the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Carlos Surinach Commissioning Award from BMI. He is the first American recipient of the Grand Prize of the International Edvard Grieg Competition for Composers. He has also received the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the BMI Composer Award, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a special citation from the Minister of Education of Brazil, the Hannah Komanoff Scholarship in Composition from The Juilliard School, and the highly coveted George Whitefield Chadwick Gold Medal from the New England Conservatory. Fulmer appears regularly and records often with the premiere new music ensembles in New York, including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Argento New Music Project, Speculum Musicae, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the New York New Music Ensemble. His work has been recorded by the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He has appeared recently on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts. He graduated from The Juilliard School.
Music Director/Conductor
Pianist and conductor, CRIS FRISCO is a collaborative musician equally at
home in the worlds of classical and popular music. This season he conducts Independence Eve at Opera Birmingham, Glory Denied at Opera Fayetteville, and Le Nozze di Figaro at Opera Sonoma and is musical director for A Christmas Carol at the McCarter Theatre. He also serves as rehearsal pianist for productions at Kentucky Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He returns to New York’s iconic 54Below with tenor, Aaron Blake and partners singers in recital in New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Currently in development, he is the music director for Anatomiae Occulti’s contemporary dance production of Sweeney Todd. In past seasons he has been a music director and pianist for productions on Broadway, at the
Philadelphia Orchestra, McCarter Theatre Center, Walnut Street Theater,
Opera Birmingham, The Princeton Festival, The Theatre Outlet, Muhlenberg
Summer Theater, Passage Theater, and the Bucks County Playhouse.
A committed educator for the next generation of artists, Cris has served on the faculties of Westminster Choir College, Rutgers University, the Castleton Festival, The New School for Drama’s Summer Immersion Experience, the Westminster CoOPERAtive, the Opera Theater and Music Festival of Lucca, and Wichita State’s summer study program in Florence, Italy. He is also a member of the coaching and accompanying staff at the New School for Drama.
Cris maintains an active coaching studio in New York where he prepares
singers for performances with major opera companies, on Broadway, and in
major regional theaters and concert venues around the world. His clients
have recently been seen in productions at the Metropolitan Opera, San
Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Vienna Staatsoper, Bayerisches
Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Opera de Paris, Staatsoper Stuttgart, The Israeli
Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and New York City Opera; as well as the Broadway
productions of Waitress, School of Rock, Fiddler on the Roof, Groundhog Day, Oslo, The Crucible, Moulin Rouge, Dr. Zhivago, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hello, Dolly!, Gary, West Side Story, and The Band’s Visit; and the upcoming film versions of Cats and In the Heights
A sought-after pianist for rehearsals and classes, Cris has accompanied
rehearsals for Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Nathalie Stutzmann, Jane Glover, Steven White, and Cristian Macelaru; and collaborated in masterclasses with artists including Liz Callaway, Denis O’Hare, Judy Kuhn, Jason Butler Harner, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Claudia Catania, William Burden, and Suzanne Farrell.
Coach Collaborator