Meet the Artists

• • 

  • Barlow Bradford, Conductor

    Barlow Bradford is an award-winning choral conductor….

• • 

  • Neely Bruce, pianist and composer

    Neely Bruce is the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. He is the composer of over 800 works, including operas, oratorios and other choral music, orchestral works, solo songs, seven documentary scores for public television, and some 14 hours of solo piano music. The gala luncheon “A Toast to Freedom!” will include a sneak peak of highlights from his dramatic oratorio, Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides — a work that has been performed in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, and is soon to be played in Salt Lake City and Jerusalem.

• • 

  • Michel Gill, César de Sousa Mendes, Narrator

    Actor Michel Gill, best known for portraying President Garrett Walker on House of Cards, is the son and grandson of Sousa Mendes visa recipients. Gill only learned of the Sousa Mendes connection recently, and, as a result, in profound gratitude, has committed himself to supporting the Sousa Mendes Foundation in any and every way he can. His credits include: Broadway A Man For All Seasons. Off-Broadway Speaking in Tongues (Roundabout), A Winter’s Tale (CSC), Naked (CSC), Othello (N.Y. Shakespeare Festival), Lincoln Portrait (Joyce Theatre), Da Caravaggio (MCC), Coyote Ugly (New York Theatre Workshop). Regional Over thirty plays in leading roles: Yale Rep., Long Wharf, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Folger, The Old Globe, The Huntington, Portland Stage, The Alley, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Pittsburgh Public Theatre. Film/TV Ray Donovan, House of Cards, Mr. Robot, The Get Down, Who Killed JonBenet, Forever, Person of Interest, The Good Wife, Law and Order CI, L.A. Law, Guiding Light, All My Children. The Juilliard School of Drama: 1985.

• • 

  • Neely Bruce, pianist and composer

    Neely Bruce is the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. He is the composer of over 800 works, including operas, oratorios and other choral music, orchestral works, solo songs, seven documentary scores for public television, and some 14 hours of solo piano music. The gala luncheon “A Toast to Freedom!” will include a sneak peak of highlights from his dramatic oratorio, Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides — a work that has been performed in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, and is soon to be played in Salt Lake City and Jerusalem.

• • 

  • Barlow Bradford, Conductor

    Barlow Bradford is an award-winning choral conductor….

• • 

  • Marina Harris, Soprano — “Angelina”

    Marina Harris has been praised by The San Francisco Chronicle for her “knockout combination of vocal power and expressive eloquence.” Recently, Ms. Harris garnered national attention as a last-minute replacement for Patricia Racette as Elena in Boito’s Mefistofele, the season opener for the San Francisco Opera. Her roles include Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Miss Jessel in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Arabella in scenes from Richard Strauss’ Arabella. The San Francisco Chronicle said about that performance, “Sopranos who can sing Strauss’ music this well are rare, and to be treasured.”

• • 

  • Gilad Paz, Tenor — “Salazar”

    Gilad Paz commands the stage “with great feeling whether being imperious or amorous,” and brings new life to every role with his energetic and nuanced performances. His latest performances include, among others, the role of Tony in West Side Story, the role of Coach in the newly-written BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera, Spalanzani & Nathanaël in Les contes d’Hoffmann, and the role of Rabbi Azrael in a premiere presentation of Joel Mandelbaum’s The Dybbuk.  His concert solos include Händel’s Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Missa Solemnis, Mozart’s Coronation Mass K.317, Bernstein’s Songfest, Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He also appeared as soloist in both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall.

• • 

  • Benjamin Sloman, Tenor — “Aristides”

    Benjamin Sloman is rapidly emerging as one of the most exciting young Australian tenors of his generation. He has studied in Italy and the United States under the tutelage of Gioacchino Li Vigni, Nicola Martinucci, and Salvatore Fisichella, and in 2013 and 2016 was awarded fellowships from the Mediterranean Opera Studio (Italy) for intensive study with opera luminaries Marcello Giordani, Pietro Ballo, Mariella Devia, Jennifer Larmore, and Giuseppe Filianoti.  In 2012 he became the first Australian to sing in a fully staged operatic production in New York’s Central Park in a leading tenor role when he sang the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with the New York Grand Opera. Reviews of that performance described him as possessing a “brilliant tenor voice with torrents of golden sound” (La Voce Italiana).