Santa Fe Opera has named pianist and educator Kevin Murphy as Director of the Apprentice Program for Singers. Moreover, the company revealed that longtime Chorus Director Susanne Sheston will take on the newly created role of Associate Director.
Murphy currently serves as Professor of Music in Collaborative Piano and Director of Coaching and Music Administration at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a post he has held since 2011. He has also led the Singers Program at Ravinia’s Steans Institute since 2011 and previously held positions at New York City Opera and the Opéra national de Paris. Earlier in his career, Murphy became the first pianist and vocal coach to join the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, later serving as an assistant conductor at the Met from 1993 to 2006.
“Graduates” of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Programs for Singers and Technicians are active with opera, theater, and ballet companies around the world, as well as in the film and television industry. All credit the Apprentice Program as instrumental to their artistic growth and current career.
The Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program for Singers is internationally recognized as one of the finest programs of its kind. An apprenticeship at “America’s premier summer opera festival” offers unmatched opportunities for professional experience and international exposure.
We spoke to Susanne Sheston, the new Associate Director for the program. She is also the Chorus Director for the Opera. “As Chorus Director, I'm in charge of choosing the personnel for the choruses for all the shows that we're performing each season. There's quite a lot of planning that goes into that long before the season begins. I work with the artistic department and the company to decide how many people we need and what types of voices I would like to include in the ensemble. Then, of course, learning the music myself and teaching the music style to the performers when they arrive in Santa Fe.
Susanne says of the Apprentice Program for Singers, “The program for singers is an internationally renowned professional training initiative in Santa Fe designed for emerging vocalists who have recently completed their formal vocal studies. It's a program that was designed very early in the formation of the Santa Fe Opera in 1957 and baked into the company's DNA. This is a training program where young professionals from all over the country are auditioned and hired to come in as part of the summer festival. They have a number of professional assignments within the operas that we're producing, so they are covering or understudying all of the leading roles in the various operas that we produce. You'll see them performing secondary or supporting roles. They perform those in the main productions, and they also comprise the ensemble or the chorus as well, so they're on stage every night, and when you come to the opera you're seeing at least some of the apprentice artists performing.”
Since opera is written and performed in many languages, language instruction is an important part of learning and performing the music. Susanne tells us, “That's part of what we offer in the apprentice training program. We typically have language diction experts on the staff, and sometimes these coachings will take place in larger group settings. For example, we did Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky this past season, and that's in Russian, so all the singing is done in the Russian language. We had a Russian expert on the music staff who joined us for various rehearsals throughout the summer process. Then sometimes those same singers would get to work with her on an individual basis. So, we do have language experts in the group, and since the singers are communicating with the audience through the language, it is an important part of the of the training...that they feel natural within the pronunciation and expression of those languages.”
We also spoke with baritone Tzvi Bat Asherah, who was born and raised in Albuquerque. He was in the apprentice program in 2024 and 2026 and is now with the Houston Grand Opera. He told us, “I went to the university all throughout my childhood to participate in the choir through the UNM music prep school and did that from 5th grade through the end of high school. I was invited to join the opera choir at UNM Chorus as part of the production that they were doing while I was still in high school. I decided then to pursue music as my undergraduate degree. In 2023, during my junior year, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in an audition for the auxiliary chorus of Santa Fe Opera’s production of The Flying Dutchman. They needed extra low voices for their chorus, as it's a very bombastic, big show.”
I was invited back as a full apprentice that summer right after finishing my senior year at UNM, and then moved out to Houston for my master’s degree at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, where I just finished that degree. I took a year off from the apprentice program at Santa Fe just to grow and hone some stuff in my own time, and then I came back this past summer and had a blast for my second apprentice summer at Santa Fe. It was really a wonderful experience, and I met a lot of really great colleagues, and I learned a lot more about what I need to do. I'm now entering the professional hemisphere and starting my journey here at Houston Grand Opera in the Butler Studio.
Tzvi has fulfilled the aim of Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program for Singers...transition from academic studies to a professional operatic career.
The performance calendar and ticket information for The Santa Fe Opera are on their website: https://www.santafeopera.org/
The Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program for Singers is internationally recognized as one of the finest programs of its kind.
This is a training program where young professionals from all over the country are auditioned and hired to come in as part of the summer festival.