PRESIDENT

Marianna Mott Newirth is a New York City librettist, playwright and creative producer who hails from an eclectic background of dance, theatre and bookbinding. Her numerous short operatic works, performed from Toronto to Munich, include: Blue Hum, Where is the Stillness and other works with composer Mike von der Nahmer; Transmission II with composer Rabbi Bronwen Mullin, Transportation Transformation a pastiche created with Richard Pearson Thomas for the New York Opera Alliance and WQXR radio; and Trudi’s World with composer Calvin Hitchcock. She wrote and produced a short experimental modern Baroque puppet opera, When Falling…Dive. Over the darkest days of Covid, she developed her first full-length opera touch with colibrettist/ composer Carla Lucero, commissioned by Opera Birmingham for a 2024 premiere.
Photo: Scott Newirth Photography

OPERA America Liaison

Vincent Covatto is the Senior Manager, Organizational Membership at OPERA America where he has been a main point of contact for 600 professional opera companies, associate organizations, universities, and related businesses for the last five years. He provides support to member companies, welcomes new organizations into the membership community, serves as advertising manager for the Opera America Magazine, secures sponsorship for OPERA America’s annual Opera Conference, and advises the executive committee of the New York Opera Alliance (NYOA). Vincent started working for OPERA America in 2015 in the National Opera Center. Prior to this, Vincent worked for the Houston Museum of Natural Science and at Houston Grand Opera in the organization’s community engagement arm, HGOco. Vincent earned a Bachelor’s of Music in Music Business from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam.

TREASURER & ENGAGEMENT

Chuck has been a participant in NYOA since basically its beginning and has served on the Executive Committee as treasurer from July 2015 forward. Along the way he has also served as the engagement chair and associate producer for NYOperaFest. He worked for Encompass New Opera Theater as production/business manager for 4 years before joining Indie Opera Podcast as Associate Producer in September 2016.

Opera has been a major part of Chuck’s life since early childhood when his parents would sing arias to him ands his twin brother or watch Kukla, Fran and Ollie Presents with them. From age thirteen forward, (when he was hired as an ass’t music director) he has worked a varied creative career encompassing composer, music director, arranger, vocal coach, producers assistant, production manager, front of house/box office manager. He has composed the scores to over thirty musicals and is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and an alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop.

MEMBER AT LARGE

Stephen Scovasso is a musicologist, conductor, director and author. He has directed Carmen, Tosca, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Il Trittico, Cosi fan Tutte,The Merry Widow, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Bernstein’s Candide.

In conjunction with SAS Performing Arts Company, he has directed 6 full length virtual streams including Dracula: The Radio Play, Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Stephen studied Operatic and Symphonic conducting under the tutelage of the late Vincent La Selva. he has conducted Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, Handel’s Messiah, Puccini’s Tosca, and Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Stephen has authored Puccini's Il Trittico and the Enigmatic end of Italian Opera, and will be reading his essay The Musical Worlds of Henry Mancini at the conference of Music and The Moving Image in May at New York University.

COMMUNICATION CHAIR

Peter Szep is a conductor and is the founder of the Indieopera Opera podcast, available on iTunes and indieopera.com. He has dedicated much of his career to championing new works, including the premier of Harold Farberman’s “Diamond Street,” at the Hudson Opera House, the New England premier of Ned Rorem’s “Our Town”, and right before covid Ben Yarmolinsky’s “The Constitution” at Vertical Player Repertory (vpropera.org), where he also conducted Yoav Gal's “The Dwarf,” “Il Tabarro,” “A View from a Bridge,” “Tales of Hoffman,” and Milhaud's "Medée". Other engagements have included guest conducting the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Yonkers Philharmonic, The Millay Sisters, "Burt Dow: Deep Water Man" and “The Singing Bridge” at the Stonington Opera House, and “The Littles” with Bagaduce Music. More recently, Peter has been teaching opera and cabaret with The Brooklyn Music School, and performing with Rachel Murdy and friends at Don’t Tell Mama and other cabaret venues.

SECRETARY

Cheryl Warfield is the founder and artistic director of Manhattan Opera Repertory Ensemble (MORE Opera), a New York City-based nonprofit vocal arts organization blazing a trail in culturally responsive musical programming and arts education. She has performed over 15 lead roles during her career, including the title roles of Tosca and Aida. Cheryl recently returned to NYC after appearing in Terrance Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, having previously debuted as Strawberry Woman in Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” She has performed internationally in Germany, Austria and Italy, on Broadway in “Showboat”, and in the extra chorus at the Metropolitan Opera for 15 seasons. Cheryl produces vocal programs on Black themes, including spirituals concert “Paul Robeson: A Celebration of Culture,” a one-woman show “Meet Dorothy Maynor,” about the founder of the Harlem School of the Arts, and “Dynamic Divas,” a tribute series to African American opera singers. An excerpt of her most recent project, “Angelitos Negros” about African American and Latino opera singers was showcased at NYOA Next.