Juan del Bosco
President and Founder
Internationally acclaimed tenor, Juan del Bosco made his debut at Carnegie Hall and Apolo Theater in 2016 and has performed at Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City) and Lincoln Center in years past. Mr. del Bosco frequently performed for European media outlets and royalty. He also performed the Mexican National Anthem at Tennis’ Davis Cup. He won the José Mojica Price for the best tenor at Concurso San Miguel, one of the most prestigious competitions in Latin America.
The Mexican tenor Juan del Bosco has sung, the title role in Haydn’s Orlando Paladino, Riunuccio (Gianni Schicchi), King Artbano (La Dorichlea), The Duke (Rigoletto), Roméo (Roméo et Julieta), Faust (Faust), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Canio (I Pagliacci), and Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus).
Juan del Bosco is the Founder and President of International Summer Opera Festival of Morelia, which in its first year become the third largest Festival in Mexico. Mr. del Bosco is also the founder of Passion for the Opera, which will aims to support operatic vocal careers.
Luis Ledesma
Artistic Director
Baritone Luis Ledesma has established a reputation as a "rich and well controlled baritone (Opera News). He frequently portrays the heroes and villains of Puccini, Verdi and the bel canto masters as well as roles in recent new works in Spanish including Florencia en el Amazonas and El pasado nunca se termina. His operatic and concert career has advanced in Europe, the United States and South America and includes theaters such as Teatro alla Scala (Luisa Fernanda), the Liceu in Barcelona (Alphonse in La favorite, Riccardo in I puritani and Marcello in La bohème), Klangbogen Festival in Vienna (Leoncavallo's La bohème), Wexford Festival (Don Pasquale), Teatro Municipal de Santiago (Escamillo), Semperoper in Dresden (Marcello), several roles for Köln Oper (including Don Carlo and Germont), Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia), Bellas Artes in Mexico City (Marcello, Germont, and Escamillo ), Macau Festival (Sharpless), Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos (Marcello), Graz Oper (Escamillo), L’opera de Montreal (Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West), Manitoba Opera (Escamillo), Opera Lyra Ottawa (Tonio), the Philadelphia Orchestra (Marcello in a concert version of La boheme and Beethoven Nine) and the Savonlinna Opera Festival (Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Escamillo), Bucharest National Opera (Scarpia) and Hungarian State Opera (Alfio and Tonio).
In the United States, Mr. Ledesma has sung with many companies, including Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, Arizona Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Atlanta Opera, Santa Barbara Opera, Anchorage Opera, Santo Domingo, Madison Opera, Nashville Opera, Portland Opera, Indianapolis and Connecticut Opera, Opera Pacific, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Carolina, Memphis Opera, San Antonio Opera, New Jersey Opera, Minnesota Opera, Florentine Opera, and Hawaii Opera. He also sang two tours with Andrea Bocelli, performing in famous venues such as Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl, Hard Rock Café in Hollywood, Florida, and the Auditorio Nacional Mexico City.
Mr. Ledesma made his Carnegie Hall debut in the Faure Requiem and returned for Dvorak’s Te Deum. He has sung Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Mann Music Center with The Philadelphia Orchestra and with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He has performed a variety of orchestral repertoire including Mozart's Coronation Mass, Orff's Carmina Burana with the Louisville Orchestra, a series of Christmas concerts in Hannover with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and a Verdi concert presented in Die Alte Opera Frankfurt. He also performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the Filarmonica de Jalisco and Gala concerts with Tampa Opera and with Festival Cultural Zacatecas, and a solo with Festival Classique des Hautes-Laurentides in Mont-Tremblant, Canada. His concert performances include La bohème (Marcello) at the Vail Festival and the Mann Music Center with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Handel’s Messiah in Spain with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Asturias.
Danielle Orlando
Musical Director
Danielle Orlando is an accompanist to international opera singers and a vocal coach and artistic consultant to prestigious musical organizations throughout the world. She has appeared with esteemed singers in such venues as the Phillips Collection, Théatre du Châtelet, and Carnegie Hall; and for the United States Supreme Court, the Schubert Club, Vocal Arts D.C., Music at the Morgan Library, Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and many many more. She also appears in the documentary The Audition. Ms. Orlando has performed recitals for the Harriman-Jewell Series and has appeared at the Florida Opera and Astoria Music festivals, Festival Castell de Peralada (Spain), and Festival International Hautes-Laurentides (Canada).
Ms. Orlando served as accompanist, judge, and artistic coordinator for the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competitions and worked with Gian Carlo Menotti at the Festival dei Due Mondi for nine seasons. She was the artistic administrator and head of music staff for the Opera Company of Philadelphia and has served on the music staffs of the Metropolitan, Washington National, and San Francisco operas; Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; Dresden Semperoper; and Savonlinna Opera Festival.
Ms. Orlando is a guest judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a guest coach for the Domingo-Cafritz and Palm Beach young artist programs. Recent residencies include Curtis Summerfest, the University of Tennessee—Knoxville, and the Peking University Academy of Opera in Beijing. She lead master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in Summer 2018.
Ms. Orlando holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University, where she studied with Harvey Wedeen and Lambert Orkis. She also studied at the Eastman School of Music with David Burge. Ms. Orlando joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1986, and is also master coach at the Academy of Vocal Arts.
Jessica López Bautista
Administrative Manager
Originally from Morelia, Michoacán, she began her musical studies at the Center for Artistic Education (CEDART) "Miguel Bernal Jiménez". From 2011 to 2013, she received a scholarship at the Conservatory of the Roses with soprano Paulina Maciel. During this same period, she studied and completed the preparatory course at the
Popular Faculty of Fine Arts of the UMSNH, under the direction of Dr. María Dolores Zavala Esparza. She has participated in various singing courses and masterclasses with professors Beatriz Elena Martínez, Francisco Araiza, Octavio Arévalo, Rogelio Marín, Juan Carlos Navarro Cobian, Alejandrina Vázquez, Héctor Sandoval, Carlos Almaguer, Yvonne Garza, Marija Vidovic, Grace Echauri, Luis Chapa, Luis Ledesma, Genaro Sulvaran, María Magdalena Reyes, Germán Olvera, and Antonio Villagra.
As a soloist, she has participated in the show Evvo, the Threepenny Opera in Italian, The Assassination and Persecution of Jean Paul Marat, in the Opera Workshop "Ignacio Mier Arriaga": Le nozze di Figaro and La Traviata's Parties, accompanied by the UMSNH chamber orchestra. She participated in the 25th edition of the Morelia International Music Festival, the 5th Oaxaca International Opera Festival, and has performed in various venues in the state of Michoacán, as well as in Monterrey, Puebla, Coahuila, Querétaro, and at ISOFOM 2021 with the Michoacán Symphony Orchestra. She was a semifinalist in the Mexican Opera competition in its 2021 edition.
In April 2022, she participated in the premiere of the opera The Walker of Nazareth by Dominican composer Rafael D. Grullon in the role of María, mother of Jacobo, under the direction of maestro Jorge Lockward and the Tzintuni Philharmonic Orchestra at the Mariano Matamoros Theater in the city of Morelia.
Subsequently, she traveled to Orizaba, Veracruz to play the role of Bastiana, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of the High Mountains under the direction of maestro Gustavo Valencia Silva at the Ignacio de la Llave Theater. In November of that same year, she made her debut in the role of Violetta in La Traviata by G. Verdi, with the UMNSH chamber orchestra under the direction of Alejandro Sánchez Miyaki and Dr. Salvador Ginori Lozano.
She is currently preparing her bachelor's degree at the Popular Faculty of Fine Arts of the Michoacana University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, continues her training with maestro Antonio Villagra Polo, and is part of the team of the International Summer Opera of Morelia.
Gerardo de Jesus López Muñoz
Administrative Manager
Gerardo de Jesús López Muñoz was born in Morelia, Michoacán, and completed his Bachelor's degree in Music and Singing at the Popular Faculty of Fine Arts of the Michoacan University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, under the tutelage of Dr. Salvador Ginori Lozano. He has taken classes with some of the most distinguished Mexican opera singers, such as Dr. Francisco Araiza, tenor Octavio Arévalo, baritone Luis Ledesma, tenor Héctor Sandoval, baritone Genaro Sulvarán, tenor Luis Chapa, soprano Alejandrina Vázquez, soprano Ivonne Garza, soprano María Katzarava, among others.
He has participated in the stage productions of operas such as Tata Vasco by Miguel Bernal Jiménez, Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, La Serva Padrona by G. B. Pergolesi, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart, The Elixir of Love by Gaetano Donizetti, and La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi.
He has sung as a soloist in various festivals such as the Morelia Music Festival, the Morelia Organ Festival, the Oaxaca Opera Festival, the Morelia International Summer Opera Festival, among others. He is currently a professor at the Popular Faculty of Fine Arts of the Michoacan University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo.
Scott Timm
YAP Program Administrator/Webmaster
Scott Timm graduated from Ohio University in 1983 with a BFA in Dance. He spent the next decade dancing with professional companies in Columbus, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and New York City. Scott was on the faculty of Otterbein College, and served as guest artist at a number of universities, including Carlow College and Carnegie-Mellon University. He has choreographed works for a number of companies and festivals, and can still occasionally be seen dancing on reruns of the popular children's television program, "Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood."
Scott spent a year with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as Company Manager/Tour Manager, before moving to Miami Beach, where he worked for twelve years with First Union/Wachovia Bank’s Global Cash Management division, where, in 2003, he was named a Vice President.
In 2006, Scott joined the Miami Design Preservation League as Director of Programs and Outreach, working as an architectural historian, providing interpretation and outreach for the Miami Beach Architectural Historic District (better known as the Art Deco District). He later worked with the Miami Modern Business Improvement Committee, pursuing a special taxing district to revitalize a newly-established Mid-Century Modern historic district in the city of Miami.
In 2011, Timm returned to Pittsburgh to serve as Executive Director of Pittsburgh Festival Opera, which presents “old works, new works, and old works performed in new ways” in a summer festival format. PFO commissioned and presented a number of world premieres, with all productions performed in English, including an acclaimed reduced Ring Cycle (by Jonathan Dove) and operas by Richard Strauss, including “Ariadne auf Naxos,” “Capriccio,” “Die Schweigsame Frau,” “Intermezzo,” and “Arabella.”
In 2021, Timm acquired permanent residency in México and made Morelia his home.
