Opera and Choral Program Faculty

Tom Zelle currently serves as Music Director of the North Park University Chamber Orchestra in Chicago. A native of Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Zelle received his initial musical training at the Luebeck Conservatory. There he earned the highest German degree in church music/organ performance. He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania, The Curtis Institute of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, Temple University, and the Universities of Hamburg, Mainz, and Munich. Mr. Zelle serves as the Principal Guest Conductor of the Sangrock Music Festival and as Artistic Director of the East West Music Festival in South Korea. He is a returning Guest Conductor of the South Korean Cantabile Orchestra located in Daejon. He has also served as Artistic and Music Director for the Phoenix Symphony Guild Youth Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the Lyric Opera Theatre at Tempe, and the Scottsdale Community College Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Zelle credits his artistic influences to the late Sergiu Celibidache, Ilya Musin, Mark Russell Smith, Henry Charles Smith, Charles Abramovic, Yohevid Kaplinsky and Knud Vad. In addition to his artistic and educational responsibilities, Mr. Zelle is active in music education research in the topic of phenomenology and music. He is also dedicated to the promotion and performance of 20th century and contemporary music.

Dr. Davids is a performer, educator, and conductor. As a soprano soloist, she is an avid performer, having appeared with the Amabile Youth Singers, the Ontario Youth Choir and the National Youth Choir, Opera Atelier, the Vancouver Cantata Singers, the Toronto Chamber Choir, the Toronto Consort, the Guelph Chamber Choir, the Aradia Ensemble, the Forces of Virtue, the Peninsula Music Festival, the Publick Musick and the Mark Morris Dance Company in Chicago.

As an educator, Julia has given workshops on vocal pedagogy with many groups, including the Royal Canadian Guild of Organists. As a conductor, Dr. Davids has directed several choirs including the Canadian Chamber Choir, the Northwestern University Women's Chorus, the Camerata Singers of Lake Forest, the 2006 Nova Scotia Youth Choir tour. In 2004, Davids took over from Iwan Edwards as the Artistic Director of Canadian Chamber Choir.

Davids serves as Director of Music Ministries at Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, Illinois. She is married to baroque violinist Martin Davids.

Currently Founder and Director of Orvieto Musica, Inc., an annual international chamber music festival in Italy and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Allegro Chorale and Orchestra in Texas, Nyela Basney has also recently appeared with the Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Opera Chicago. She goes to Bosnia this October to conduct the Sarajevo Philharmonic.

Miss Basney has had significant experience in the field of opera. For three years, she was staff pianist at the Juilliard School where she studied conducting with Vincent La Selva, "the best Verdi and Puccini conductor living today" (Opera Magazine). Recognizing her "extraordinary talent," Maestro La Selva appointed her Assistant Conductor and Chorusmaster for the New York Grand Opera, in which capacity she participated in 18 productions. Since 1982, she has provided professional role preparation and musicianship training for singers, in more than 55 roles from 25 operas. Most recently she served as Assistant Conductor for two productions with the El Paso Opera.

Miss Basney was invited by the United States Information Agency to serve as an Arts America Cultural Specialist in Uruguay in 1993 at the National School of Opera in Montevideo. In 1992 she was a fellow at the Conductor's Institute and was one of five conductors chosen to participate in the American Composers and Conductors Forum. In 1991 she served as Conductor and Opera Coach of the Sessione Senese per La Musica e L'Arte in Siena, Italy. Miss Basney conducted at the Aspen Music Festival in 1989 and 1990, where she assisted John Nelsonand premiered a work by Dan Welcher.