Denise Gamez – Alto / Mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Denise Gamez regularly sings recital, oratorio and symphonic repertoire with orchestras throughout the United States and abroad.  She has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis, San Francisco Opera, Toledo, South Dakota, Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, Terre Haute, and Wheaton College symphony orchestras, and twice performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica under the baton of John Nelson, most recently in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis this past November.  She has collaborated with other conductors including Patrick Summers, Dennis Russell Davies, David Bowden, Delta David Gier, Sherrill Milnes, and Daniel Sommerville in repertoire including Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the Verdi Requiem, Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, the Brahms Alto Rhapsody, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the Bach Saint Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas.  At the Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera, where she received the Gropper Memorial Award, she sang Dame Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff, and Fidalma in Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage.  She was mezzo soloist in the premiere of Daniel Kellogg’s Children of God, commissioned by the Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation.  In recent seasons, she has been a frequent guest artist at the Peoria Bach Festival, operatic and Broadway selections with the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the MasterWorks Festival Orchestra, and the Bach Saint John Passion with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra.  Recently, she appeared as Mrs. Noye in the Wheaton Opera Music Theater production of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde.  A frequent recitalist with pianist Daniel Paul Horn, she is a graduate of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and the Indiana University School of Music, and is currently a member of the voice faculty at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.

Timothy Bentch – Tenor

Tenor Timothy Bentch was raised on a farm in Missouri. His first singing experiences took place in the local Mennonite church and practicing scales on the tractor and in the silo but eventually led him to a master’s degree at the acclaimed Curtis Institute of Music. For twelve years he lived in Hungary where critics referred to him as “a treasure in today’s Hungarian musical life”, naming him the most significant “Hungarian” lyric tenor of this generation. He has sung at all the leading venues in this country appearing before presidents and prime ministers with many television appearances and radio broadcasts. At the Hungarian State Opera he premiered new productions as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Belmonte in The Abduction, Nencio in L’Infeldelta delusa by Haydn and the Evangelist in a semi-staged version of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. Other roles with the Hungarian State Opera include Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte, Tamino in The Magic Flute, Tito in La Clemenza di Tito, and Alfredo in La Traviata. His performed opera repertoire of over 40 roles also includes such roles as Mozart’s Mitridate, Nemorino in L’Elisir d’amore, Edguardo in Lucia, Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Ismaele in Nabucco, Fenton in Falstaff, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, four roles in operas by Benjamin Britten, and numerous baroque operas – Jupiter in Semele, Nero in The Coronation of Poppea, Monteverdi’s Ulyssis, and Orfeo – a performance that marked the opening of the new theater in the Hungarian National Palace of the Arts in 2005. His performances have taken him to many other countries including the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, France, Malta, Israel, Russia, the UK, and Germany.

In symphonic repertoire, he has performed the entire standard repertoire from renaissance and baroque to the large works of Mahler and Verdi. Highlights have included the Evangelists in the Bach Passions, the Dream of Geronius by Elgar, and Mahler’s 8th Symphony which he recorded for Naxos. This recording was lauded by critics winning the “Recording of the Month” by Sterophile Magazine. Bentch’s performance was described as “bright, confident, and heroic, and his “Blicket auf!” is stunning.” Another critic wrote, “Bentch’s top B-flats and Bs are as heroic as his sweet singing is sweet. His “Blicket auf,” a moment that can cause fear and trembling, is stirring in all the right ways.” A recent review in the BBC Music Magazine praised Timothy Bentch’s “heroic tenor” as one of the saving graces of a recent recording of Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass with the Warsaw Philharmonic. He has sung with the philharmonic orchestras of Lille, Strasbourg, Avignon, Saint Petersburg, Sofia, Warsaw, the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, the Ars Nova Symphony in Chicago, and appears regularly with the Hungarian National Philharmonic. His most recent performance with the HNP of the Britten War Requiem was critically acclaimed and broadcast live on national radio. He has sung under the batons of Zoltán Kocsis, János Fürst, Ádám Fischer, Tamás Vásáry, János Kovács, John Nelson, Jean Claude Casadesus, Antoni Witt, György Vashegyi, and Valentin Radu.

Timothy is the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Crescendo Summer Institute. He is active as a voice teacher and his former students sing in many of the leading opera houses of Europe. He also enjoys scriptwriting. His recent script was a quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicolls Fellowship in Screenwriting Competition sponsored by the Academy Awards.