Benedetta Orsi, W. Mark Akin, Alla Voskoboynikova

Benedetta Orsi

Mezzo-Soprano

Italian mezzo soprano Benedetta Orsi, now resident in the United States, has been praised by Teresa Berganza as “perfect voice for belcanto”. In February 2022 Benedetta received the Paul Harris Fellow Award in Rome, as one of the 14 most influential Italian excellences, and only woman, to spread the Italian culture and art abroad. Recently, she was commissioned by the Florida Grand Opera to translate into Spanish the Italian comic opera Il Matrimonio Segreto by Domenico Cimarosa, for their 2022-23 season premiere.

As a recording artist, her latest album, INcanto, a collection of Italian arias and art songs produced for the international Swiss label BAM MUSIC, has been nominated at the Grammy Recording Academy and the Global Music Awards as Best Album, Best New release and Best Female Artist.

Both her previous productions, La Voix de l’amour, released for the International label Limen Music and Christmas Around the World, were awarded by the Global Music Awards in California with the Gold and Silver Medals as Best Albums and Best Female Artist.

Benedetta received her bachelor degree in in Music & Voice in 2008 from Istituto Pareggiato O. Vecchi & A. Tonelli in Modena, Italy, and a Master in Voice in 2009 from Regia Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna, Italy. She was selected as one of the ten best singers to attend Ms. Teresa Berganza’s masterclasses in León, Spain and after that she paired her studies with numerous master classes and stage workshops taught by opera luminaries such as Marilyn Horne, Mirella Freni, Luciana Serra, Sergio Bertocchi and stage director Chuck Hudson.

Mrs. Orsi has performed all three of Donizetti's Tudor Operas: Jane Seymour in Anna Bolena, Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda and Sara in Roberto Devereux with the Royal Opera Theater in Manchester, UK. Her performance credits include roles in Verdi Rigoletto, Falstaff, Trovatore, Bellini Norma and La Sonnambula, Rossini L’Italiana in Algeri and Il Turco in Italia and Massenet Werther. Recent performances also include Adalgisa in Norma with Winter Opera St. Louis, Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana with the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, the title role of Carmen with Winter Opera St. Louis and Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera with the Miami Lyric Opera.

Along with concert appearances at Carnegie Hall in NYC and throughout Italy, Austria, England, France, United States and Spain, she has performed with Boulder Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Festival Orchestra, Modena Jupiter Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica Emiliana, St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra, Gateway Festival Orchestra and Washington University SO.

Mrs. Orsi is a first prize winner of the Barry Alexander International Voice Competition (IVC) and First Prize and Star Performer Award in the American Protégé IVC; Third Prize Winner of the Roschel IVC and Audience & Orchestra Award in the Boulder Music Institute IVC. In her homeland, she received the Audience Award and Special Prize of the Italian Music Federation during the 28th International Piero Boni International Singing Competition.

Future European engagements include concerts for Le Moulin des Arts Festival in France, Accademia Musicale Europea in Naples, Italy, Fundacion Euthérpe in León and Valencia, Musical Arts Madrid in Spain. In Saint Louis, Benedetta will be featured by the Missouri Chamber Music Festival, the Magic House Gala at the Stifel Theatre, the World Chess Hall of Fame and the Sheldon.

W. Mark Akin

Guitarist

Award-winning classical guitarist W. Mark Akin is a St. Louis based musician who has engaged audiences across the country with his dynamic on-stage presence and musicality.

Mark has won prizes in numerous competitions such as the Wilson Center Guitar Competition in Wisconsin, Beethoven Club Competition in Memphis, the University of Arizona's Beeston Competition and Sholin Competition, and was a winner of the Artist Presentation Society of St Louis Competition. In June 2022 Mark was a Featured Artist for the Missouri Arts Council.

Originally from Tennessee Mark started his guitar studies by learning to play electric hard rock, idolizing guitarists such as Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Eddie Van Halen. After discovering the classical guitar in high school, he then decided to study the instrument full-time and subsequently received his bachelor's and master's degrees in guitar performance from Belmont University in Nashville, and the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has performed in master classes and taken lessons with some of the greatest guitarists in the world, namely Sergio and Odair Assad, Manuel Barrueco, David Russell, and Jason Vieaux, Olivier Chassain, Marcin Dylla, and Adam Holzman.

An active teacher, Mark has taught innumerable private lessons, is on faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, and also teaches with St. Louis Classical Guitar’s “Guitar Horizons” education initiative. This program establishes guitar programs in inner city public schools and schools in the greater St. Louis area. Mark is also the music director of the St. Louis Classical Guitar guitar orchestra.

Alla Voskoboynikova

Pianist

Alla Voskoboynikova performs extensively as a soloist and collaborator, regularly accompanying members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and coaching for the Union Avenue Opera Company as well as the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Since 2004, she has held the position of Director of Keyboard Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Before moving to the United States in 1996, Alla Voskoboynikova was a pianist and vocal coach at the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theater in Ukraine. She received her Bachelors Degree in Piano Performance from the Music College in Voronezh, Russia and her Masters Degree in Piano Performance from the Gnessins Academy of Music in Moscow, Russia. Her teachers were Oleg Milman and Lina Bulatova (student of Elena Gnessina and Henry Neihaus). Alla was an accompanist in the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1994 and has performed numerous solo recitals along with chamber music in several European countries.

Since moving to the United States, Alla's collaborations have included concerts with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concertmaster David Halen (violin), Melissa Brooks (violoncello), Heidi Harris (violin), John Sant' Ambrogio (violoncello), Savely Shuster (violoncello), the STLSO Trombones, Stella Markou (soprano), the Arianna String Quartet, and Marlissa Hudson (soprano). In 1998, she performed at Carnegie Recital Hall with flautist Brenda Hagni and in 2002, Alla performed Prokofiev's "Second Piano Concerto" with the Voronezh Philharmonic Orchestra and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Webster University Symphony Orchestra. In February 2004, Alla was the Russian coach for the St. Louis Symphony performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky and coached the St. Louis Symphony Chorus for the performance of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Vespers in November 2006. As a member of a duo, Alla performed John Adams' "Halleluiah Junction" with pianist Orli Shaham in 2008. In the past several years, Alla has organized a series of thematic chamber music recitals, including a commemoration of Dmitri Shostakovich's 100-year anniversary, a commemoration of Felix Mendelssohn's 200-year anniversary, and a piano and winds recital, among others.

Alla is a passionate teacher. Her students regularly perform at prestigious St. Louis venues such as The Sheldon Concert Hall, The Ethical Society of St. Louis, Powell Symphony Hall, Touhill Performing Arts Center, and others. They also participate in MMTA and MTNA Auditions as well as regional Concerto Competitions. For the year of 2012, Alla has organized a concert tour in Russia which will include a series of piano recitals in St. Louis' sister city of Samara. As part of a cultural exchange between the two cities, her students John Nuckols, Tom Winkler, Daniel Dickson, and Daniel Kuehler will perform at the Samara Philharmonic Hall and the Samara Social Humanitarian Academy.

Alla resides in St. Louis with her husband Ilya Litvin, Russian born trumpet player and teacher and their son, Boris.