University of Miami Ensemble Artist Program

Seraphic Fire’s Ensemble Artist Program at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music and University of Miami’s Frost School of Music provides season-long vocal ensemble training to undergraduate and graduate voice students. Participating artists are chosen through competitive auditions through their school’s choral programs. This collaboration aims to help emerging professional singers discover outlets for professional employment while fulfilling Seraphic Fire’s educational mission to encourage the occupational advancement of musicians.

Participating students are invited to perform alongside the professional ensemble in subscription concerts across South Florida.

University of Miami and UCLA students will join Seraphic Fire in April 2022 for our 20th Anniversary concert, First | Last. See Seraphic Fire Magazine Volume 4, Issue 2 for more information about UCLA Ensemble Artist Program participants. Learn more at SeraphicFire.org/Education

Chris Alfonso is a Miami-born, CubanAmerican tenor for whom music has been a part of their entire life. Chris is now a senior vocal performance major at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Chris made their opera debut as Bill from Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge during the Frost Opera Theater Spring 2021 production, “Masquerade”, and can continue to be seen performing in engagements all across Miami. They will be playing the roles of Basilio and Don Curzio in Frost Opera Theater’s upcoming spring production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and the role of Stan in Florida Grand Opera’s community outreach productions of Stone Soup

Scott AuCoin is a conductor, performer, and composer of choral music. He served as Choir Director at Marriotts Ridge High School in Maryland before pursuing his graduate studies in choral conducting at Westminster Choir College and the University of Miami. Scott is in his final year of study for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree studying under Dr. Amanda Quist. He currently serves as the Associate Conductor of the Master Chorale of South Florida and recently conducted a performance of James McCarthy’s

Codebreaker: The Alan Turing Story in a collaboration between the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the Master Chorale of South Florida as a part of his final doctoral project.

Jamie Bunce, mezzo-soprano, is a conductor, singer, and arranger who served for thirteen years as a high school choral director in her home state of New Jersey before moving to Miami to pursue her DMA in choral conducting. She has served as Associate Director of the Princeton Girlchoir, conductor of the Wagner College Treble Choir, and assistant director of Miami Collegium Musicum, and has been featured in Chorus America for bringing early music into the high school choral classroom. Ms. Bunce holds degrees in music education and choral pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She is in her third year as a DMA candidate in choral conducting at the University of Miami Frost School of Music.

David Caldarella is a composer and vocalist at the Frost School of Music in Miami, FL. Caldarella furthered his study of music at the ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, along with private composition lessons with

Polina Nazaykinskaya. Caldarella also studied with pianist-composer Michael Brown, and later conductor Alasdair Neale, as a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Composer Project. Presently, Caldarella studies composition at the Frost School of Music. Many of his choral works, such as Mantra and Domine Deus, have seen world premieres with Frost choirs.

Julia Izquierdo is a twenty-year-old soprano pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music education at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. She currently studies opera under worldrenowned baritone Kim Josephson. Julia has performed in churches across the globe as a member of the Frost Chorale at venues such as St. Bartholomew’s Church in London and La Madeleine in Paris. Julia engages the congregation in song as the cantor at Saint Augustine Catholic Church and serves as music director for the University of Miami’s Catholic student organization.

Kyle Largey is a tenor hailing from Pleasantville, NY, with a background spanning choral, operatic, and musical theater repertoire. He is a junior studying music education at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Kyle is also the co-founder and baritone of the barbershop group The Spoons, which sees regular performances across campus. He is also a member of Frost Opera Theatre, and in 2022 was a chorus member for the world premiere of Michael Dellaira’s The Leopard He will be in their production of Le nozze di Figaro as a chorus member and cover for Basilio and Don Curzio.

Julia Pinn hails from the mountains of West Virginia where she received her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from West Virginia University. She is anticipating her graduation in May of 2023 from the University of Miami at the Frost School of Music with a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance where she studies with Robynne Redmon. She also worked on the debut and recording project of Matthew Heap’s Dillinger: An American

Oratorio, as a soprano soloist, and performed in the chorus of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. She made her role debut as Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in March 2023 with the Frost Opera Theater.

Nicole Plummer will receive her Bachelor of Music in May from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where she studies with Robynne Redmon. As a member of the Frost Opera Theater, Nicole has performed as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, La Soeur Cadette in Milhaud’s Les Malheurs d’Orphée, and has been seen in countless scenes programs. Most recently, she was selected as a winner of the Mirabell Competition and was seen in recital at the Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg, Austria. Nicole is a passionate student of the French language and pursued a secondary major in French during her time at Miami.

Sam Scheibe is an upcoming composer/ arranger, conductor, and performer of contemporary and traditional choral music. His music has been performed and commissioned by ensembles across the United States and the United Kingdom, with recent premieres by Anchorae, The West Jersey Chamber Music Society, The City of Palms Master Chorale, and The University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir. He received his undergraduate degree from Westminster Choir College, a Master’s degree in Composition from the University of Aberdeen, and is now pursuing a Master’s in Choral Conducting from the University of Miami, under the direction of Dr. Amanda Quist. Sam also sings professionally as a bass-baritone with the West Jersey Chamber Music Society and the Same Stream Choir.

Seraphic Fire’s Ensemble Artist Program is supported in part by

Seraphic Fire education programs are endowed in perpetuity by The Clinton Family Fund Education Endowment with generous additional support from The Hutson-Wiley Echevarria Foundation.