Schwab Vocal Rising Stars

Soprano Shiyu Zhuo, a native of Zhejiang, China, is an incoming Artist Diploma student at The Juilliard School, where she is currently pursuing a Graduate Diploma under the guidance of Amy Burton.

In the 2026–2027 season, Ms. Zhuo will appear as Nannetta in Falstaff. During the summer season, she will join Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as a Gerdine Young Artist, performing Isabel in The Pirates of Penzance, covering Mabel, and covering Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire.

In the 2025–2026 season at Juilliard, she will appear as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Juilliard Orchestra. In the previous season, her performances included Norina (scenes) in Don Pasquale, Une Pastourelle in L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Handel’s Cecilia, volgi un sguardo at Alice Tully Hall, as well as covering Despina in Così fan tutte.

Ms. Zhuo holds a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where her operatic roles included Musetta in La Bohème, Calisto in La Calisto, and Suzel in scenes from L’amico Fritz. Additional appearances include Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel at the Musikverein Wien with the Vienna Opera Academy and featured soprano soloist in Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the NEC Philharmonic.

A prize-winning artist, Ms. Zhuo is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition (East Region), Second Prize winner of the Opera Index Competition, and First Prize winner of the Korea–China International Music Competition.

Anna Maria Vacca, a New York City–based mezzo-soprano, is thrilled to be a 2026 Schwab Vocal Rising Star with Caramoor. She has just completed the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera in 2025, covering the role of Ragonde in Le Comte Ory, performing Smeton from Anna Bolena and Ines from Il Trovatore in the Schwabacher Summer Concert, and Sesto in Giulio Cesare at the Grand Finale at Merola.

Anna Maria made her professional debut performing the role of Carmen in La Tragédie de Carmen with New Camerata Opera in New York City in 2024. Her previous credits include the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Ramiro in La Finta Giardiniera, L’Enfant in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Jean in Le Portrait de Manon, Ljubicia in Svadba, and Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte. Her scene work includes Mother from The Tales of Hoffman, Olga from Eugene Onegin, Leonora from La Favorita, Octavian from Der Rosenkavalier, Alisa from Lucia di Lammermoor, and Maddalena from Rigoletto.

She received an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in the New York District in 2023 and 2024, received the Third Prize in the annual Alan M. and Joan Taub Ades Vocal Competition at Manhattan School of Music, and was a Semi-Finalist in the Palm Springs Opera Guild Vocal Competition in 2025.

Anna Maria received her Master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music in 2024, and completed her undergraduate degree with honors at MSM in spring of 2022. She is also an alumni of the Voice Fellowship program at Tanglewood Music Center and the Young Artist program at Chautauqua Opera Conservatory. Anna Maria studies under the tutelage of Jonathan Beyer.

Nathan Romportl, tenor, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a master’s student at The Juilliard School where he studies with Darrell Babidge. This year at Juilliard, Romportl appears as Bardolfo in Falstaff, a Liederabend curated by Faith Esham, and in New York Festival of Song at Juilliard. At Minnesota Opera, he appeared as Benvolio in Roméo et Juliette, Hue in the world premiere of Jocelyn Hagen’s The Song Poet, and in productions of La bohème, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, and The Daughter of the Regiment. Through Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative, he also participated in workshops for The Song Poet and B.E. Boykin’s My Name is Florence. He was a finalist in the 2025 Carolyn Bailey Argento Vocal Competition. Previously, Romportl worked as an industrial designer and holds a degree from the University of Minnesota in product design.

Korean-American baritone Will (June Young) Kim, born in 1996, received his BM from IU Bloomington in composition with a minor in voice, studying with Peter Volpe. He holds a Master’s in Composition from HMT München and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Composition from HMDK Stuttgart. In 2026, he completed a Master’s in Voice (emphasis on contemporary music) at HMDK Stuttgart as a student of Yeree Suh and Angelika Luz. From 2026 to 2028, he will be an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies student at The Juilliard School, studying under Darrell Babidge and Stephen Wadsworth.

Recent engagements include Bach’s oratorio works with Jos van Veldhoven and Hans-Christoph Rademann in Stuttgart; Bach’s “Coffee” Cantata in Prangins; a production of La Traviata in Sulz am Glatt; and Die Fledermaus in Tübingen. Engagements for contemporary music include concerts in Stuttgart, Bonn, Halberstadt, Graz, and Milan. As a 2025 Tanglewood Fellow, he performed as a soloist with Harry Christophers & The Sixteen, gave recitals of traditional and contemporary repertoire, and portrayed the Clock in Ravel’s L’Enfant. In January 2026 he sang at Carnegie Hall as part of the SongStudio program. This summer, he will be singing Germont in La Traviata and David in Babel 46 at the Opera Company of Middlebury, as well as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Sander in Zemire et Azor at the Berkshire Opera Festival.

Luis Villarreal is one of the most relevant Mexican pianists of his generation. Born in Monterrey, he graduated cum laude from the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey in 2020, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School in New York City.

He has been invited as a Collaborative Artist in a wide range of concert programs and festivals, including Italian Opera 200 (Juilliard–Columbia University, 2025), The New Series: Pride Songbook, Vol. 2 (Juilliard, 2025), The New Series: Schoenberg and Beyond (Juilliard, 2024), Sonatenabend Series (Juilliard, 2024–25), Liederabend Series (Juilliard, 2024–25), Festival Internacional de Flauta La Superior (Monterrey, Mexico, 2022), Festival Internacional de Violonchelo de León (Leon, Mexico, 2022), Monterrey Summer Opera Academy (2022), and Axixic Haus der Musik Festival (Jalisco, Mexico, 2023), among others, performing with world-class musicians. As a solo pianist, he has performed with several orchestras, including works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Gershwin, under the baton of conductors such as Felipe Tristán and Roberto Hernández.

Villarreal has won awards from important competitions including the Angélica Morales Piano Competition (Mexico City, 2019), Parnassós Piano Competition (Monterrey, Mexico, 2018), and Claudio Herrera Piano Competition (Durango, Mexico, 2018). In 2016, he took part in the International Summer School of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 2023, he received a full scholarship to attend the intensive Conducting Workshop by the Vincerò Academy under the guidance of maestro Enrique Diemecke.

From 2022 to 2024, he was the Assistant Music Director, Rehearsal Pianist, and Arranger in the musical theater company of the ITESM (Tecnológico de Monterrey), known for casting and producing some of the highest-level musical theater in the north of Mexico. He was in charge of several musicals, playing and sometimes conducting in every stage of the production. He has performed with several orchestras and was Principal Pianist of La Súper Orquesta Filarmónica de la Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey from its foundation until 2024. He also performed as the orchestra pianist with The Juilliard Orchestra in the 2025 season. Additionally, he holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey, and holds the National Excellence Award by CENEVAL, which carefully evaluates and awards only a few engineers from all over Mexico.

Steven Blier is the Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which he co-founded in 1988 with Michael Barrett. Since its inception, he has programmed, performed, translated, and annotated more than 170 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning five centuries of art song and popular music. New York Magazine gave NYFOS its award for Best Classical Programming, while Opera News proclaimed Blier “the coolest dude in town.”

In November 2025, Norton Books published Blier’s memoir, From Ear to Ear: A Pianist’s Love Affair with Song. It was chosen as a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year.

Blier’s recital partners have included Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, and José van Dam, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to La Scala. He has premiered works of Corigliano, Moravec, Rorem, and Bolcom, many of which were commissioned by NYFOS.

A Juilliard faculty member, Blier has had many students who have gone on to become valued recitalists and international opera stars, including Julia Bullock, Sasha Cooke, Paul Appleby, and John Brancy.

Blier launched NYFOS Records in 2021. Its latest release is the Grammy-nominated Schubert / Beatles, with baritone Theo Hoffman. Blier’s extensive discography also includes the Grammy-winning premiere recording of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International).

A native New Yorker, Blier received a BA with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, studying piano with Alexander Farkas. He completed his musical studies in New York with Martin Isepp and Paul Jacobs.

A graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, Bénédicte Jourdois is currently on music staff at the Metropolitan Opera and on faculty at The Juilliard School.

Jourdois has performed in numerous venues in Europe and in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

As a coach and pianist, she has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Lyric Ryan Opera Center, Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Saratoga, Rice University, the Chautauqua Institution voice program, the Castleton Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio. She was a faculty member at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2016 and at the Manhattan School of Music from 2011 to 2018.

Born in Paris, Jourdois holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint-Maur, the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Lyon, Mannes College, and The Juilliard School.

Inaugurated in the spring of 2009, Vocal Rising Stars is Caramoor’s mentoring program focusing on vocal chamber music and the art of song in recital. Singers at the advanced student and beginning professional level are invited to Caramoor to participate in an intensive week-long residency for daily coaching, rehearsals, and workshops with mentor Steven Blier and guest teaching artists.

At Caramoor, we believe that the work leading up to a performance is of equal if not of greater importance than the concert itself and will have a lasting impact on the growth and development of young artists. Vocal Rising Stars provides singers with an opportunity to form collaborative partnerships with one another, the Caramoor staff, and the coaches who also participate in the residency.

The program also includes a young pianist, who also gains experience and training in the art of vocal accompaniment, while expanding their knowledge of the repertoire. Since its inception, the program has received funding from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists. Created in memory of long-standing Caramoor trustee Terrance W. Schwab by his family, this endowment fund is designed to nurture and support the artistic development and careers of young vocalists outside of the operatic repertoire.

In 2012, the program was renamed the Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, to honor his memory and the Schwab family’s ongoing commitment to this important program. To make a contribution to the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program or to the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists, please contact Kevin Taylor at 914.232.6429 | kevin@caramoor.org or donate here.