CCM shares 2024 alumni and distinguished service awards

Navajo pianist and composer Connor Chee (b. 1987) is known for combining his classical piano training with his Native American heritage. Chee made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 12 after winning a gold medal in the World Piano Competition. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, Chee’s solo piano music is inspired by traditional Navajo chants and songs.

Chee has released 5 studio albums of original pieces and piano transcriptions of Navajo music. The Navajo Piano won Best Instrumental Recording at the 16th Annual Native American Music Awards, and his piece “Beginnings” won Best New Age Song. The Navajo Piano (Revisited), features new recordings of his original 15 compositions from 2014, as well as recordings of the traditional songs they were based on. Chee’s 2020 release, Scenes from Dinétah, features piano pieces written about elements of Navajo life and culture. It was accompanied by the release of several music videos filmed on the reservation, directed by Navajo filmmaker Michael Etcitty Jr. Chee’s most recent release, Across the Desert: The Long Walk Home, stands as a musical tribute to the Navajo people’s journey through adversity and the triumphant return to their cherished ancestral lands.

Brian Raphael Nabors (b. April 10, 1991, Birmingham, AL) is a composer of emotionally enriching music that tells exciting narratives with its vibrant themes and colorful harmonic language.

Nabors' music has been performed by the Boston, Atlanta, Nashville, Cincinnati, Detroit, Fort Worth, and Munich Symphonies among others. His music has been performed at many events internationally, including the Lucerne and Helsinki music festivals, National Orchestral Institute (NOI), Aspen and Tanglewood Music Festivals.

Upcoming projects and premieres in ‘24-25 include the world premiere of a chamber ballet (Black Iris Project), Choir and chamber orchestra arrangement for Carnegie Hall (Mid-America Productions), Co-Commissioned premiere with Seattle Symphony, and a concerto for orchestra with Chineke! for premiere at Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany. 

Nabors earned a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degree in Composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and a Bachelor of Music Theory & Composition degree from the School of the Arts at Samford University.

Soprano Melody Moore is enjoying a thriving career on the world’s leading stages, prompting  Opera News to label her “a revelation,” and of her sold-out appearance at Carnegie Hall to rave, “As I left the auditorium, I could only think: more of Moore, please.”

Ms. Moore enjoyed a triumphant return to LA Opera during the 2021-2022 season, repeating her tremendous success in the role of Amneris in Verdi’s Aida opposite Latonia Moore in the title role and tenor Russell Thomas as Radames. Concert highlights of the season included Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Juraj Valčuha and the Mother in Hansel and Gretel with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with Sir Donald Runnicles at the helm. The season also saw the release of Moore’s interpretation of the title role in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (available on Pentatone), and the recording of a critically acclaimed concert of Puccini’s Tosca, captured live in Berlin, Germany. Ms. Moore continues to remain active in the recording studio throughout the season, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of legendary soprano Renata Tebaldi with an album featuring selections from the Italian repertoire for which she was most famous (to be released in 2023), and singing Kathie/Linford in the world premiere recording of Gordon Getty’s opera, Goodbye, Mr. Chips. In the fall of 2022, Moore will make a much-anticipated return to San Francisco Opera as Mère Marie in the Olivier Py production of Dialogues des Carmélites.

Despite a number of postponements and cancelled productions due to COVID closures, the 2020-2021 season offered Ms. Moore an opportunity to focus on recording projects, and that season’s resulting releases of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West (both released on the Pentatone label) have been widely praised by reviewers and consumers alike.

Highlights of the 2019-2020 season included her debut as Amneris in a new production of Aida at the Houston Grand Opera. Concert highlights included her debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Das klagende Lied under the baton of Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

In the 2018-2019 season, Ms. Moore returned to Houston Grand Opera to reprise the roles of Senta in the season opening production of Die fliegende Holländer led by Music Director Patrick Summers, and Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in a new production by Kasper Holten, and returned to LA Opera for a role debut as Gertrude in Hänsel and Gretel under the baton of Music Director James Conlon. On the concert stage, she debuted with the Dresdner Philharmonie in the roles of Giorgetta in Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, both of which were recorded for commercial release by Pentatone. Ms. Moore also sang Senta with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Edo de Waart, enjoyed a debut with the Grant Park Music Festival for Delius’ A Mass of Life, and sang the title role in Salome in Daegu, South Korea. In the 2017-2018 season, Moore made three major role debuts: Elisabetta in Don Carlo at Washington National Opera; the title role in Salome at Florida Grand Opera; and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin at Hawaii Opera Theatre, as well as singing her signature roles of Tosca in a return to Opéra de Montréal and Senta in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer in a new production by Tomer Zvulun at The Atlanta Opera.  Her portrayal of Desdemona in a full recording of Verdi’s Otello was also released by Pentatone.

Other recent career highlights include a house and role debut at Seattle Opera in the title role of Janáček’s Kátya Kabanová; appearances with San Francisco Opera in the title role of Tosca, Susan Rescorla in Heart of a Soldier, Mimì in La bohème, and the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro; Houston Grand Opera as Julie in Show Boat, Marta in the American premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger, the title role in Carmen, Dorabella in Così fan tutte; Washington National Opera as the title role of Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, Phillip Glass’ Appomatox, and in Francesca Zambello’s highly acclaimed production of Wagner’s full Ring cycle; LA Opera as Tosca, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and in productions of Der Zwerg and Der Zerbrochene Krug; Opéra de Montréal as Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly; Glimmerglass Festival as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth and Senta in Der fliegende Holländer; Lincoln Center Festival in The Passenger; English National Opera as Mimi and as Marguerite in Faust; New York City Opera as Rita Clayton in the New York premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon and as Regine St. Laurent in Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna; and Austin Lyric Opera as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer. Additional performances include the title roles of Manon Lescaut at New Orleans Opera, Tosca with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Opéra de Bordeaux; and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with The Atlanta Opera and Opera Colorado.

On the concert stage, Ms. Moore has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Bruckner’s Te Deum led by Music Director Donald Runnicles; Bard SummerScape Festival as the title role in Turandot; Bavarian Radio Symphony in performances and a recording of excerpts of Gordon Getty’s opera, Plump Jack, conducted by Ulf Shirmer and with the New Century Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.  She has joined Rufus Wainwright for gala concerts at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.

A Masters of Music graduate of the UC College-Conservatory of Music, Melody Moore is a former Adler Fellow of San Francisco Opera and an alumni of the prestigious Merola program.