Get To Know Us
Nate Ben-Horin
Nate Ben-Horin is a Montreal-based pianist, composer, and vocal coach. He is an alumnus of UC Berkeley where he won the 2014 Austin F. William Prize in piano performance, and was subsequently hired as a staff accompanist and assistant choral director. He has participated in various opera training programs including the Lachine International Academy, the CoOperative Program, and the Highlands Opera Studio. He has worked widely with local singers and instrumentalists in the San Francisco area, as well as with West Edge Opera for several seasons as a repetiteur, harpsichordist, choir master, and promotional recitalist. A former solo student of Jeremy Denk, He recently completed a Master's degree in collaborative piano at McGill University with Michael McMahon and Stephen Hargreaves. His graduate studies were funded by fellowships from McGill and UC Berkeley.
As a composer, his pieces tend to be lyrical, often seeking to integrate classical, contemporary, and American folk traditions. His chamber music has been premiered and performed by Celli@Berkeley, members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and the “Drawing Lineage, Building Legacy” project under the auspices of the 2016 National Queer Arts Festival. It has also been featured multiple times in UC Berkeley's historic Noon Concert series. His teachers have included Montreal native Linda Bouchard, avant-garde jazz pianist Myra Melford, and Ken Ueno, who described his music as "compelling" in an interview with HocTok.com. His classical training is supplemented with longstanding experience as a folk musician, including several years as the official accompanist of the Jewish Folk Chorus of San Francisco and the Nigunim Chorus of Berkeley, where he created improvised accompaniments for arrangements of folk songs in Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Ladino.
Jaclyn Grossman
Hailed as an “exciting dramatic soprano” (Opera Canada) with a “command over a powerful range of expressive emotion” (The Whole Note), Jaclyn Grossman will make her debut next season as Freia in Das Rheingold with Edmonton Opera and join the Buffalo Philharmonic (USA) under JoAnn Falletta. Jaclyn is currently a resident artist with Pacific Opera Victoria’s Civic Engagement Residency, and recently completed a residencies as a member of the Rebanks Family Fellowship and International Residency Program with Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music and with the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme.
During the 2021-2022 season, Jaclyn performed excerpts of roles Krystyna in Two Remain, Helmwige in Die Walküre, Female Chorus in Rape of Lucretia, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Anne in Singing Only Softly, Littler Daughter in Proving Up, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at The Banff Centre’s Opera in the 21st Century program, and at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in the USA.
In August, Jaclyn performed the title role in Bas-Sheve by Henech Kon, a Yiddish opera in its North American premiere with the Ashkenaz Festival in collaboration with the Milken Center (UCLA), and Yiddish Summer Weimar. This season, recitals included the Schulich School of Music Alumni Series in Montreal, with the Canadian Opera Company’s concert series in Toronto. an appearance with the Chattanooga Symphony, and the cover for the role of Judith in Against the Grain Theatre’s production of Bluebeard’s Castle in Toronto.
A proud co-founder of Likht Ensemble, Jaclyn is passionate about sharing music by Jewish composers from the Holocaust. This season Jaclyn will curate and perform in the Shoah Songbook, a concert series with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, sharing music by Jewish composers from the Holocaust. Likht Ensemble recent shared recitals with Pacific Opera Victoria, Holy Blossom, the Royal Conservatory of Music, and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. This August, Jaclyn looks forward to performing the title role in Bas-Sheve by Henech Kon, a Yiddish opera in it’s North American premiere with the Ashkenaz Festival and Yiddish Opera Weimar.
Committed to her work with nonprofits, Jaclyn is the Creator and Facilitator of the Association for Opera in Canada’s Artist Development Programs. Jaclyn believes in fostering community and empowering artists to take control of their careers. Jaclyn is also the Founder of The Phoenix Leadership Project, a Canadian charity that promotes youth leadership education, and a Co-Founder of Tactical Creativity with Amplified Opera.
Jaclyn gratefully acknowledges her privilege to work and reside on the traditional territories of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinaabe Peoples, and the Treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit.