Refugee Orchestra Project

Dramatic soprano Zhanna Alkhazova has garnered recognition for her commanding voice, described as “effortless, with an exquisite ease,” distinctive sound, and captivating stage charisma. Heralded by Opera News for her “bright, sword-flashing sound,” in the title role of TURANDOT, she has earned accolades and acclaim for her memorable performances in a range of iconic roles. Of her performance in the title role as MANON LESCAUT, James Jorden of the NY Observer wrote that she “flaunted a cool, silvery soprano with a high C whose poise Anna Netrebko might envy. What’s more, she made the unlikely ‘love at first sight’ plot point in the first act utterly believable with the sort of beguiling flashing glances one reads about but seldom sees outside of an Ava Gardner film.”

In the 2025-2026 season, she makes her role and house debut in the title role of ADRIANA LECOUVREUR at Opera Festival of Chicago under the baton of Maestro Andrizzi and staging by Sasha Gerritson. Ms. Alkhazova will also return to Opera Connecticut as MOTHER in Amahl and the Night Visitors under the baton of Maestra Kosloff. 

In previous seasons, she has sung the roles of ELIZABETTA in Don Carlos and DONNA ELVIRA in Don Giovanni, title role of TOSCA, TAMARA in Demon and NEDDA in I Pagliacci. Ms. Alkhazova has performed with Sarasota Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Opera Connecticut, Regina Opera, New Jersey Opera, Geneva Light Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera among others. 

Beyond the opera house, Ms. Alkhazova is a dynamic presence on concert stages. In the season 2024-25 she returned to Carnegie Hall’s Mainstage as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem. She has performed on some of the nation’s most prestigious concert stages, including Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Bard Music Festival, Jordan Hall, Sanders Theater, Majestic Theater, and recently, the Perelman Art Center, NYC.   

Her international performances both in concert and on operatic stages have taken her to Italy, Ireland, Russia, and Canada, showcasing her versatility and artistry. As a sought-after soloist, she frequently collaborates with the Refugee Orchestra Project (ROP), conducted by the renowned Lidiya Yankovksaya, with performances in Boston, New York, and Washington DC. ROP is a cause close to her heart, as Ms. Alkhazova immigrated to the United States in 1995 as a refugee from Moscow, Russia. A fierce advocate of classical music and its relevance in today’s society, she founded and holds the position of President and Artistic Director of the Amelia Classical Music Series.

Zhanna Alkhazova is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. Recent accolades include top prizes in the NJ Verismo Opera Competition and the London International Music Competition, as well as an Encouragement Award from the Wagner Society of New York. Additionally, she earned the distinction of being named a semi-finalist in The Montserrat Caballé International Singing Competition and the Elizabeth Connell International Competition for Dramatic Sopranos.  

Originally from Moscow, Russia, Ms. Alkhazova grew up in the New England area where she completed her studies, graduating with a Master of Music Degree from Boston University. 

Native of Kyiv, Ukraine, Olga Lisovska holds degrees from Middlebury College, École Normale de Musique d’A. Cortot in Paris, France and L’Institut des Sciences Politiques in Paris, France. A critically acclaimed classical soprano, Olga’s career involves both singing on prestigious concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, and producing events and performances. Olga produced award-winning opera productions at Commonwealth Lyric Theater, a Boston-based opera company, and Talents of the World’s Annual Music Festival at Carnegie Hall.

As a performer, Ms. Lisovskaya’s concerts have been featured on Ukrainian, Italian and American TV and radio, including on the Today Show and WBUR.

Native of Kyiv, Ukraine, Olga Lisovska holds degrees from Middlebury College, École Normale de Musique d’A. Cortot in Paris, France and L’Institut des Sciences Politiques in Paris, France. A critically acclaimed classical soprano, Olga’s career involves both singing on prestigious concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, and producing events and performances. Olga produced award-winning opera productions at Commonwealth Lyric Theater, a Boston-based opera company, and Talents of the World’s Annual Music Festival at Carnegie Hall.

As a performer, Ms. Lisovskaya’s concerts have been featured on Ukrainian, Italian and American TV and radio, including on the Today Show and WBUR.

Hailed as “silvery-toned” by Opera News (David Shengold, 2022), Ukrainian-American soprano Teryn Kuzma is a versatile performer of classical, contemporary, musical theater, and folk repertoire. She has a deep passion for performing contemporary works, and uncommon Eastern European opera and art song. Recent engagements include being a featured soprano and bandurist for the 2025 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival, and performing for the Toronto Bandura Festival in their Bandura on Bloor Concert Series for their inaugural concert in Toronto, Canada.

In 2024, she premiered the lead role of “H’ala” in Layale Chaker’s dynamic new opera, Ruinous Gods, with Spoleto Festival USA, where she was lauded for her “terrific lyric soprano” with “an ability to soar to the heights of her register yet keep a mellifluous delivery” (Adam Parker, Post and Courier). As an NYC-based soprano, she’s had the immense fortune to work with On Site Opera in NYC as a a cover and performance artist for the roles of “Lieschen” in Bach’s Coffee Cantata, and the roles of “Frog” and “Mechanical Nightingale” in their premiere production of Lisa Despain’s, Song of the Nightingale. In 2023, Teryn performed her Masters Degree recital, “Songs of Strength” at Bard Conservatory, and workshopped the lead role in Ruinous Gods, with Spoleto Festival USA. She also sang the role of “Celia” in Iolanthe with the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program (VAP), and won first place in the MIOpera University Division International Vocal Competition.

In 2022, she sang in the Toronto Summer Music Festival as a recipient of an Art of Song Fellowship, and was a featured artist in the Lincoln Crossroads Music Festival. She also sang the title role in Leoš Janáček’s opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, with the Bard Graduate VAP, and competed as a finalist in the Carolyn Bailey Argento Vocal Competition in the Scholarship Division.

In addition to her singing credits, Teryn is an accomplished instrumentalist on the 55-stringed Ukrainian bandura and is actively engaged in the performance and study of Ukrainian folk music. She currently serves as Concertmaster of the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America, as well as Artistic Director of the New York School of Bandura. As a singer-bandurist, she’s performed in various esteemed concert halls and universities across the U.S and Canada over the past ten years. Teryn privately teaches bandura and voice lessons, and has been invited to perform and instruct at several summer bandura workshops since 2014.

Since the most recent escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, she has taken part in dozens of benefit concerts for humanitarian aid. Her current artistic mission includes using her musicianship to raise awareness of the beauty and versatility of Ukrainian music. Bandura for the Future came to fruition through Teryn’s efforts to set up multiple fundraising private and public concerts throughout the Tri-State area of the U.S.. This project is in partnership with Ukraine Matters, a non-profit organization in California. The structure of the project is simple: to set up private and public fundraising concerts for medical hospitals and medical battalions in Ukraine. Teryn recently completed her first set of fundraising concerts in New York and California, where Bandura for the Future was able to fundraise over 20,000$ for UNBROKEN and SuperHumans, two rehabilitation centers in Lviv, Ukraine. She was then able to go to Ukraine for three weeks in May to connect with the incredible patients and doctors of these facilities and create connections with other hospitals like Ohmadyt in Kyiv, where she performed for a group of young patients. She plans to continue her work with Bandura for the Future and Ukraine Matters for the duration of the war and reconstruction of Ukraine.

While growing up in the diaspora, she also had the opportunity to take Ukrainian Dance lessons and workshops for 14 years under the tutelage of esteemed choreographer Orlando Pagan (Dance Theater of Harlem). Her folk and ballet training fostered her interests in combining movement and music on stage. Movement and dance continue to be an integral part of Teryn’s identity as an artist.Teryn performed for two seasons with The Ohio Light Opera (OLO), first as a chorus member and dancer in 2019, and then “Luisa” in The Fantasticks during their 2021 season. Before the pandemic in 2020, she was hired to sing the role of “Fiametta” in OLO’s production of The Gondoliers, and “Louise” in Carousel, in which she would have performed the challenging “Dream Ballet” sequence.

In 2019, she sang in Hartford Opera Theater’s 10th annual New in November Concert, a festival dedicated to performing contemporary operas by living composers. That same year, she was a featured artist in the Ukrainian Art Song Project in Toronto, Canada. Teryn continues to program lesser-known Ukrainian composers such as Kyrylo Stetsenko, Stephania Turkewich, and Volodymyr Volynskyj.

Originally from Connecticut, she began studying voice at the Hartt School of Music and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Connecticut. She was selected for the UConn Honors Recital all four years of her undergraduate program. Her work at the University of Connecticut culminated in 2018 when she was a winner of the Concerto & Aria Competition. That same year, she attended the SongFest Program in Los Angeles as a Young Artist.

Teryn recently earned her Masters Degree from the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program, where she studied with Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Kayo Iwama, Erika Switzer, and Stephanie Blythe.

Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Slavic masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 16 operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev. Her transformative tenure as Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater earned consistent recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which named her Chicagoan of the Year and credited her with “raising the profile of COT immensely, her interpretations bracing and repertoire head-spinningly varied.”

The 24/25 season opened with Yankovskaya’s successful Australian debut leading Puccini’s rarely performed Il trittico at Opera Australia, which resulted in an immediate re-engagement for a new production of Carmen in 2025. Elsewhere, Yankovskaya conducts La bohème with San Diego Opera and returns to Washington National Opera to lead The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.

Lidiya’s experiences as a refugee inspired her to found the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music, and has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world. A sought-after speaker, she has led sessions at the League of American Orchestras and Opera America conferences, and recently served as U.S. Representative to the World Opera Forum in Madrid.

Zoltan Almashi (born 1975) is a contemporary Ukrainian composer, cellist, teacher, and organizer of musical life. He is the founder and artistic director of the Revutsky String Quartet (since 2018) and one of the founders and leaders of the Gulf Stream festival of classical and contemporary chamber music.

A laureate of numerous awards, Almashi received accolades including the International Competition In the Homeland of Sergei Prokofiev (Mariupol) in the categories of cello (1998) and composition (2000), the Revutsky Prize (2003), and the Lyatoshynsky Prize (2013). Born in Lviv into the family of renowned violinist Habor Almashi, Zoltan studied at the Lviv Specialized Music Boarding School named after Solomiya Krushelnytska. He graduated from the Lviv State Higher Music Institute named after Mykola Lysenko (now the Lviv National Music Academy), studying under Yuriy Lanyuk in both cello performance (1998) and composition (1999). From 1999 to 2002, Almashi continued his studies in composition at the National Music Academy of Ukraine with Yevhen Stankovych. In 2008, he interned with composer Aleksander Lason as part of the Gaude Polonia scholarship program in Poland.

Since 2001, he has been a member of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine. Beginning in 2000, he became a solo instrumentalist with the National Ensemble of Soloists Kyiv Camerata and a member of the contemporary music ensemble Ricochet. He also collaborated with the New Music in Ukraine ensemble and is a participant in the Ukrainian contemporary music ensemble Nostri Temporis. Since 2012, Almashi has been the cellist and artistic director of the Gulf Stream Ukrainian String Quartet.

For some time, Almashi taught at the National Music Academy of Ukraine. As both a performer and composer, he has participated in numerous Ukrainian contemporary music festivals, including Contrasts, Young Music Forum, Kyiv Music Fest, Music Premieres of the Season, Two Days and Two Nights of New Music, Gogolfest, and others.

Almashi identifies as a polymorphic composer. His style synthesizes traditional and innovative elements, merging neo-romantic tendencies with contemporary compositional techniques. His works are performed not only in Ukraine but also in the United States, Chile, and across Europe.

Zoltan Almashi’s creative output includes over 70 works, among them the opera Penita, numerous symphonic and chamber-instrumental pieces, such as:

• Symphony no. 2 “Island” for a large symphony orchestra
• Concerto for Two Violins and Strings “Unspoken Words”
• Chamber Symphony No. 1, dedicated to Valeriy Matyukhin
• Chamber Symphony No. 2 “A Conversation Between Two Drunkards About the Meaning of Life” for violin, cello, and strings
• Chamber Symphony “Genesis” for viola and strings
• Concerto Grosso No. 4 “Seasons” for violin and chamber orchestra
• Chamber Cantata for violin and strings
• Suprun Rhapsody for viola and strings
• Mirasteilas for two violins and strings
• Sonatas No. 1 and No. 2 “Facets” for cello and piano
• Ascending… for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, among others.

A native of Mexico now making his mark on New York City, Horacio Fernández is a classical composer by day and an urban music producer by night. His compositions are infused with the vibrant colors and dance rhythms of urban Latin America, defying genre boundaries and catching the ear of major orchestras across the world. He is equally at home writing relatable lyrics for pop songs, creating swell beats for rappers, and composing music for film.

The 2024/2025 season features performances of Horacio’s music kicking off with conductor Mei-Ann Chen and the Chicago Sinfonietta, who will open their season with his Tumbao (Latin Suite for Orchestra); Pablo Zamora will lead the Nashville Symphony in multiple performances of his composition Flare for their Día de Muertos events; Missak Baghboudarian leads the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Tumbao at the Damascus Center; and cuban pianist extraordinaire Nachito Herrera will premiere Tumbao with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra at the Havana International Jazz festival. Horacio’s orchestral music is published by Boosey & Hawkes and Earshot Publishing, and he has served as composer-in-residence with the Empire State Youth Symphony and the Chelsea Symphony.

Horacio’s most recent commissions include works for the Albany Symphony, the Little Orchestra Society, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and Dogs of Desire. His music has been performed and recorded by leading artists and ensembles such as the Oregon Symphony, The Juilliard Orchestra, Zlatomir Fung, Tony Glausi, and Mathew Whitaker among others. His music has been increasingly recognized with awards such as the Arturo Márquez Competition, the International Songwriting Competition, the James Galway Festival Composer Competition, and The Juilliard Composer’s Competition.

He has also been a recipient of fellowships and grants that have allowed him to fund his entrepreneurial pursuits such as Mexico’s Culture Secretariat, Nationa lSawdust’s Blueprint Fellowship, and Juilliard’s entrepreneurship center on multiple occasions. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and his teachers and mentors include Melinda Wagner, Robert Beaser, Alan Belkin, Gonzalo Macías,and Arturo Márquez.

Learn more at www.horaciofernandezcomposer.com

Milad Yousufi was born in 1995 during the civil war in Afghanistan. At that time the Taliban were ruling Afghanistan, and music was completely banned.  At the age of two he started drawing. He drew the piano keys on paper and pretended to play. Milad Yousufi is a pianist, composer, conductor, poet, singer, painter and calligrapher. Yousufi’s work is deeply inspired by his country and culture. When the Taliban rule was lifted after a period of five years, the arts flourished in Afghanistan Milad took advantage of every opportunity to learn and study music and art. By the age of 12 he was teaching painting and was able to attend the one and only music school in Kabul, after only three years of formal piano training, Milad was one of four students accepted into a music program in Denmark; He was also chosen to represent Afghanistan at various music festivals in The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and Germany.  He placed third in the International Golden Key competition in Frankfurt, Germany.

Milad relocated to the United States in 2015, where he was granted a full scholarship to pursue his undergraduate studies at Mannes School of Music. During his time there, he studied piano under the esteemed pianist Simone Dinnerstein and successfully graduated in the spring of 2020. Subsequently, he earned his master’s degree in composition in 2022, guided by Dr. Dalit Warshaw at Brooklyn College. Milad has received commissions to compose for a variety of prestigious venues worldwide, including the New York Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Refugee Orchestra Project, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hal and, Music Worcester.

In 2022, a film titled “Paper Piano” was produced in Hollywood, depicting the life of Milad. Milad composed the original score for this movie. released on Apple TV, “Little America” Season 2 Episode #7 (Paper Piano). In June 2023, Milad composed the film score for an Oscar-qualifying film entitled “The Night Doctrine.” This film was chosen for several prestigious festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, Holly Shorts in Los Angeles, BIAF in South Korea, Animest in Romania, the Hollywood Shorts Festival, NY Indie Shorts Awards, as well as the San Diego and Miami Film Festivals.

In 2024 Milad received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for “The Night Doctorine” film.

Ljova Zhurbin was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, performing with and composing for TRIO FADOLÍN, as well as a busy career as a violist, fadolínist & musical arranger. Among recent projects is a film score for the National Geographic, commissions from the City of London Sinfonia, The Louisville Orchestra, a new work for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider, a clarinet quintet for Art of Élan, and works for The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, tenor Javier Camarena, conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Alondra de la Parra, songwriters Ricky Martin, Natalia Lafourcade and Carlos Vives, composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla and Osvaldo Golijov. Ljova frequently collaborates with choreographers Aszure Barton, Damian Woetzel, Christopher Wheeldon, Katarzyna Skarpetowska (with Parsons Dance).

Ljova is the author of more than 120 compositions for classical, jazz, and folk ensembles, as well as scores to numerous feature, documentary, and short subject films. He has released eleven albums on his label, Kapustnik Records, and his compositions have been recorded on Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Bridge Records, Naxos and In A Circle labels. He is an alum of the Sundance Institute’s Film Composers Lab. His music has been licensed by HBO, PBS, BBC, CNBC, and NHK networks, among many other independent projects.

In 2018, he was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University’s Atelier program, co-teaching a course on collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist. Ljova has taught as visiting guest faculty at The Banff Centre in Canada focusing equally on composition, arranging, and viola performance. He has also guest-lectured on film music at New York University, performance and composition at the Berklee College of Music, Mark O’Connor Method Camp, and has taught viola and chamber music at the Special Music School in New York City. He has appeared as violist on Saturday Night Live (with Sia), The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Ljova is the curator of “Out of Leftovers”, a family-friendly performance series at New York’s Symphony Space.

His album MELTING RIVER, focuses on music Ljova created for “Project XII”, on commission from Canadian choreographer (and Baryshnikov’s protege), Aszure Barton. LOST IN KINO, his third album, focuses on recent film music, and features cues from films by Francis Ford Coppola, James Marsh, Basia Winograd, Lev Polyakov, Roman Khrushch, as well as performances by the Gypsy band Romashka, the Tall Tall Trees and the pipa virtuoso Wu Man.

With his main performing ensemble, LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, Ljova has appeared at New York’s Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as part of the Sundance Film Festival), New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Joe’s Pub and other venues. The Ensemble has toured to the United Kingdom, Canada, and around the United States. The Kontraband released its second album, “NO REFUND ON FLOWERS“, raising over $21,000 in a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Their acclaimed debut CD, “MNEMOSYNE” and is the featured ensemble on “Cupcake”, a short film which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival and was performed live at Lincoln Center.

Ljova released his acclaimed solo debut recording, VJOLA: WORLD ON FOUR STRINGS, on Kapustnik Records, in 2006. Previously, he has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble on the bestselling Sony Classical CD “Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon”, and with The Andalucian Dogs on the Deutsche Grammophon CD “Ayre”, featuring the music of Luciano Berio and Osvaldo Golijov. (Both CDs were nominated for several Grammy awards.) He has performed on tour with Savion Glover, and recorded with composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, producer Guy Sigsworth, Nina Nastasia, Amy Correia, and the Electric Light Orchestra.

As an arranger, Ljova has completed dozens of musical arrangements for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Kronos Quartet, Bond, Matmos, and others. He has also collaborated with composers Osvaldo Golijov and Gustavo Santaolalla, as well as the conductor Alondra de la Parra. Resulting from these collaborations are arrangements of musics from Argentina, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Tanzania, Uruguay, as well as gypsy music from Romania and France.

Ljova grew up in a household filled with music, books and an unquenchable hunger for culture. His father, Alexander Zhurbin, is Russia’s foremost composer for film and musical theatre; his mother, Irena Ginzburg, is a distinguished poet, writer and journalist. He began violin lessons at age four with Galina Turchaninova, a celebrated pedagogue who also taught violinists Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin. When not practicing, the pre-teen Ljova regularly overran his record player and played street hockey.

Ljova is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he was a pupil of Samuel Rhodes (violist of the Juilliard String Quartet). He has won numerous prizes as a composer, and appeared several times as soloist with orchestras, including as a winner of the Menschenkinderpreis from RTL TV (Germany). He performs on a viola and fadolín made by Alexander Tulchinsky, and other instruments made by Eric Aceto and Fred Gayford, as well as a bow by Gilles Nehr.

Ljova lives on the Upper West Side of New York City with his wife, vocalist and attorney Inna Barmash, and their sons, Benjamin and Yosif.