The Artists

Timothy Ayres-Kerr  is a recent graduate of New England Conservatory of Music and a former student of Bradley Williams. While studying at the Conservatory he performed as a soloist in Opera, Oratorio, and discovered a particular love of British and American Operetta, performing several lead tenor roles in the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, Most notably Frederic in The Pirates Penzance. Of a recent performance of his, the Boston Musical Intelligencer noted that "He sang with purity and conviction, enunciating perfectly, and acting without a touch of guile." Timothy is currently studying for an MM in vocal pedagogy with Dr. Ian Howell at the New England Conservatory while continuing to Run the Parlour Opera Players. Timothy has been writing vocal music almost as long as he has been singing, working primarily on short comic operas and Cantatas; A Game of Werewolf being his second completed work for the stage. He is passionate about opera in English, whether it be new or old and is especially thrilled to be leading the Parlour Opera Players to new and exciting places!

Northern Californian turned Bostonian, soprano Sara DeLong is a firm believer in accessible and life changing performing arts. With a passion for contemporary works and modern interpretations of the classics, DeLong brings truth and a drive to communicate to all of her projects. Striving to broaden her own horizons with each performance, she seeks to change the world for the better through art and firmly believes that art is everywhere. Diversity and music have the power to speak to even the most hardened of hearts.

Since moving to the Boston area, Sara has performed with a number of regional companies and has produced and directed opera and operetta, earning "kudos" (Koven, Boston Musical Intelligencer) for her vocal directing of the MIT GSP’s 2016 Steampunk production of The Pirates of Penzance. Some of her favorite and most recent roles include Phoebe in Yeomen of the Guard with the Sudbury Savoyards, Frau Becker in The Parlour Opera Players' A Game of Werewolf,  Grilletta in A Worcester Schubertiad's production of Haydn's Der Apotheker, Patience with The MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players, Alexis in The Harvard Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of The Sorcerer and Philonia in WholeTone Opera's 2016 production of La Zombiata.

Sara DeLong’s performances have been reviewed as “stunning” (Zeugner, Worcester Telegram) and “incredible” (Dominguez, Sacramento Press), executed with a “beautifully trained voice” (McKee, Sacramento News & Review) and “a bearing and a voice that shine” (Sykes, Davis Enterprise).

Elizabeth Clutts, soprano, attended The New England Conservatory of Music and studies with Bradley Williams. A native of Traverse City Michigan, she attended Interlochen Arts Academy as a classical voice major. Miss Clutts has recently been seen as Josephine in HMS Pinafore. She has also performed the rolls of Virtu (L'incoronazione di Poppea), Proserpina (Orpheus in the Underworld) and The Wife (A Simple Sort of Affair). Partial roles include Damigella (L'incoronazione di Poppea), Mercédès (Carmen). Recent debut with Longwood Opera in their Enchanted Evenings Summer Concert Series,  WholeTone Opera in their Inhuman Voices Recital and Moonsong 1 and 2 recitals. Miss Clutts is a studio artist with Parlour Opera Players and premiered the role of Klara Schultz in the world premiere of A Game of Werewolf in Boston 2017. 

Johan Hartman, bass, is a senior at NEC and studies with Karen Holvik. The son of two accomplished musicians on both modern and Baroque instruments, classical music has been a part of his life since before he was born, with his mother playing gigs up until a few days before his birth. Johan began taking voice lessons in the fourth grade from Wayne Rivera at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT and was a very active musician in all school and church choruses, as well as playing French horn in Connecticut’s All-State orchestra. As a boy soprano he performed the role of Amahl in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors twice, in 2008 and 2009 at the Bushnell Center of Performing Arts in Hartford, and also performed the role of Sem in Noye’s Fludde by Benjamin Britten in 2009. In addition, he performed Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen in Glastonbury, England in 2010. Johan attended the Tanglewood Summer Institute during the summer of 2012, the Walnut Hill summer Opera Program in 2014, and the Amherst Early Music Summer Program in 2013 and 2015, where he studied with Julianne Baird, among others. The summer of 2016 he attended the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria. In the summer of 2017 he attended the Prague Summer Nights festival, where he performed the role of Bartolo in a fully staged and orchestrated performance of Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro, and in the summer of 2018 he performed the role of Sarastro in Berlin with the Berlin Opera Academy. This will be his second time performing with POP, having played Gerwalt in last year’s run of A Game of Werewolf at the Rockwell in Boston. Other recent performances include the role of Ariodate in Handel’s Serse, and Balthazar in a concert version of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, both at NEC.

Michael Gonzalez, Is a recent graduate of New England Conservatory where he got his BM and MM in Vocal performance. The Tenor and Florida Native studies currently with Michael Meraw. He recently played one of the Armoured Men in New England Conservatory’s Die Zauberflöte. Michael has been singing with the Parlour Opera players since October 2017 when he originated the role of Mayor Schulz. 

Marnen E. Laibow-Koser regularly performs anything from Javanese gamelan music to opera. He can frequently be found working with WholeTone Opera (most recently as assistant musical director of La Zombiata) and the MIT Musical Theatre Guild, and was musical director and pianist for Opera Brittenica’s groundbreaking immersive production of Turn of the Screw (staged throughout a house in Brookline, Massachusetts). Marnen’s compositions have been performed and recorded by ensembles including unassisted fold (Leipzig, Germany), Gamelan Son of Lion (New York City) and the Adelante Winds (San Antonio, Texas), and have been featured in fiction podcasts (Metamor City; Scouts Remastered) and video games. He received his Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory’s unique Contemporary Improvisation program. For more information, please visit www.marnen.org.

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New England based mezzo-soprano Susannah Thornton is equally at home performing operaticroles and interpreting art song. While earning her undergraduate degree at the University ofNew Hampshire, Thornton performed the role of L’Enfant (Ravel, “L’Enfant et les Sortileges”).In May 2016 she graduated with a Master in Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College where she studied with Carol Mastrodomenico. While at Longy,Thornton performed the role of Miss Todd (Menotti, “The Old Maid and the Thief”) and the mezzo roles in Argento’s “Postcard from Morocco”. She is a Roster Artist with Boston Opera Collaborative, with whom she has performed the roles of Suzy in a condensed “remix” of “La

Rondine” during May 2017, Schumann Soloist in “Mirror” (a staged production of Frauenliebe und Leben), and April 3 in Oliver Caplan’s “Symposium”. Thornton made her international debut touring Longy composer and professor John Morrison’s opera “Jane’s History of England” throughout various regions of England in March 2017. In 2018, Susannah was a member of the Finger Lakes Opera’s inaugural Young Artist residency program. She also can be seen singing at Second Parish UU in Hingham.