Shintaro Taneda, age 18, a finalist of the MTNA National String Competition, has won the Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside Competition, Simon-Fiset Competition, and the Washington State Solo and Ensemble Competition. Making his orchestral debut with the Seattle Festival Orchestra at the age of 12, Taneda has recently soloed with the Cascade Symphony, Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra, Ottawa Chamber Symphony, Bainbridge Symphony and Orchestra Seattle & Chamber Singers. His summer activities include the Aspen Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Dallas Conservatory’s Music in the Mountains, Domaine-Forget Academy, and the Morningside Music Bridge Program. His previous instructors include Simon James, Margaret Pressley, Shizuko Komeya, and Midori Goto. Taneda has participated in masterclasses with Rachel Barton Pine, David Perry, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Paul Kantor and Stephen Shipps, among others, and is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Ian Swensen.
Barry Johnson, baritone, makes his debut with Skagit Symphony with Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols. On the concert stage, Mr. Johnson has been a soloist with orchestras throughout the Northwest including Seattle Symphony, Symphony Tacoma, American Sinfonietta, Orchestra Seattle, Yakima Symphony, and Northwest Sinfonietta. Concert engagements have included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Orff ’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs, Rachmaninoff ’s The Bells, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Frahm’s War Cantata, Bach’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Requiem, and Faure’s Requiem.
Mr. Johnson is a frequent guest with opera companies throughout the country including Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Vashon Opera, Opera Colorado, Anchorage Opera, Portland Opera, Central City Opera, Las Vegas Opera, and the Wildwood Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas. Notable roles in his repertoire include the title role in The Marriage of Figaro, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Marcello in La Bohème, Dancairo in Carmen, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Prince Ottokar in Der Freischütz, Baron Douphol in La Traviata, the Sacristan in Tosca, der Sprecher in The Magic Flute, Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance, Fleville in Andrea Chénier, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, and Jupiter in Orpheus in the Underworld. He has sung more than twenty roles with both Seattle Opera and Tacoma Opera.
Mr. Johnson’s professional stage directing credits include Puccini’s La Bohème, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Rossini’s Le Comte Ory, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Puccini’s Tosca, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Bizet’s La Tragédie de Carmen, Menotti’s The Telephone, Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Bizet’s Dr. Miracle, and Pasatieri’s La Divina, with Tacoma Opera, Pacific Northwest Opera, and Bellevue City Opera Ballet. Mr. Johnson is on the voice faculty at Pacific Lutheran University where he teaches private voice and directs operas.