Jardena Gertler-Jaffe is a Canadian/American , praised for her genuine and intelligent performance, and her creativity on and off the stage. Jardena enjoys contributing to the classical music landscape in many ways, through workshopping and premiering contemporary music, championing artistic agency, and curating, producing, and singing imaginative performances.

Jardena's recent work includes singing the role of Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio and workshopping the role of Thea in Danika Loren’s Hedda. Highlights of her career so far have included performing the Canadian premiere of Alex Weiser’s and all the days were purple, and making the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Five Songs from Anna Berkowitz, works that also highlight her love of and interest in Yiddish language and culture.

Jardena’s ongoing artistic project, Our Singing Bodies, which treats the singer’s body as the site for the negotiation of power and identity can be found at oursingingbodies.com. Jardena currently studies with mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens. Jardena holds an M.M from Bard College Conservatory, an M.A. and B.Mus. from the University of Toronto, and is an alumna of Sarasota Opera’s Apprenticeship, the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, and the Association for Opera in Canada Emerging Artist Fellowship. She will begin a doctoral project uniting her performance and research interests at NYU in the Fall of 2024.

 

Erika Switzer is an accomplished pianist who collaborates regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC). Her performances have been called “precise and lucid” by the New York Times, and Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, rened, and captivating.”

Switzer has long been a leader in envisioning and promoting the future of art song performance. In 2009, in collaboration with soprano Martha Guth, she founded the organization Sparks & Wiry Cries, which curates opportunities for song creators and performers, commissions new works, presents the songSLAM festival in New York City, and publishes The Art Song Magazine. She is also devoted to new music, and has recently premiered new compositions in the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II; at the Brooklyn Art Song Society; and at Vancouver’s Music on Main.

Switzer collaborates with a range of top singers and instrumentalists. A frequent collaborator is baritone Tyler Duncan, and as a duo, Switzer and Duncan have performed in major concert halls and music festivals around the world. She is also an active teacher, serving on the music faculty at Bard College and the Vocal Arts Program of the Bard Conservatory of Music. Switzer holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School, and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.