Jindong Cai is director of the US-China Music Institute, professor of music and arts at Bard College, and associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN). Previously, he was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Born in Beijing, Cai received his early musical training in China, where he learned to play violin and piano. He came to the United States for his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. Cai started his conducting career with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and has worked with orchestras throughout North America and Asia. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming for Contemporary Music. 

Over his 35-year career in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia. At Bard, Cai founded the annual China Now Music Festival, which has become a major platform in the West for new works by some of the most important Chinese composers of our time. 

With his wife, Sheila Melvin, Cai has coauthored many articles on the performing arts in China, as well as two books, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese and Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

Noted for her “dazzling, virtuoso singing” (Boston Globe), soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon delights in the range of sonic possibility inherent in the human voice. With a repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the present day, she specializes in the dusty corners of the canon – giving modern premieres of rediscovered works from the Baroque through the mid-20th century – and is sought-out for her collaborations with today’s composers.

Fitz Gibbon has appeared as soloist with ensembles such as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Tafelmusik, San Francisco Symphony, Concerto Budapest, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She serves on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory and has been in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival annually since 2016. She is honored to be the recipient of a 2024 Fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, whose generous support enables upcoming commissioning, recording, and performance projects.

For more information, see www.lucyfitzgibbon.com.

Chinese mezzo-soprano Ziqi Wang is currently pursuing her doctor of musical arts in opera performance at the University of Texas at Austin, studying under the tutelage of Leah Crocetto. She has been selected as a Young Artist with Hong Kong Grand Opera for their upcoming 2026–27 season. Highly regarded for her rich, expressive voice and commanding stage presence, her upcoming engagements also feature two major role debuts: Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

Wang’s versatile repertoire highlights her exceptional dramatic and vocal range. She portrayed Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, Le Prince Charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon, and the witty Prince Orlofsky in Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus. Her comedic and character flair is demonstrated through her performances as Zita and La Suora Zelatrice in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica, respectively; Alice in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor; and Fidalma in Cimarosa and Bertati’s Il matrimonio segreto.

Wang has earned numerous accolades on the global stage, including as a semifinalist in the 2026 Vienna International Vocal Competition, the Encouragement Award at The Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition (Puerto Rico District), and  first Prize in the 2023 Beethoven Young Musician Competition.

Proving himself a formidable talent and a rising star to watch in the opera world, Tenor Li Yi is quickly gaining attention across the globe. Recently, Li débuted the role of Cheng Quing in Meredith Monk’s ATLAS with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and moved into bigger repertoire — débuting the role of Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West in Maryland Lyric Opera’s inaugural season. He subsequently returned there as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Turiddu/Luigi in Cavalleria rusticana/Il tabarro, as well as to The Metropolitan Opera as the Young Lover in Il tabarro.

Li returned to Opera Tampa as Rodolfo in La bohème and he reprised his Fenton in Falstaff for his house début with Portland Opera. This season he makes his Opera Orlando début as Rodolfo. Recently, he joined Hawaii Opera Theatre to reprise his Rodolfo and to sing Canio in Pagliacci; he also reprised Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion with the National Academy of Saint Cecilia in Rome. He returned to Maryland Lyric Opera as Fenton in Falstaff and Cassio in Otello, he performed Buddha Passion with the Seattle Symphony, he rejoined the China Now Music Festival in partnership with Bard College, he sang Handel’s Messiah with the Naples Philharmonic, and he sang Luigi in Il tabarro with On Site Opera. Li has also joined the esteemed roster of The Metropolitan Opera for productions of Manon Lescaut, Roméo et Juliette, and Der fliegende Holländer. 

 Li is an alum of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program. He holds an Artist Diploma in Voice from University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music (CCM), and a Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Sichuan Conservatory in China.

Bass-baritone Yue Wu holds a master’s degree from Mannes School of Music and a bachelor's degree from the Tianjin Conservatory of Music. From 2022 to 2025, he served as a resident artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts in the United States for three years.

In 2021, he was selected through a global audition SongStudio project led by Renée Fleming, and held a concert at Carnegie Hall. Later, He went to Music Academy of the West as young artist. In 2023 and 2024, Renée Fleming was invited and signed by the Aspen Music Festival in the United States to perform as a Fleming Artist. In 2023, he produced the modern opera "Bel Canto" at the Aspen Music Festival and played the male lead role of Hosokawa. During his stay in the United States, he starred in dozens of operas, covering a wide range of genres from classical to modern, such as "The Marriage of Figaro", “Don Giovanni", "Idomeneo", "La Fanciulla del West", "The Barber of Seville", "Anna Bolena", "Gianni Schicchi", "La Traviata", "Amico Fritz", "Onegin", and " Bel Canto". Hisperformances have been seen at the Opera Philadelphia, Opera Santa Barbara, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, and Carnegie Hall in New York. Upcoming performances include the modern opera "The Elevator" at the Opera Grand Rapids in 2026.

Andrew Munn is a bass and interdisciplinary artist. He performs and co-creates opera, chamber music, concert, and multidisciplinary art, often on themes of ecology, history, and ethics. He studied at the Juilliard School, Bard College, and University of Michigan. From 2008 to 2014, Munn was a leading organizer for environmental justice in the coalfields of Appalachia. This engagement with intertwined processes of ecological, social, and technological change continues to inform his artistic and intellectual work.

Munn’s works have been presented by the Tanglewood Learning Institute, Shanghai Concert Hall DigiMuse Festival, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Volkskundemuseum Wien, Berlin Akademie der Künste, and Barenboim Said Foundation. As a bass soloist, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Elbphilharmonie, and Salzburg Landestheater in repertoire ranging from Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and bass soloist in Verdi’s Requiem to world premieres by Chaya Czernowin (Heart Chamber, Deutsche Oper Berlin) and Zhou Long (Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, Carnegie Hall).

Drawn to the intimate intensity of the song repertoire, Andrew is a sought-after interpreter of Schubert’s Winterreise (Tanglewood) and Shostakovich's Suite on Verses by Michelangelo (Hungarian State Opera), among other works. On themes of ecology, voice, and music, he has been an invited lecturer and clinician at the Goethe Institute, Cornell University, Tianjin Juilliard School, Duke Kunshan University, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Virginia Tech among others.