Vocal Arts Institute

A two-time Michigan Emmy Award winner, a 2017 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, and a 2015 GRAMMY® Award nominee, Eugene Rogers is recognized as a leading conductor and pedagogue throughout the United States and abroad. Dr. Rogers is the founding director of EXIGENCE. Recently, he was named as the fifth Artistic Director of the two-time GRAMMY® Award-Winning Ensemble, The Washington Chorus (Washington, D.C.). At the University, Rogers leads the graduate choral conducting program, conducts the chamber choir, and administers the program of over eight choral ensembles. His choirs have toured throughout China, South Africa, the United States, and have appeared at national and regional conferences. In 2016, Rogers’ passion for issues of social justice and music was featured in the award-winning documentary Love, Life and Loss which highlights Joel Thompson’s powerful Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, and in 2013, he co-managed the production of the joint CD Ye Shall Have a Song with the Michigan, Yale, and Harvard Glee Clubs, a collaboration celebrating America’s three oldest collegiate choirs.

Distinguished American tenor Stanford Olsen joined the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance as professor of voice after 15 years as artist-in-residence and holder of the Shelfer Eminent Scholar in Music chair at Florida State University. One of this generation’s most successful and versatile artists, his career spans more than 1,200 performances on five continents over the course of 30 years. Since his professional operatic debut there in 1986, opposite Dame Joan Sutherland in Bellini’s I Puritani, Stanford Olsen has performed more than 160 times with New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Olsen has been heard throughout the world at venues such as San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Miami Opera, La Scala di Milano, Landestheater Stuttgart, Theatre du Chatelet, Teatro Bellini di Catania, Theatre La Monnaie, Australian Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Nederlandse Oper, Tokyo Opera City, and most other significant opera companies in the USA and Europe. His recording of the fiendishly difficult role of Argirio in Rossini’s Tancredi (Naxos/Alberto Zedda) netted a GRAMMY nomination.

Highlights of Lynch’s 2025-2026 season include her role debut as Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, in Patricia Racette’s production at Opera Omaha, and the 3rd Norn in Götterdämmerung at Atlanta Opera. She also returns to the Metropolitan Opera to cover Micaëla in Carmen, and will be seen on the company’s stage during the 2026-2027 season.

Ms. Lynch joined the Metropolitan Opera during the 2024-2025 season for two Mozart titles: singing the First Lady in the company’s cherished family production of The Magic Flute, and covering Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro. She also returned to the Grand Teton Music Festival as the soprano soloist for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, led by Sir Donald Runnicles. During the summer, she created the title role of Siddhartha, She, a new scenic oratorio composed by Chris Theofanidis and conducted by Robert Spano, at the Aspen Music Festival.

The soprano’s 2023-2024 season began with the highly-anticipated world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Intelligence at Houston Grand Opera, in which Caitlin sang the leading role of Callie Van Lew. She subsequently returned to the Metropolitan Opera as both the First Lady in The Magic Flute and covering the role of Clarissa Vaughan in The Hours. Ms. Lynch concluded the season with The Washington Chorus, as the soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and with the Grand Teton Music Festival as the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Runnicles.

Lynch studied at the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) before training with the young artist programs of Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival.