The Book of the Hanging Gardens Performers

Praised for her "unusually rich and resonant voice" (Opera News), contralto Sara Couden (“SA-ra COO-den”) is a premiere interpreter of operatic, concert, and song repertoire. Opera engagements for 2024 include Baba the Turk with Lakes Area Music Festival, as well as her San Francisco Opera debut as Rita in The Handmaid’s Tale (and Serena Joy cover). Concerts include Beethoven 9 with Seattle Symphony, Mass in B Minor with Santa Cruz Symphony, Duruflé Requiem with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, and a concert of art songs and piano chamber music with Jenny Lin and Philip Setzer at the Manchester Music Festival.

William G. Ludtke has been a member of the staff and faculties of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois, Marin Opera, Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, CA and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. While living in Chicago, Bill formed his own grass roots opera company which performed over 50 operas covering repertoire from Mozart to Hindemith during the company’s existence. He is currently musical and artistic director of the Handel Opera Project in Berkeley, California and music director and organist at the First Church of Christ, Scientist, also in Berkeley, California. His compositions have received broad public and critical acclaim in performances by many Bay Area musical organizations including the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the San Jose Symphony, the Diablo Symphony, the Oakland Civic Orchestra and such choral organizations as the San Francisco Chorale Artists, San Francisco Chamber Singers, Piedmont Children’s Choirs and the Cantabile Choral Guild. His Symphony No. 3, which received a Mu Phi Epsilon award, was premiered by the Oakland East Bay Symphony and received a subsequent performance by the Cascade Symphony in Seattle, Washington. His works have also been performed throughout America and in Europe (Austria, France, Germany and England) and have been aired on the local radio stations KDFC, KQED, KKHI and most recently on KUSF. He has received awards from The American Composers Forum, the Meet the Composer Program, the American Guild of Organists, ASCAP, Mu Phi Epsilon, the American Music Center in New York City, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Irvine Foundation, San Francisco Art Commissions, the City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program and the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University.

Daphne Touchais was born in Greece and from a very early age begun studying music. At the age of fifteen she moved to France and studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris (CNR). A prize-winner in the 2004 Macon Voice Competition , she was awarded the 1st Prize in the International Baroque Competition of Chimay, 2005 (Belgium) presided by William Christie. Daphne’s career led her all over Europe: from the Netherlands, where she made her debut as Papagena in Die Zauberflöte under Ton Koopman and Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Concertgebouw, to Germany (Cupidon in Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers in Köln), Ireland (title role in Donizetti’s Rita and 1st Nymph in Rusalka at Wexford Festival), the UK (recording of Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Dukas with the BBC Orchestra), Belgium (Iphis in Haendel’s Jeptha) and Switzerland (Zdenka in Arabella in St Gallen). In France she has sung at the Châtelet (Mrs Segstrom in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music), at the Opéra Comique (Isabelle in Grétry’s L’Amant Jaloux and Fiorella in Les Brigands by Offenbach), at the Cité de la Musique (Eurydice in Orpheus by Telemann), in Lyon (La Musica in Monteverdi’s Orfeo), in Toulouse (Tebaldo in Don Carlo), in Bordeaux (Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera, Valetto in L’Incoronazione di Poppea , Celia in Lucio Silla, Agnès in Die Schule der Frauen by R. Liebermann), in Ambronay Festival (Charite in Cadmus et Hermione by Lully), in Sully Festival (Mrs Silberklang in Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor, Tonina in Salieri’s Prima la Musica poi le Parole), and has worked with conductors such as Ton Koopman, David Stern, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Jérémie Rohrer, Christophe Rousset, Paolo Olmi and François Xavier Roth, in addition to our esteemed director of the Handel Opera Project, William G. Ludtke.

Kathleen Moss, mezzo soprano, has performed with San Francisco Opera, Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, West Edge Opera, Livermore Valley Opera, Fremont Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Cinnabar Opera and is a former Resident Artist with the San Francisco Opera Center. Her concert engagements include solo appearances with the Sacramento Choral Society & Orchestra, Stockton Symphony, Fremont Symphony, Mendocino Music Festival, UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Masterworks Chorale, Bay Choral Guild, Handel Opera Project and Camerata California. As a crossover artist, she has performed with American Musical Theater of San Jose, Sacramento's Music Circus, 42nd Street Moon, and Lamplighters Music Theatre.

Wayne Wong (Zophar) last appeared with the Handel Opera Project as Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. Other engagements include Berkeley (West Edge) Opera, Opera Parallele, Festival Opera, Island City Opera, Lamplighters, SF Playhouse, Shotgun Players and Teatro Bocchino. Roles include Don Alfonso (Cosi fan tutte), Benoit and Alcindoro (La boheme), Frank and Frosch (Die Fledermaus), Angelotti, Sciarrone and the Jailer (Tosca), and Gideon (Little Women). He recently sang the role of Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor with Pocket Opera, will appear next month as Silla in Ars Minerva's production of La Flora.