Terri Sánchez is a Miyazawa Performing Artist and the newly appointed Assistant Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University. Legendary flutist Paula Robison writes, “Sánchez has a beautiful presence as a player, and her sparkling clear sound spins out and fills the air with poetry.” After Sánchez premiered his new work for flute and piano, Archetypes, composer George Chave wrote, “her ability to pull the audience in and take them along for the ride is a true joy. Terri is a musician’s musician.” She is the author of The Aspiring Flutist's Practice Book Series published by Carolyn Nussbaum Music Co. and her recent compositions include The Walrus and the Carpenter and The Red Queen for flute/narrator and piano as well as Scarborough Fantasy for Solo Flute. She performs on a Miyazawa Classic Rose Silver flute.  

Sánchez is a laureate of many national competitions: 1st Prize, National Flute Association Orchestral Audition Competition, 2nd Prize, NFA Young Artist Competition (along with “Best Performance of the Newly Commissioned Work”), 1st Prize, San Diego Flute Guild Artist Gold Competition, 2nd Prize, Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, 2nd Prize, Upper Midwest Flute Society Young Artist Competition and Finalist, Walfrid Kujala Piccolo Competition. She also performed with the SMU Meadows and UNT Symphony Orchestras as a winner of both university concerto competitions.    

An advocate for musician self-care and positive practice sessions, Sánchez is dedicated to creating resources for musicians that help them release practice anxiety and discover their true potential in the practice room. She has given numerous presentations based on these topics at National Flute Association Conventions, flute festivals and universities across the country. Each summer, she performs and teaches as a faculty member for Floot Fire, week-long summer masterclasses for beginner through advanced high school flutists. Sánchez was the flute professor for the University of Texas at Arlington from 2013-2021 where she was also the founder and creative director of the Maverick Flute Choir, a unique flute ensemble that sought to engage and inspire audiences with an unconventional fusion of classic, contemporary, original, and collaborative musical works, often fused with a wide variety of other artistic mediums. Under her guidance, the MFC wrote and performed four original "musical plays" at local, state and national festivals and conventions: Take a Chance, The Princess & The Dragon, As the Fog Descends Upon Us, and I Dream of Flute Choir. Recently, she created two online courses for flutists and teachers of all levels, Fall in Love With Your Flute and the Flute Teacher Superhero Course. 

Sánchez received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Flute Performance, with a secondary emphasis in Music Education, from the University of North Texas, where she worked as a Teaching Fellow and Flute Choir conductor. She earned her Master’s degree at Southern Methodist University and her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her past flute instructors include Leticia Ledesma, Helen Blackburn, Jean Larson-Garver, Alexa Still, Kara Kirkendoll Welch, Deborah Baron, Terri Sundberg and Elizabeth McNutt. She is especially grateful to her two mentors, Claire Johnson and Gabriel Sánchez.

With more than two decades experience as a vocal coach, collaborative pianist, choral conductor, and organist, Kevin J. Bylsma is a musician of impressive depth and ability, well known for his work in opera, art song, and oratorio. A longtime member of the Toledo Opera staff, Mr. Bylsma is currently the Head of Music Preparation and Chorus Master, and was recently names Co-Artistic Director with the company. He was formerly Music Director of the Department of Community Programs for the Michigan Opera Theatre and vocal coach, accompanist, and chorus master for OPERA! Lenawee. In recitals and master classes he has collaborated with the great American singers Samuel Ramey, Diane Soviero, Marilyn Horne, Dawn Upshaw, Michelle De Young, Irina Mishura, Katherine Lewek, and Jennifer Rowley. He is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Ann Arbor Festival of Song, and, for the past twenty-eight years, he has served the historic Mariners’ Church of Detroit as Associate Organist and Choirmaster.

Dedicated to the education and training of the next generation of operatic talent, Mr. Bylsma is Coordinator of Opera and Repetiteur at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, responsible for vocal coaching and serving as a collaborative pianist for the school’s large body of young singers. Mr. Bylsma also served on the artistic staff of OperaWorks, an intensive opera training program, based in Los Angeles, CA.

A native of Grand Rapids, MI, Mr. Bylsma received his musical training at Calvin College, Bowling Green State University, and the University of Michigan—where he received the Robert Glasgow Organ Scholarship. He currently resides in Toledo, Ohio’s Old West End historic neighborhood.

Katherine Pracht Phares, mezzo-soprano, comes to BGSU with twenty years of professional singing experience in opera, recital, and oratorio performances. She champions contemporary opera and much of her recent professional activity is in this genre. Katy is currently a student in the DMA in Contemporary Music program at BGSU.

The 2022-23 season featured several premieres for the busy mezzo. Pracht performed Madeleine in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers with Opera on the Avalon, returned to West Edge Opera for her first Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, and workshopped two new operas, Bulrusher, and Laura Kaminsky’s February. She then debuted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Quad-City Symphony, as well as the role of Mary Johnson in Virginia Opera’s production of Fellow Travelers. In October, Pracht creates the role of Helen in Kaminsky’s next world premiere opera February at Opera on the Avalon in St. John's, Newfoundland; and she looks forward to another exciting announcement coming soon! 

2021 engagements included a world premiere and cast recording as Horatio in Joseph Summer’s Hamlet at the Dohodno Zdanie Theater in Ruse, Bulgaria, and a reprisal of the title role in Kevin Puts’ opera, Elizabeth Cree with West Edge Opera. Katy also won outstanding reviews as Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with IlluminArts in Miami. The 2019 season also had important role debuts: Charlotte in A Little Night Music with Madison Opera, Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea with Florentine Opera, Kate Julian in Britten’s rarely heard Owen Wingrave with Little Opera Theatre of NY, Duruflé’s Requiem with the Washington Chorus, and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges with Opera Philadelphia.

Other recent credits are Glenda (cover) in We Shall Not Be Moved with Opera Philadelphia;  Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 for Trinity Wall Street; Lady Wang in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber in Changsha, Beijing, and Wuhan, China; Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with York Symphony; and her premiere as Elizabeth Cree with Chicago Opera Theater, where the Chicago Tribune said “Katherine Pracht brought a mezzo of size and quality, and confident dramatic presence, to the complicated title role.” 

Ms. Pracht appeared as Mariam in the AOP-sponsored workshop of Sheila Silver’s opera, A Thousand Splendid Suns, sang A Bernstein Marathon and Arias & Barcarolles with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett (New York Festival of Song) at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’ Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man and the world premiere of Sing! The Music Was Given at Carnegie Hall, and Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles with The Orchestra NOW at the Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein. She returned to that Bard Festival in Rimsky-Korsakov’s From Homer with the American Symphony Orchestra, and as Dunyasha in The Tsar’s Bride.  Katy performed Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles with Bright Sheng and Michael Barrett for The Intimacy of Creativity 2017 Festival in Hong Kong. Her Kennedy Center debut was as Mezzo soloist in Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 with the Washington Chorus.

Katy has performed and workshopped many roles in new works: Florence Williams in Susan Kander’s The News From Poems, Hester Prynne in Eric Sawyer's The Scarlet Professor; Eve in Julian Wachner and Cerise Jacobs’ Rev 23 for the Prototype Festival, Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry with Florentine Opera and Ariel in the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s The Tempest for The Shakespeare Concerts in Boston recorded by Albany Records. In concert she sang Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the York Symphony, and Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with Grand Rapids Symphony. Pracht made her Carnegie Hall debut as Alto Soloist in Verdi's Requiem, her debut with Opera Philadelphia as Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte, twice sang Der Trommler in Der Kaiser von Atlantis for Central City Opera with the Colorado Symphony and for Chicago’s New Millennium Orchestra, sang Meg in Little Women directed by David Gately for Opera on the James, and two concerts with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus singing John Corigliano’s Fern Hill and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.