2026 Dr. Marjorie Conrad Art Song Competition

Matthew Gemmill is visiting lecturer in music in chamber and collaborative music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Before coming to Indiana, he earned an Artist Diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan. Gemmill was also based for 10 years in Chicago, teaching at Wheaton College and Roosevelt University. He served as faculty at the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago and spent five summers teaching at the Up North Vocal Institute in Boyne City, Michigan.

A frequent pianist for opera, Gemmill supervised music for the premiere of Gregory Spears’ Jason and the Argonauts, a new opera for children commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago, and assisted in Lyric’s production of Fellow Travelers. He joined Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for the company’s 2024 New Works Collective. He also trained as an apprentice artist at San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Center.

In demand as a collaborator with singers, Gemmill appeared in the 2016 Collaborative Works Festival at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Recital partners include Michelle Areyzaga, Kristina Bachrach, Emily Fons, Megan Esther Grey, and Richard Ollarsaba. Gemmill has accompanied recitals at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, and the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar. In 2020, his performances of songs and chamber music by Detlev Glanert at the Barbican Centre in London were broadcast on the BBC.

Also passionate about choral music, he has performed with choirs throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

Currently completing a doctorate in collaborative piano at the Jacobs School of Music, Gemmill’s mentors and teachers include Eugene Asti, Iain Burnside, Chih-Yi Chen, Julius Drake, Anne Epperson, Daniel Paul Horn, Martin Katz, and Kevin Murphy.

Ryu-Kyung Kim, mezzo-soprano, highlighted her recent season as the featured vocalist for Chamber Music Silicon Valley and American Voices’ collaborated project, “معا/JUNTOS (Unity)” in San Jose, CA wehre she recorded and premiered eight newly-written compositions in five different languages including Arabic and Kurdish, written by eight young Middle-Eastern composers. She also portrayed the role of Anne Gideon in Dayton Opera’s world premier opera, Finding Wright and sang the title role as Queen Lili'uokalani in Little Opera Theater of NY’s Better Gods. Other recent engagements include her appearances in Korea Now concert in Cairo, Egypt, in The Shakespeare Concert at Jordan Hall and Jewett Arts Center, as Vera Boronel and Suzuki in Dayton Opera’s The Consul and Madama Butterfly, and as Alto Solo in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. She also performed Jade Boucher in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking with Dayton Opera, Alto Solo in Handel’s Messiah with Helena Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Master Chorale, and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Alto Solo in Bach’s Magnificat and Mozart C minor Mass with Bach Society of Dayton, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra and Greater Newburgh Symphony. She is a frequent performer of Arnold Schoenberg’s first atonal song cycle, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, Op. 15 and her recent lecture-recitals include performances at Indiana Wesleyan University, Korean Cultural Center New York, and at the University of Dayton.    

Ms. Kim’s other stage successes include her portrait of the title role in La Cenerentola, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Octavian in Der Rosencavalier, Carmen in Carmen, Malika in Lakmé, Idamante in Idomeneo, Adalgisa in Norma, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Emilia in Otello and Carilda in Handel’s Arianna in Creta with Santa Fe Opera, Baltimore Opera, Cleveland Opera, El Paso Opera, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Beheme Opera New Jersey, Opera Orchestra of New York, Virginia Opera, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Gotham Chamber Opera and Caramoor Music Festival. As a concert artist, Ms. Kim has appeared in numerous concerts in Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall and in both Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and collaborated with internationally claimed orchestras such as Korean Symphony Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra in Japan, and Staatskapelle Halle and Frankfurter Sinfoniker in Germany. Dr. Kim also made a New York Recital Debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2005.

Ms. Kim is also a perennial prizewinner, her awards being those of The Oratorio Society of New York, The Liederkranz Foundation Voice Competition, The Annapolis Opera Voice Competition, and Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions. Ryu-Kyung Kim's appearance in the opera The Floating Box: A Story of Chinatown [New World Records, 2005], under the auspices of The Asia Society of New York, was highly praised in Opera News ("Miss Kim was simply splendid") and also in The New York Times. She was also a featured solo artist in two critically acclaimed recordings by The Shakespeare Concert Series, Who Is Sylvia? and Music to Hear [Navona, 2020].

Ms. Kim earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY at Stony Brook, received her Artist’s Diploma in Opera from the Academy of Vocal Arts, Master's and Bachelor's Degrees in Voice from Manhattan School of Music where she got a Scholarship Award, President Award and Alumni Award. She is currently serving as Music Performance Degree Program Coordinator and Assistant of Voice in the Department of Music at the University of Dayton.