Leadership

Victory Hall Opera is a proudly Singer-led organization!

VHO’s visionary creative leadership has catalyzed opera by placing artist-forward values at the core of their company’s operations. Centering singers has allowed VHO to buck worldwide trends, building audience across the region through brave, genre-defying theater and film projects.

Miriam Gordon-Stewart

Co-founder/ Artistic Director

Miriam Gordon-Stewart brings almost 30 years of experience on the opera stages of the world to VHO’s leadership. Miriam speaks passionately about the need for greater singer representation in positions like hers and for a greater awareness of singers’ expertise above and beyond performing. Her artistic focus is on craft: Gordon-Stewart believes that the future of opera is in the furthering of the performing craft itself, in the heightening of the analog, acoustic experience. 

As the industry at large turns to technology as a way forward, Miriam prefers to focus on unleashing the nuclear potential of singers to move audiences and to tell stories in inventive ways.

Since 2017, Miriam has directed VHO’s major productions, together with Brenda Patterson (Director of Music), developing a distinctive collaborative rehearsal process for the troupe entitled Motif. Miriam is also a master vocal teacher, working regionally to train the next generation of soloists, as well as those already working at high levels of the industry. She is a regular consultant to Young Artist Programs at Opera Australia and State Opera of South Australia and has been a guest lecturer at University of Virginia, Middlebury College, Vermont and Elder Conservatorium of Music.

Brenda Patterson

Co-founder/ Director of Music/ Creative Producer

A graduate of Juilliard and Barnard College, Brenda Patterson’s artistic instinct has always been to question and experiment. Throughout an international opera career, Brenda has been a leading advocate for new music, performing new works and working with composers to help them achieve better self-expression through vocal writing. As a Creative Producer, in addition to collaborating on repertoire, production concept and casting, Brenda writes most of VHO’s chamber orchestrations, some of which have gone on to be performed by other companies, to great critical acclaim. She has worked on all of VHO’s creative commissions, collaborating with writers, composers and performance artists to create new works of theater.

On Faculty at the University of Virginia, Brenda is a Lecturer in Voice and Performance, and also leads a class on Entrepreneurship in UVA’s Catalyst Program. She recently completed the Stanford Executive Leadership Development Program, and has presented classes at Juilliard, Mannes, Tanglewood, Opera Philadelphia and for the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists.

Ariana Wehr

SINGTANK Director of Operations

Brazilian-born soprano Ariana Wehr is a recent graduate of the Cafritz Young Artist Program with Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The 2021-2022 season finds Ariana on the commercial recording of Blue with the Washington National Opera , and singing with Chicago Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera and Seattle Opera.

Ms. Wehr has received awards from The Sullivan Foundation, The George London Foundation, The Jensen Foundation, Opera Index, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions as a National Semi-Finalist. Ms. Wehr was recently named the inaugural winner of The Elizabeth Greenfield Award in recognition of her artistry and advocacy as a Black opera singer. 

Ms. Wehr holds a B.M. and M.M. in Vocal Performance from Louisiana State University and an M.B.A. with a concentration in Project Management from Louisiana State University. In addition to her performing career, Ms. Wehr works as a process improvement and operations consultant for nonprofit and for-profit firms and startups and has been working in the consulting space for the past 5 years. 

Celena Cox

Associate Producer

Celena Cox earned her degree in vocal performance from the University of Oklahoma and her Masters in opera performance from Arizona State University. Celena began her career as a dramatic mezzo-soprano, but quickly realized her passions lay in the production side of live theater. She has worked in many capacities at Victory Hall Opera—assistant director, costume designer, stage manager, singer, and sound engineer, to name a few. Celena works to bring a collaborative, inclusive, and affirming environment to every production she is privileged to be a part of, and she is excited to continue this as an Associate Producer.