Artistic Staff
Tony Thornton, Co-Artistic Director
Tony Thornton is an award-winning educator, conductor, and author. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and Voice from Westminster Choir College, his Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Louisiana State University, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting and Historical Musicology from the University of Arizona. His conducting mentors include Bruce Chamberlain, Joseph Flummerfelt, Kenneth Fulton, Frauke Haasemann, Margaret Hillis, and Donald Neuen.
As a guest conductor and clinician, Dr. Thornton has made significant contributions nationally and internationally. He has collaborated with over 400 mixed, treble, and tenor/bass choruses across public and private schools, colleges, churches, community ensembles, and professional organizations in 25 states, Japan, and throughout Europe.
With his roots as a trained singer, Thornton has performed as a tenor soloist in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He was a member of the Westminster Choir, performing at prestigious festivals such as the Spoleto Festival in Italy and the United States. His voice can also be heard on recordings with renowned conductors like Leonard Bernstein, Riccardo Muti, Robert Shaw, Claudio Abbado, and Zubin Mehta. Notably, he sang for six years as a member of the Grammy Award-winning Robert Shaw Festival Singers.
In addition to his performance career, Thornton is the author of The Choral Singer’s Survival Guide and has established a choral series bearing his name at Colla Voce Music. He has served as Professor and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Director of Choral and Vocal Studies and the Doug and Nickie Burns Endowed Chair in Choral Music at Oklahoma State University. Thornton is also the Artistic Director of the Sarteano (Italy) Choral Workshop and the Founding Artistic Director of Illumine Vocal Arts Ensemble.
Dr. Thornton maintains active memberships in several prestigious organizations, including the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM), and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). He has a history of leadership within the ACDA, having served as the Past President of the Massachusetts chapter and the Collegiate R&R Chair for ACDA Eastern.
Paulo Faustini, Co-Artistic Director
Italian-Brazilian-American of Veronese origin, Paulo Faustini, has performed as a classical vocal artist in Lieder recitals, choral ensembles, and operatic productions, and as a clinician led vocal
and choral technique workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. As a member of The Westminster Choir he performed and recorded with world leading orchestras
such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, National Symphony, Gewandhaus of Leipzig,
and worked with conductors such as Bernstein, Abbado, Muti, Masur, Mehta. He was a contracted professional singer for organizations such as The New York Choral Artists, Opera Philadelphia, Berkshire Opera, The Philadelphia Singers, and performed under Joseph Jennings and Chanticleer at their Sonoma Choral Workshop, Peter Phillips and members of The Tallis Scholars in Ávila, Spain, and appeared as tenor soloist in Monteverdi’s “Selva Morale e Spirituale” under the direction of the late Stephen Cleobury with Zenobia Musica, in Madrid. For many summers Paulo was also a singing participant of the Festival dei Due Mondi, in Spoleto, Italy, and performed in many operatic productions of composer and director, Gian Carlo Menotti.
During this time in Spoleto he gained artistic administrative experience as festival chorus manager. Paulo also founded and was for 20 years artistic director of SERENADES Choral Travel, a summer choral and cultural program for choral enthusiasts, both experienced amateurs and professionals, and took participants to perform in exquisite venues throughout Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Paulo has been inspiring students of the vocal art for almost 40 years. Many of his students have been accepted into major music schools in the United States such as The Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, and Westminster Choir College. He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). In addition to his current
online voice studio he was voice instructor at Westminster Choir College, artist faculty of voice at the Westminster Conservatory of Music in Princeton, NJ, and voice instructor at Haverford College, in Philadelphia.
Paulo holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy with distinction and a Bachelor of Music in Church Music and Voice from Westminster Choir College. His mentors have been David L. Jones, Laura Brooks Rice, Marvin Keenze, Dalton Baldwin, Glenn Parker, Joseph Flummerfelt and Frauke Haasemann. He currently lives in Bari, Puglia, Italy.
Jamie-Rose Guarrine, Voice Specialist
Soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine is acclaimed for her “utterly thrilling, agile voice” and praised for bringing “pathos, beauty, and heartbreaking skill” to her performances. She has performed on the stages of Los Angeles Opera, Minnesota Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Chicago Opera Theater, Austin Opera, Utah Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and on the concert stage with the Madison Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, The National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, and the Santa Fe Symphony, among many others.
An accomplished interpreter of Mozart opera, Guarrine has been seen at the Austin, Utah, Minnesota, and the Florentine Operas in her signature role of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and “delivered a lovely Pamina, singing with warmth, depth, and relaxed power” in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Additional career highlights include Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina at Opera Omaha, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor at Opera Saratoga, and a return to Minnesota Opera for Strauss’ Arabella, where she “traversed the Fiakermilli’s coloratura flights with ease and clarity” (Opera News).
Her diverse performance repertoire ranges from the masterworks of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, to modern works such as the roles of Xanthe/Aphrodite in Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata and Maria Celeste in Philip Glass’ Galileo Galilei. Dr. Guarrine’s debut album, Transparent Boundaries: Songs Set to the Words of Dickinson, Whitman & Emerson, featuring newly commissioned works by Lori Laitman, Daron Hagen, and Scott Gendel, debuted in 2020 on the PARMA label and all streaming platforms, and was featured in numerous publications including Gramophone Magazine. Dr. Guarrine is frequently seen in concert, as a collaborator at chamber music festivals and in recital, and she proudly serves as Professor of Voice at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as well as on the faculty of the Sarteano Choral Workshop.
