RAKEFET HAK - CONDUCTOR/MUSIC DIRECTOR

Maestra Rakefet Hak is a conductor, pianist, and coach whose career on the podium is gaining momentum, with recent and upcoming engagements in both standard and contemporary opera repertoire. This season, she conducts The Turn of the Screw at UCLA and Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters at the Manhattan School of Music, a piece she recently conducted at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She recently made her Long Beach Opera debut as Music Director for The Recital, a boundary-pushing fusion of film and live performance and conducted the world premiere of Quake by Kay Rhie at UCLA. She has also led concerts and masterclasses in Germany and the Czech Republic and served as assistant conductor for productions of Tosca and Falstaff with Malmö Opera in Sweden.

Ms. Hak’s extensive background as a pianist and coach includes work with the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Spoleto Festival, Merola Opera Program, Pine Mountain Music Festival, Ojai Music Festival, The New Israeli Opera, Semperoper Dresden, and Ruhrtriennale Festival in Germany. In 1997, she joined the Metropolitan Opera’s music staff and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program as one of its youngest members—and the first Israeli in history to do so. While at the Met, she collaborated with conductors including James Levine, Edo de Waart, Jun Märkl, Patrick Summers, and Plácido Domingo, and coached such celebrated singers as Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, and Joyce DiDonato.

In recital, Ms. Hak has performed with Bryn Terfel, Michelle DeYoung, Sondra Radvanovsky, Mariusz Kwiecień, and Alfred Walker in venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Sala Teatro La Fenice. In 2000, she joined the music staff of Los Angeles Opera at the invitation of Plácido Domingo and currently serves as Music Director of the UCLA Opera Studio.