We have a wonderful set of soloists for our Mozart Requiem Concert, March 11,12 and 13.They are all highly respected West Coast performing artists, all of whom perform extensively in the Bay Area and beyond. Nikolas Nackley was the baritone soloist for our November Carmina Burana concert.

​Claire Kelm Claire Kelm has enjoyed a varied and wide-ranging career, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been heard as a soloist with San Francisco Symphony Chorus, San Francisco Bach Choir, Baroque Choral Guild/Cantabile, Coro Hispano de San Francisco, Schola Cantorum, Magnificat, and the Latin American Chamber Music Society, among others. She has been fortunate to perform with some of the premiere ensembles in a variety of genres, including American Bach Soloists Choir, Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices, and Artists’ Vocal Ensemble (AVE). She just completed her ninth season as a full-time member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus. She has performed Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus) with Berkeley Opera, and Anna, the Widow (The Merry Widow) and a variety of Gilbert & Sullivan heroines with Lamplighters Music Theatre. For elementary school children, she sang Pamina (The Magic Flute) for West Bay Opera-in-the-Schools and Viva Opera for the Museo Italiano. Recent highlights include recitals at the American Embassy in Paris and in Los Angeles, a tour of China and Japan with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, and performing at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Jackson, Wyoming. She holds degrees from Stanford University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Danielle Sampson is an avid performer of baroque, classical, and contemporary music. Highlights of this season have included a gala performance with Pacific MusicWorks, Praetorius’ Christmas Vespers with Early Music Vancouver, and collaborations with Amaranth String Quartet to perform new and existing works for voice and strings. Over the summer Danielle performed with the Boston Early Music Festival in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Melanto) and L’incoronazione di Poppea (La Virtù, Pallade), and with Early Music Vancouver in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (the Sorceress) and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Danielle has appeared with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, American Bach Soloists, California Bach Society, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and San Francisco Bach Choir, among others. She is a founding member of the guitar/voice duo Jarring Sounds, and the baroque chamber ensemble Liaison. She earned her BM at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, and her MM at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Danielle currently resides in San Francisco.

Elliott James Encarnación is a self-trained cathedral tenor. He enjoys regular performances with The Artists’ Vocal Ensemble (AVE) under Jonathan Dimmock as well as the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and the newly founded Cappella SF under Ragnar Bohlin. He is a member of AGMA and can be found singing nearly every weekend at Christ the Light Cathedral in Oakland. Elliott is also a composer and conductor. He has a Bachelor of Musical Arts in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music, and a Master of Musical Arts in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He studied orchestral conducting privately with one of Bernstein’s former protégés, David Gilbert, while in New York as well as choral conducting with Robert Isaacs and Kristina Börger. Elliott has premièred various choral works, concerti and operas, and has recently co-founded Prodigal Opera Productions where he serves as Artistic Director.

Most recently heard in the title role of West Edge Opera’s critically acclaimed “Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria”, Nikolas Nackley’s other recent credits include the role of Joe Pitt in Peter Eötvös’s “Angels in America” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Adonis in Blow’s “Venus and Adonis” with Marin Baroque, baritone soloist in Cantata BWV 140 and Handel’s “Ode for the Birth of Queen Anne” with the SF Bach Choir, and West Coast premier of Kaija Saariaho’s “The Tempest Songbook” with Cal Performances. He has worked under such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Roger Norrington, Joana Carneiro, Bruno Weil, Craig Smith, Harry Christophers, John Harbison, and Pablo Heras Casado. Upcoming engagements include the world premier of Stacy Garrop’s “Terra Nostra” with the SF Choral Society, Vaughan William’s “Fantasia On Christmas Carols” with the U.C. Davis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bach’s “Weihnachts-Oratorium” with Marin Oratorio, “Carmina Burana” with the Merced Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s “Requiem” and Jocelyn Hagen’s “Ashes of Roses” with the Santa Clara Chorale. Nikolas is on the faculty of the School of Music at San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University.