General Director and soprano Elizabeth Wells holds her Masters degree in vocal performance from Northwestern University and did her undergraduate work at the University of Arizona, receiving scholarships at both institutions. Upon graduation, she accepted positions as an AGMA chorister with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Head Manager with the Verdi & Puccini Opera Café. In addition to the Lyric Opera, she has performed as chorister or soloist with the Arizona Opera, Rome Festival Opera, South Bay Opera, and Pacific Palisades Symphony. Her repertoire ranges from standard roles to world-premieres. In her twelve years as a private voice instructor, Elizabeth produced students working professionally in opera, pop, rock, world music and musical theater. In Los Angeles she was invited to join the Board of Directors of the Intimate Opera Company as Executive Director. Her duties included budget advisement, management, staff and artist contracting, coordination of venue usage and the supervision of fundraising projects and concerts. During her tenure, the company increased its number of full productions and had five annual fundraising concerts. Elizabeth also served as Volunteer Coordinator for South Bay Opera, managed artistic events for Classically Inclined Productions and the Santa Monica Chamber Opera, plus organized fundraising for individual artists. While living in California, she started LA Concert Opera, which became Willamette Concert Opera when she moved to Oregon. Elizabeth remains committed to contributing to the musical arts in Oregon both as a performer and an administrator.

Artistic Adviser Ralph Wells has had a diverse career--baritone, composer, arranger, writer, artist, producer and educator. His scholarly knowledge of opera, operetta and film music (he once taught American film history at Portland State University), combined with a broad career onstage as a singer, has given him a particular interest in seeing Willamette Concert Opera come to fruition. Wells has performed dozens of opera and oratorio roles ranging from Figaro to Escamillo and he has worked with companies from Los Angeles Opera to the Seattle Symphony Pops. He currently maintains a busy private voice studio in Oregon. Wells has written a show entitled Farewell, Vienna! on the life and legacy of the great Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and it will receive its official world-premiere next season at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. as part of the Embassy Series concerts. Prior to that there are plans to incorporate a reading of the show with Willamette Concert Opera. As a producer, Wells presented a shortened version of the show at the International Film Music Conference in 1998 in Culver City. In addition to numerous concerts which he has organized, both as a performer and teacher, Wells has produced a double-bill of Mozart's The Impresario and Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri for Oregon Opera Ensemble.

Chorus Mistress Elizabeth Atchley has worked on several shows for WCO, preparing the chorus and accompanying soloists. She is a recent transplant from Montana to Corvallis, where her daughter is in the veterinary medicine program at Oregon State University. Elizabeth is now the pianist for many students at OSU and is the accompanist for the Meistersingers chorus at the school. She has a long background in music. She did her undergraduate work at University of Montana with a degree in piano performance, studying with Rudoph Wendt and Dennis Alexander, and accompanying the Collegiate Chorale. She did her masters at Texas Community College, studying with Dr. Adele Galanfy from the Budapest Conservatory and Dennis Alexander. She has played for many shows, including The Pirates of Penzance, Dames at Sea, Oklahoma, Big River, and most recently Beauty and the Beast, the first community release from Disney Studios. Singers that she has worked with have been Met and NATS winners at various levels.

Intern Kai Tave began singing with the Willamette Concert Opera in the Fall of 2005, with chorus roles in Le Villi, Il Tabarro, Il Corsaro, Adriana Lecouvreur, and has since taken on comprimario roles such as the police commissioner in Il Signor Bruschino and various priests and armed men in Die Zauberflöte. He is currently attending Oregon State University, where he pursues (with mixed success) a degree in music with a vocal performance emphasis. He is a member of the OSU Meistersingers men’s choir, and was also a member of Les Trouvères, OSU’s shortest-lived mixed voice ensemble. Kai first moved to Oregon in 1997, and eventually attended Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, where he took part in the school chamber and jazz choirs. He later attended Southwest Oregon Community College and worked with music director Christian Rosman, where he sang in several seasonal productions of Handel's Messiah. He is the first member of his family, as far as he knows, to pursue a career in music, a decision that has, disappointingly, elicited not one bit of outrage or indignation, yet he remains optimistic about the future. Aside from his pursuits in music, he has also taken part in theater and creative writing at OSU, and maintains an active interest and involvement in martial arts of various styles. At home he is the consummate geek, immersing himself in a hedonistic lifestyle of gaming, science-fiction, and rampant internet abuse. Occasionally, he sleeps.