Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco
Vocal Coach, Conductor and Accompanist

Conductor, Vocal Coach and Pianist Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco returns to Shaker Mountain Performing Arts Festival for a fourth season to conduct Gounod’s Faust.  Mr. Riojas-Nolasco joined Shaker Mountain Opera in 2001 leading members of the Albany Symphony in performances of Il Barbiere di Siviglia.  He returned in following seasons to conduct Rigoletto and Norma.  Joseph Dalton of Albany’s Times Union praised his work saying, “Conductor Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco seemed to be always on the mark, not just with cues but with pacing and tempo as well.”

In the spring of 2000, Mr. Riojas-Nolasco began his operatic conducting career with the Chicago Opera Ensemble performing the opera Mignon. He returned later that year to conduct La Favorita. In 2001 he was the guest conductor for Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Izmir State Opera in Turkey.

Mr. Riojas-Nolasco collaborated as an assistant conductor for Marco Boemi during productions of Werther for the Bilbao Opera (A.B.A.O.) in Spain and Tosca for the Plovdiv Opera in Bulgaria; with Kamal Kahn during Lucia di Lammermoor for the Cape Town Opera in South Africa; with Marcello Panni for another Bilbao Opera production, Norma, and for Sebastian Weigle during Der Freischütz for the Dresden Semper Oper in Germany.  Mr. Riojas-Nolasco’s command of Spanish, English, French, Italian and German, and his expertise in bel canto style has proven invaluable in his work with singers as a diction and vocal coach with the Opera Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Bronx Opera in New York, the New Jersey State Repertory Opera and Stadttheater St. Gallen and Zurich Opernhaus in Switzerland.

He is an accomplished pianist and has performed in concert in Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Israel, the Caribbean, South Africa and the United States. Performance venues include the White House and Kennedy Center in Washington, Zürich Opernhaus in Switzerland, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Salon Dorado in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In addition, he has assisted in Master classes of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Francisco Araiza, Marilyn Horne, Renata Scotto, Gerard Souzay, Silvana Bartoli, Ramon Vargas, Gilda Cruz-Romo and Joan Dornemann of the Metropolitan Opera Company.

A native of Northern Mexico, Mr. Riojas Nolasco began his musical career as a pianist after initially studying in the Escuela Nacional de Musica in Mexico City and the Escuela Superior de Musica in Saltillo, Mexico. He left his native home for the United States where he continued studying under the recognized tutelage of Robert Avalon, Timothy Woolsey, Ivan Davis, and David Garvey. As a young pianist Mr. Riojas-Nolasco was the recipient of the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, first prize in the Southwest Texas Orchestra piano competition and named Musician of the Year in 1989 for the Camara Nacional de Comercio in Coahuila, Mexico.