Autumn Chamber Music Recital at Friendship Village

Steyer is the 2020 Honored Artist of The American Prize for outstanding contributions to the arts. The soprano has received acclaim for her portrayals of Madame Butterfly and Violetta, and has sung in 40 productions at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She shared the stage with Lawrence Brownlee, members of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestras, and was featured on WFMT’s program Music Notes: Music of Healing and Peace.

Steyer is an avid recitalist and producer, showcasing unique works by contemporary and by women poets and composers. In 2021, she premiered the role of the Rio de Janeiro Health Care Worker in On Call: COVID-19 and in 2022 premiered the role of Flanna in Future Perfect. Steyer served as librettist for these award-winning operas.

​Steyer has brought music to 24,000 youths in underserved areas with Bellissima Opera’s In the Classroom. She is President of the vocal alliance Working in Concert and Artistic Director of its Bellissima Opera initiative. She is on the Concordia University in River Forest music faculty and teaches music at Ascension Catholic School in Oak Park, IL.

She is thrilled to share her deep love of music with a new generation of young people. She lives in Oak Park with her husband, Paul, and their beloved rescue dog Huckleberry. She loves to garden, paint, and travel worldwide in her free time.

Michael Finlay is an award-winning concert pianist and chamber musician, most recently invited to perform at the Dame Myra Hess series in Chicago and the Metropolitan Detroit Musician’s League in Michigan. He is a 2022 prizewinner of The American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award. He maintains an active performance schedule with recent performances in Catania (Italy), Montreal, Toronto, Austin, San Antonio, Denver, and Atlanta. His performances have been broadcast on classical radio stations in Austin, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Montreal. An avid chamber musician, Finlay has performed with members of the Cleveland, Chicago, and Montreal Symphony orchestras and with members of the Catalyst, Kontras, and Koerner quartets. His recent concert with cellist Jean Hatmaker was hailed as “sensitive and commanding” by WFMT, Chicago’s classical radio station.

Brian Hoffman, cello, is a two-time 1st prize winner of the North Carolina Music Academy Cello Competition, as well as top prizewinner of the Grimsley Concerto Competition, in which he was soloist in performances of the Elgar and Saint-Saens Concerti in Greensboro. Brian was also a soloist in the Dvorak, Haydn, and Shostakovich Concerti performances at Northwestern University and the Meadowmount School of Music. His awards include the GSYO Armfield-Eichhorn Prize for Outstanding Musicianship, Northwestern University’s Esther Yochim Fellowship, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s Critser Endowed Cello Fellowship.