My name is Oliver Söhngen and I am the director of the LICAM Youth Choir. I was born in Germany, educated in Germany and The Cleveland Institute of Music, and I now live in Long Island City and am the founder and director of Long Island City Academy of Music (LICAM). Long Island City Academy of Music, the first music school in LIC, was established in 2010 to address the area's growing desire for music education of the finest quality. We have been named Best Art School in Queens and have a world-class faculty that serves over 200 students. We also have several outreach programs at New York Public schools.

Over the past several years I have been concentrating on training children’s voices according to the principles of old Italian technique. I started training the children for the LICAM Youth Choir 4 years ago and have seen the voices grow in their capabilities and development. The LICAM Youth Choir has performed several operas to date, including Amahl and the Night Visitors, Brundibar and the Golden Vanity by Benjamin Britten. This past fall, our choir was invited to sing in a Lincoln Center production of Puccini’s Tosca alongside Metropolitan Opera singers. One of our children, a 6-year-old member of our choir, was singing the featured role of the shepherd, which opens the Third Act and she was possibly the youngest person to ever sing the role. Our music directors have been James Bassi, a pianist who regularly plays for the NY Philharmonic and Jestin Pieper, who music directs operas across New York City. Gregory Couba, our stage director, is an accomplished actor and opera singer, with extensive directing credits.

All the roles in this production are being sung by members of the LICAM Youth Choir, ages 7 through 14. Dido & Aeneas lends itself to being sung by young voices, but it is rarely ever performed by students as young as ours. With your support we will be able to use a chamber orchestra for the first time ever in this production. Our goal is produce the best show we possibly can with beautiful costumes, a full set and lighting design. Our previous operas have all been extremely successful, but we want to make this one extra special. The children have worked hard to learn their parts and make beautiful music. The show is already promising to be a spectacular performance and we want to do our best to give them the highest production value possible. With your help, we can make it even more incredible!