Our Staff
Corinne Denny, Founder, Artistic and Stage Director, is deeply passionate about producing opera in exciting, accessible productions. She is currently directing Bluebeard's Castle for DIO, and directed both The Medium and Trouble in Tahiti in the company's opening season . Corinne was the stage director for Denver Opera Collective's 2017 summer season, modernizing three one act operas: Bastien(ne) and Bastienne (re-imagined as a dispute between a teenage lesbian couple with a translation and script adapted by Corinne), Signor Deluso, and Gianni Schicchi. Other directing credits include Opera on Tap's 2016 touring production of Suor Angelica, set in a religious girls' boarding school, and La Cenerentola for Boulder Opera Company.
Corinne has extensive experience in business administration and arts management, including five years in the financial services industry. She has also served as the Production Manager for Boulder Opera Company and the Company Manager for Boulder Music
Institute. Corinne holds a Performer's Certificate in Voice from the University of Denver, a dual MM in Opera and Musical Theatre Performance from Arizona State University, and a BM in Voice Performance from Middle Tennessee State University.
Jessica Nilles, Music Director and Pianist, recently completed her doctorate in piano performance at the University of Colorado Boulder. Jessica has performed with many instrumentalists and singers, including Simon Estes, with whom she performed at the White House and in his Roots & Wings tour across the state of Iowa. She also worked with University of Oklahoma's opera program and Cimarron Opera.
As a soloist, Jessica recently performed works of Beethoven in Eisenstadt, Austria, in venues including the Esterházy Palace. An advocate of new music, she frequently performs with the Colorado New Music Ensemble, with which she recently performed Tempest Fantasy by Paul Moravec. At CU Boulder, she performs in the Pendulum New Music concerts and premiered a work by Carter Pann (2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music), titled Poems for Jason.
Jessica studies with Dr. Andrew Cooperstock at the University of Colorado Boulder and also holds degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, and Piano Performance from Wartburg College.