Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Andrés Franco is a nonprofit executive and orchestral conductor. He is the inaugural Executive Director of DNAWORKS, an organization dedicated to dialogue and healing through the arts.  He currently serves on the Exposure Advisory Committee of The Pittsburgh Foundation and the WQED Community Advisory Board.

A frequent guest conductor in the U.S., Europe, and South America, Andrés has appeared with the symphonies of Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Eugene, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Omaha, and St. Louis; the philharmonic orchestras of Boise and Oklahoma City; the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Worldwide, he has conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Perú, Bogotá Philharmonic, Medellín Philharmonic, and EAFIT Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared at the Cabrillo, Grant Park, OK Mozart, Oregon Bach, Round Top, and Texas Music festivals.

Andrés served five seasons as Music Director of Tulsa’s Signature Symphony and Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has also served as Associate, then Resident Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony, and Music Director of the Philharmonia of Kansas City. 

From 2020 to 2023, Andrés served as Executive Director of City of Asylum, an organization devoted to building a just community by protecting and celebrating creative free expression. 

Born into a musical family, Andrés Franco began piano studies with his father, Jorge Franco. He studied with Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Jose Feghali and attended piano workshops with Rudolph Buchbinder in Switzerland and Lev Naumov in France. Andrés studied conducting with Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Helmut Rilling, Gerard Schwarz, Leonard Slatkin, Gustav Meier, and Kurt Masur.

Andrés Franco holds a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, and Master of Music degrees in piano performance and conducting from Texas Christian University. He is married to Victoria Luperi, associate principal clarinet and principal E-flat clarinet of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Katy Williams has performed the Fiddlesticks Family Concerts for the past 10 years and has loved every minute of it!  The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has become a second home and she will sing the praises of all the musicians, Maestros and staff forever. Other wonderful organizations that she sings with are  Pittsburgh Opera, Civic Light Opera, Quantum Theater, the Mendelssohn Choir, Pittsburgh Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Concert Chorale and River City Brass Band. She has also had the frequent pleasure of singing with Maestro Larry Loh’s Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic and in Syracuse, NY with Symphoria! Also, she has sung with Maestro Lucas Richman’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, TN and with Bangor Symphony Orchestra, ME.

Katy was a featured soloist for the PSO Holiday Pops concert series, singing the Marvin Hamlisch original song “Take Me to Christmas Past.” She made her Pittsburgh Symphony debut in September 2005 with Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights Dream and has been a frequent guest artist ever since. She was the boy soprano voice in Howard Shore’s Heinz Hall performance of The Lord of the Rings. She has also performed with the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and has sung the National Anthem in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium.

She has sung under the baton of Manfred Honeck, Sir Andrew Davis, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Rafael Frubeck de Burgos, Lucas Richman, Marvin Hamlisch, Robert Page, Lawrence Loh, and Daniel Meyer.

Currently, Katy is a chorister in Pittsburgh Opera and is adjunct music staff at Point Park University and Washington and Jefferson College. She is the soprano soloist at Rodef Shalom, Oakland, and the vocal artist-in-residence at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Mt. Lebanon, PA. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Vocal Performance. She lives in Mt. Lebanon with her husband, children and two dogs. She loves music, dogs, baking and a really good mac and cheese!

Venezuelan-born pianist Rodrigo Ojeda discovered his passion for music at the very early age of two when his parents made him listened to Carl Orff Trionfo di Afrodite and Carmina Burana, but it was not until the age of ten that Mr. Ojeda began to take his first piano lessons. By the age of fifteen, Mr. Ojeda was invited to perform Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto, with the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Orchestra which was broadcast live on radio and television in Caracas, Venezuela.

A versatile pianist, Mr. Ojeda has frequently performed as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He has performed in every prominent concert hall in his native Venezuela as well as in Ecuador, Spain, USA and Mexico with an expansive repertoire of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Gershwin, Grieg, Schumann, Mozart, Liszt (Totentanz), Cesar Frank, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Saint Saëns and Stravinsky. Mr. Ojeda has participated in master classes with numerous concert pianists like Kasimierz Giesrod (former rector of the Frederic Chopin Academy in Warsaw), Marek Jablonsky, Georgy Sandor, Marta Gulyas, and Earl Wild.

Possessing a wide-ranging knowledge of chamber music repertoire, he has collaborated with countless instrumentalists and vocalists worldwide. He has played and recorded several CD’s with various principal members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as well as former Concertmasters Andrés Cárdenes and Noah Bendix-Balgley. Recently, Mr. Ojeda recorded Stravinsky Piano Concerto with Carnegie Mellon’s Wind Ensemble.

Mr. Ojeda received a Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance at IUDEM, Venezuela (Institute of Musical Studies) in 1997 with his mentor and pianist Arnaldo Pizzolante,, then moved in 1999 to the United States where he received a Master’s Degree and an Artist Diploma at Carnegie Mellon University under Mr. Enrique Graf in 2003.

Currently Mr. Ojeda is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Coaching and Accompanying at Carnegie Mellon University as well as a piano faculty member in its Music Preparatory School. He has also been playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since August 2006.

Attack Theatre fuses modern dance, original live music, and interdisciplinary arts to create “wickedly entertaining stage productions” (Pittsburgh City Paper). Under the artistic direction of co-founders Peter Kope and Michele de la Reza, the company has performed and toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia including for the Avignon Festival (France), the 7th Next Wave Dance Festival (Japan), Indonesia Arts Festival, Monaco Danses Forum, the Spoleto Festival and the Broadway production of Squonk. Known for their "audacious athleticism" (Dance Magazine), Attack Theatre has created more than 150 original works in theatrical and non-traditional settings. A sought after collaborator, the company has brought dance and movement to partnerships with theater companies, museums, and more than a dozen operas, including Carmen, Rigoletto, Eugene Onegin, Aida, Turandot and Samson and Dalila. Attack Theatre has had the honor of performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in a number of engagements, including the reimagining of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat with Pinchus Zuckerman. With a core belief that movement is an essential part of living and learning, Attack Theatre conducts creative learning and wellness programs in school and community settings throughout the region, reaching more than 9,000 students, teachers, and community members annually.www.attacktheatre.com