Leadership

Isaac Selya
Founder and Artistic Director

Isaac Selya has extensive experience as a musician, entrepreneur, scholar, and educator. He made his German debut conducting the world-famous Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in fall 2018. He has been a featured Spotlight Artist in Musical America, and has guest conducted the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Xiamen Philharmonic in China, the National Symphony of Guatemala, and Pacific Opera Project, where he led the Los Angeles stage premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. For the Glimmerglass Festival, he coached and conducted the first-ever reading of the revised version of Philip Glass’s Appomattox, with the composer present. He was recently named an inaugural conducting associate at the Defiant Requiem Foundation, which presents performances of Verdi’s Requiem in commemoration of artists interested at the Terezín Ghetto, who performed Verdi’s Requiem in defiance of the Nazis. He also serves as Music Director of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic and Staff Conductor for the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance.

He is working with storied German music publisher Bärenreiter as editor of a new edition of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, including a machine learning-assisted transcription of the Russian text into International Phonetic Alphabet.

In 2025, Isaac conducted the Cincinnati Symphony accompanying Cincinnati Ballet.

Isaac holds a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, where he specialized in historical casting trends in Mozart’s operas. He is one of the few conductors in the world who has conducted Mozart’s complete German-language operas.

With QCO, Isaac is responsible for selecting repertoire, contracting artists, coaching singers from the piano, and conducting performances. In addition, he handles librarian duties such as ordering parts and marking bowings. He is also responsible for administrative duties such as fund-raising, publicity, and renting performance spaces.

Michael Patterson
Associate Music Director

Michael Patterson is a Puerto Rican-American conductor and pianist known for his dynamic musicianship, warm leadership style, and community-driven spirit. His conducting journey began at age eighteen when he founded the PianoForte Symphony Orchestra, leading it from 2009 to 2014 with a mission to bring meaningful musical experiences to Southern California audiences.

Patterson now serves as Music Director of the Seven Hills Symphony, where he leads the orchestra into its 51st season with an emphasis on storytelling, accessibility, and artistic joy. He also serves as Associate Music Director of Queen City Opera, helping shape the company’s vision for bold, socially relevant productions featuring Cincinnati emerging artists in collaboration with local community organizations.

He is completing his doctorate in orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where he studies with Mark Gibson. In 2024, he led the CCM opera production of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, one of Mozart’s earliest operas.

As a collaborative pianist, Patterson performs with institutions including Cincinnati Opera, especially through the Opera Fusion: New Works initiative, assisting in the development of operas by leading composers such as Carlos Simon, Laura Kaminsky, and Maria Thompson Corley. He recently joined Cincinnati Opera as assistant conductor and pianist for their 2025 season. Patterson also plays with Cincinnati Ballet, the Cincinnati BoyChoir and the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic.

Patterson has conducted a wide array of ensembles both locally and internationally, including the Filarmonica de Stat Târgu Mureș, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, Apollo Orchestra, Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, earning praise for his “dramatic subtlety and musical finesse” (The Millbrook Independent).

He holds a conducting degree from Bard College Conservatory of Music, having studied with Harold Farberman, Leon Botstein, and Joan Tower. Outside of Bard, he has worked closely with conductors such as Gary Thor Wedow, Everett McCorvey, and John Fiore.

Michael lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Vivian, and their two cats, Luna and Suki.

Alea Louise Vernon
Engagement Director

Cherokee Indian, and Italian-American Soprano, Alea Louise Vernon obtained her Bachelors degree at The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Elliot Madore and William McGraw. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School Pre-College Division; and an alumna of The Ensign-Darling Fellowship at The Bushnell Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Ms. Vernon grew up in the New Haven area of Connecticut. Much of her childhood was spent making Sunday Sauce at Nana’s, learning about her Dad’s home and stories, and apple picking with her brothers. Drawing from her multi-cultural background, Ms. Vernon enjoyed learning about and honoring family traditions, especially from her Italian-American and Appalachian Cherokee descendants.

Ms. Vernon has been a featured soloist with organizations appearing in renowned theaters such as Carnegie Hall, Paul Hall, The Bushnell Theatre, Peter J. Sharp Auditorium, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and The New World Center. This season, Ms. Vernon could be heard throughout the greater Ohio region as a soprano soloist in the Lord Nelsen Mass by Hayden, the Nunes Garcia Requiem, Messiah, and Mozart’s Requiem. 

At CCM, Ms. Vernon was involved with projects spanning multiple genres including art song, opera, and musical theater. She debuted as Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, as well as Die Königin der Nacht. In 2022 Ms. Vernon made her debut with the Princess Cruise Line and headlined in their on-board production, where she sang the role of Die Königin der Nacht. On this same tour, she also performed a solo concert with the house orchestra, which repertoire spanned from golden age musical theater to classical cabaret standards, to operatic hits. Ms. Vernon is particularly passionate about twenty-first-century music. This spark ignited when she did her first world premiere in October of 2018, in The Midwest Composers Symposium. Since then, she has been involved in several premieres in both opera and concert repertoire. In 2022, Ms. Vernon premiered the song “Take This Job and…” by Evan Mack, as a collaboration with Cincinnati Song Initiative. The two have plans to debut the rest of the song cycle in 2024. Additionally, she workshopped Revenants, a new opera, written by Eli Lucas with the Scandinavian Society. 

Prior to beginning her studies at CCM, Alea spent her summers at The Casentino Voice Festival in Popi, Italy, New York Summer Music Festival, The Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and The Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. In the summer of 2019, Ms. Vernon was a member of The Janiec Opera Company at Brevard Music Center. She became one of the youngest members to ever hold residency. In 2020, she was scheduled to be a Colburn Fellow at Songfest in Los Angeles, California, as well as join the Berlin Opera Academy, in Germany, prior to the pandemic. 

Ms. Vernon is a National YoungArts Winner, Second Place Winner in SongSlam, a competition that commissions new works, a 3Arts Scholarship Winner, First Place in The American Prize Women in Song, Pre College Division, First Place in The American Prize Women in Opera, Pre-College Division,  and a two time George London Scholarship Recipient.