Jillian Willems

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Creative credits include Into the Woods (Choreographer/MTC), The Snail and the Whale (Director/MTYP), Twelfth Night: A Musical (Director/Choreographer/The ViC/The Keep), Guys & Dolls (Director, WSO/Rainbow); The Golem’s Mighty Swing (Assistant Director, WJT); Pippin (Choreographer, WST/ViC); Breaking Up is Hard to Do (Choreographer, Rainbow Stage); American Idiot (Choreographer, WST).

Select performance credits include Cinderella (Rainbow Stage), South Pacific (WSO/Rainbow), A Charlie Brown Double Bill (MTYP), South Pacific (Regina Symphony), and Heathers (WST). 

Jillian is an artistic associate and dance teacher at The Village Conservatory for Music Theatre (ViC).

Leanne Hiebert is a piano teacher and collaborative pianist in Winnipeg, plays for two of the Pembina Trails Voices choirs (Cantemus and Ragazzi), and is the regular pianist for various vocal and flute studios. She teaches pianists of all ages, and loves providing them with a wide variety of performance and learning opportunities.

Leanne is a former president of the MRMTA (Manitoba Registered Music Teachers’ Association) and continues to be involved with them on the provincial as well as the national level (CFMTA- Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations). This is her second Children’s Tour with Manitoba Underground Opera, and she is excited to once again explore Manitoba’s amazing towns and libraries and bring this fun show to kids of all ages!

The love of music collaboration began with piano duets, trios and quartets encouraged by teacher Lydia Wiebe and continued as Leanne worked with choirs, soloists, and ballet classes in Brandon where she completed a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance under the instruction of Dr. Ken Nichols.

Leanne and husband Reg have lived in Japan and done a variety of bicycle adventures all over the world. They currently live in south Winnipeg where they have raised 3 boys. Enjoy the show!

Monica Hultin has been performing and organizing musical performances for over 40 years in Toronto, Kingston and Winnipeg, particularly in the field of Early Music.  She is a recently received her BMus studying voice at the University of Manitoba’s Desautels Faculty of Music where she discovered an enjoyment for opera.  While there she acted as Assistant Stage Manager for scenes from Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta with University of Manitoba Opera Theatre.  Last year, she stage-managed Cendrillon for the Advanced Opera class for the University’s Advanced Opera Class, and Goldilocks B. Locks and the Three Singing Bears with the Manitoba Underground Opera.  This summer Monica adds Production Manager to her duties as she returns to stage-manage and travel with the Opera for Children Tour.

Russian-Mennonite Canadian, Meagan Reimer, returned to her home province of southern Manitoba in late 2020; a career casualty of the global pandemic after almost ten years performing as a classical vocalist in Toronto, southern Ontario, and Europe. Meagan holds a Bachelor of Music from Canadian Mennonite University, and Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Vocal Performance from the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music.

In the pre-COVID world, Meagan has been a featured soloist in a broad range of repertoire, her performance has been primarily as a classical soloist. Oratorio works have covered the music of composers such as Duruflé, Fauré, Händel, Mozart, Haydn, Allegri, a host of Bach cantatas, Saint-Saëns, and Pergolesi/Durante. Opera and operetta credits include the core repertoire of the lyric mezzo soprano with Toronto-based companies such as Opera by Request, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Voicebox Opera in Concert, Opera Sustenida, Tapestry Opera, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, York University and the Talisker Players.

Meagan was a finalist of the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra Clifford Poole Vocal Competition in Toronto, and a semi-finalist of the Doris MacLellan Competition in Winnipeg. She made her European musical debut in Berlin, Germany at the Knutson Studio presenting favourites of the French and Canadian art song repertoire. 

She was scheduled return to Weimar, Germany to sing the title role in Rossini’s La Cenerentola before the pandemic, having previously appeared as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. Meagan was an invitee to the Grandi Voci vocal competition at the Oper im Berg Festival in Salzburg, Austria, and after attending, subsequently spent time in Vienna in masterclass with Maestro Maurizio Scardovi.

Meagan recently appeared with Winnipeg-based, Flipside Opera, for a local opera pub performance, and was tickled to join Opera Revue in Toronto for their Father’s Day opera pub at the Emmet Ray Whisky Jazz Bar. She just returned from Toronto for a production of Rossini’s rarely performed “Otello” with Opera by Request where her performance “impressed as Desdemona” (John Gilks, Opera Ramblings) and was praised for her “…secure pitch and focus, with precisely accurate colouratura” (Leslie Barcza, Barcza Blog). During regular work hours, Meagan can be found in your friendly neighbourhood law office, in the subdivisions and property development department.

Alice Macgregor entered the world of Opera as a ‘Spirit Guide’ in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador aged nine. When she was 12, she soloed “Pie Jesu” from Fauré's Requiem with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra (NSO). At 16 years, she was honoured to solo on CBC’s live national broadcast on the 100th anniversary of Beaumont Hamel (WW1). Alice recently graduated from her Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance at the University of Manitoba with Canada's leading coloratura soprano, Tracy Dahl. She was most recently awarded the Dorris (Mills) Lewis Memorial Trophy for the most outstanding Bach aria performance in the 2023 Winnipeg Music Festival. In 2022, she won the first prize scholarship in the Zita Bernstein German Lieder Competition at the Desautels Faculty of Music. In 2021, she was awarded the Tudor Bowl, the Alice F. "Lal'' Mills Memorial Trophy, and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society Trophy at the Winnipeg Music Festival. She has played partial main roles with the University of Manitoba's Opera Theatre ensemble as “Cupidon” in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, “Marie” in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment, “Zerlina” in Mozart's Don Giovanni, “Ava” in Marie Clements' and Brian Current's Missing; a new chamber opera about missing and murdered indigenous women, and most recently, “Baby Doe,” in D. Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe. Alice is immensely grateful for the endless support from friends, family and all mentors who helped her along the way. 

Jacqueline Arthur, mezzo-soprano, is very excited to be returning for her second children’s tour with Manitoba Underground Opera! Jacqueline began her training in Medicine Hat and demonstrated passion and commitment in her music at an early age. Jacqueline later received a Bachelor of Music degree, graduating with great distinction, from University of Lethbridge and a Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Manitoba. Jacqueline’s vocal versatility has allowed her to perform many operatic roles including Nellie March (the Fox), Fernando (Rodrigo), Bianca/Rosabella (Angela and her Sisters), La Peinture (Les art’s florissants), Maurya (Riders to the Sea), Mrs. Peachum (The Beggers Opera), Sandman (Hansel and Gretel), and Second Witch (Dido and Aeneas). In addition to performing, Jacqueline also works as a voice teacher and enjoys sharing her love of music with the next generation.

Stephen Haiko-Pena is a classical singer, composer and teacher in Winnipeg. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba where he studied voice and piano. He’s performed extensively in Winnipeg with various groups: Manitoba Opera, The Little Opera Company, Underground Opera, The Gilbert and Sullivan Society and Canzona. Some of his creative output includes an intermediate piano suite, two children’s musicals and a choral work centering on a famous Manitoba UFO sighting. Stephen also presents opera classroom workshops with Manitoba Opera.

His recent engagements have included: Musikalische Exequien (Dead of Winter), Jesu Meine Freude (Canzona) and Sarastro in The Magic Flute (The Little Opera Company).