What’s Next for Little Ones

The Artists

Danielle Olana Jagelski | Composer

Danielle Olana Jagelski is the Artistic Director and Co-founder of Renegade Opera. Her work has been presented at distinguished art spaces including Roulette Intermedium, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and Performance Space New York. Recent and upcoming commissions include works for Portland Opera, American Composers Forum, Voices of Ascension, New Native Theatre, North American Indigenous Songbook, Colleen Bernstein- Percussionist, CUNY-Seagal Center, MoreArt, Sister Singers Network, Lorena Navarro, Michigan State University, and MoreArt.

An enrolled citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, Danielle often collaborates and performs with other Indigenous and Native American artists. She is passionate about kinship building and decolonization through interdisciplinary projects. She is also active consultant on equitable producing practices and decolonial frameworks, having worked with educational institutions such as New York University and University of Portland Garaventa Center, as well as creative projects such as Shamengwa by Weslie Brown, The Handel and Haydn Society Youth Choruses in Boston, and York The Explorer by Aaron Nigel Smith. And actively works in the contemporary Indigenous performing arts community with projects such as First Nations Performing Arts, and serves on the board of directors of The Plimpton Foundation.

As a conductor, Danielle is sought out for her execution of contemporary works. Recent conducting engagements include Voiceless Mass with International Contemporary Ensemble, NextGen3 with Beth Morrison Projects, Amistad by Anthony Davis with Harlem Opera Theatre and Connecticut Lyric Opera, Voices of Mannahatta with Voices of Ascension, Ḵutulagaaw by Ed Littlefield, Missing by Brian Current at Anchorage Opera, Scalia/Ginsberg at Opera Ithaca, Dark Sisters by Nico Muhly, world premieres of Adam’s Run by Ruby Fulton and Garden of Alice by Elizabeth Raum, and guest conductor for the Manhattan School of Music Symphony, and National Music Global Culture Society at Lincoln Center.

She is currently an Opera America IDEA grant recipient with playwright Rhiana Yazzie, for their new opera “Little Ones,” as well as part of the LIFT cohort at Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She has received grants from Opera America, The Plimpton Foundation, and Oregon Community Foundation, among others. She was a resident artist at the 2024 Berkeley Repertory Theatre- Groundfloor Residency, and has earned awards for her work in contemporary opera from the National Opera Association.

Rhiana Yazzie | Librettist / Stage Director

Rhiana Yazzie is a 2025 United States Artist Fellow. She is also a Lanford Wilson and Steinberg Award winning playwright, a director, and filmmaker. A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii dóó Táchii’nii), she is the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community; it is the recipient of a 2023 Headwaters Bush Prize for social justice.

Rhiana has been a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and was recognized with a Sally Ordway Award for Vision. She’s been a Playwrights’ Center Fellow multiple times (Jerome Fellowship 2006 & 2010; McKnight Fellow 2016; Core Writer) and last year she made her East Coast premiere with Nancy (2023 Kilroys) at Mosaic Theater Company. Nancy is the second play in a series about Pocahontas and her family, originally co-commissioned by The Public Theater and The Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the American Revolutions: United States History Cycle.

Rhiana’s newest play, The Nut, The Hermit, The Crow, and The Monk debuted in April 2025 at New Native Theatre closing its 15th Anniversary Season. In February 2025, she was the first Native American to write and direct a play, The Other Children of the Sun, for The Kennedy Center and is currently writing plays for Long Wharf Theatre & Rattlestick Theater (co-commission),  DC’s Solas Nua & Ireland’s Fishamble theaters, and the University of New Mexico.

In 2023, she directed the US premiere of Missing at the Anchorage Opera and is now working on her first libretto, Little Ones with Anishinaabe composer & conductor, Danielle Jagelski commissioned by Renegade Opera. They are recipients of the Opera America IDEA grant.

She wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature film A Winter Love, currently seen in mainstream and Indigenous film festivals globally. It’s garnered laurels for Best Narrative Feature at the Minnesota Film Festival, Best Feature Film & Best Actress at the Weengushk International Film Festival, Achievement in Directing at the LA Skins Festival, Nominated for Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress & Actors at the American Indian Film Festival among other recognitions.

She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Masters of Professional Writing where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray. Rhiana wrote on AMC’s Dark Winds seasons 2 & 3 and is working on her second feature film, A College Education with co-sceenwriter, playwright, Alex Hesbrook Remier (Chayenne River Lakota).

Alison Norris | Music Director

Dedicated to sharing the sense of awe latent within music and committed to engaging listeners with its contemporary relevance, Brooklyn-based conductor Alison Norris currently serves as the Conducting Fellow for the Canton Symphony—a position they won in 2024 and that has since been renewed and expanded for the 2025/26 season. 

Internationally, Norris has appeared as a finalist in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition with the London Symphony Orchestra, been invited as a guest conductor with the China International Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing, and conducted the Orchestre Métropolitain as a finalist with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Domaine Forget de Charlevoix. Recent festival engagements include Tanglewood’s Conducting Seminar, where they were invited to premiere a new work by Maya Miro Johnson, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music as a Conducting Associate. 

Norris’s conducting mentors include George Manahan, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jim Ross, Cristian Măcelaru, and Oriol Sans. Alison holds a Professional Studies diploma from the Manhattan School of Music, a Masters of Music from UW-Madison, and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University.

Amber K. Ball | Assistant Director

Born in Portland, Oregon, Amber Kay Ball, Citizen of Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, is a director, playwright, visual artist, and community-based advocate.  As a contemporary Native multi-practice artist, Amber uses theatre, multimedia, and beadwork as mediums for sharing stories, truths, laughter and joy. These mediums allow them to critically explore, honor, and weave Native pasts, presents, and futures in a just and liberated methodology. Amber has recently worked as a Co-Director with Rhiana Yazzie at New Native Theatre as well as showing work with Safe Harbors NYC, Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theatre and Creative Nations First Storytellers Festival. 

Dura Jun Jones | Pianist

Dura Jun-Jones, one of the predominantly talented directors, pianists, coaches and new coming conductors in NYC, will direct a co-production of omnibus operas with American Opera Projects(AOP) and New York University(NYU) in the upcoming season. She has recently joined Kollective366 Orchestra as an associate conductor from 2025 fall and La Musica Lirica in 2025 summer serves as a pianist and an assistant conductor. Since 2023 she also has been a music director/chorus master for New York Manbaeksung Global Methodist Church and in the 2023 winter season she directed Des Moines Metro Opera's Outreach Program, touring 64 different places and performing 100 concerts over a 3 month-long trip. As an apprentice pianist, coach and assistant conductor she worked in Sarasota Opera in 2019 under the renowned conductor David Neely. Mrs. Jun-Jones currently works at Manhattan School of Music, Fiorello LaGuardia High School for Music and Art as opera coach and pianist, and Schiller Institute Choir in NYC as assistant director and pianist.

Kira eckenweiler | Marigold

Kira Apaachuaq Eckenweiler is an Inupiaq from Unalakleet, Alaska, who grew up immersed in the natural beauty and cultural traditions of her community. She enjoys hunting, fishing, and gathering, practices that have strengthened her connection to the land and to Inupiaq ways of life.

She pursued her passion for the arts by earning a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Musical Theater from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2020. Kira has performed with Anchorage Opera, Montana Opera, and the Boston Conservatory, and has shared her work at the Bureau of Indian Affairs during Native American Heritage Month. She portrayed Nayak in Aklaq and Nayak, an Inupiaq adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, with performances in Unalakleet and Nome. More recently, she traveled across Montana with Opera Montana, sharing Indigenous music, education, and culture.

As a playwright, Kira explores themes central to Inupiaq life. Her short play One-Foot High Kick reflects traditional Inuit games, while The Bird Blind examines the lives of people in a village in northwest Alaska.

In October 2020, Kira was elected Mayor of Unalakleet, a volunteer position in which she focused on addressing the village’s aging water system. Working with local, state, and federal partners, she helped secure funding for a new water system for the community. During her term, which concluded in October 2023, she led city council meetings, organized community gatherings, and supported local traditions.

In February 2021, Kira joined the Norton Sound Health Corporation’s INUA program, which promotes culturally grounded suicide prevention and wellness. By May 2022, she became the Administrative Director of Behavioral Health Services, overseeing outpatient care, prevention programs, and the day shelter. Having lost friends to suicide, she remains deeply committed to advocating for the well-being and equity of the people of the Bering Strait Region, including her home community of Unalakleet. Today, Kira works with her tribe supporting those who have experienced crime, while continuing her work as a singer and playwright.

Julia Keefe | Ruby the Lunch Lady

Julia Keefe (Nez Perce) is an internationally acclaimed Native American jazz vocalist, bandleader, actor, and educator currently based in New York City. Her professional career has spanned nearly two decades, and she has headlined marquee events at the John F. Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., NMAI-NY, as well as opened for the likes of 20-time GRAMMY Award winner Tony Bennett and 5-time GRAMMY Award winner Esperanza Spalding. Her life’s work is the revival and honoring of the legendary Coeur d’Alene jazz musician Mildred Bailey and is leading the campaign for Bailey’s induction into the Jazz Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center. In addition to rehearsing for an upcoming album, she is currently directing the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band, a new project highlighting the history and future of Indigenous people in jazz, and the Mildred Bailey Project was released in January 2025.

Bo Shimmin | JAckson

Mato Standing Soldier | Victor

Anisah Laplante | Lily

Anisah LaPlante (she/her) is a Native American mezzo-soprano from Sioux Falls, South Dakota currently in her third year at the Manhattan School of Music majoring in Classical Voice. She is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe as well as of Otoe/Iowa descent. She most recently performed at the Global Indigenous and First Nations Playwrights and Composers Event hosted by the Dramatists Guild Foundation and the Undergraduate Opera Scenes Recital at the Manhattan School of Music. Instagram: @anisah_music

Madeline Ross | Mrs. Ross the Teacher

Praised for her “brilliant coloratura voice,” “world class” stage presence, and ability to “elicit beautiful passages with ease” Madeline Ross has forged a path in the music industry as a performer, collaborator, and educator. She is an award-winning and sought-after performing artist as an opera, concert, musical theater, and jazz vocalist; she serves as the Executive Director of Renegade Opera, Portland’s unconventional opera company; and she teaches voice at Reed College. Ms. Ross is known for her “supreme performance” of Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre that is “simultaneously intense, dramatic, and humorous” and was a National Finalist of the NATS Artist Awards in 2024. She was hailed for “effortlessly nailing” her performance as Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Recent performances include Witchfinder, Waking the Witch (Day) with Renegade Opera, Lucinda, Dark Sisters (Muhly) with Eugene Opera, First Woodsprite Rusalka (Dvorak) with Portland Opera, and Daughter in the world premiere of Qaqnus (Sahba Aminikia) with Music of Remembrance (Seattle). Ms. Ross made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2019 as a jazz soloist where she “scatt[ed] to beat the band” (NY Concert Review). To see upcoming performances visit her website. www.madelinelross.com  |  www.renegadeopera.org

Andrew Paulson | Mr. Ross The Principal

Valentine Washington | Ensemble / Low Voice Cover

Valentine Washington is a 3rd year vocal performance major at University of British Columbia. He is studying under James Patrick Raftery. In June 2025 he sang for Edward Littlefield’s Opera Workshop in Juneau Alaska. He loves expressing himself in multiple ways, whether it be through dancing, singing, crafting, or through his fashion. Another passion of his is language learning. He’s conversationally fluent in Italian, and one day hopes to become fluent in German and French. So he likes to think he has a good ear for pronunciation of words, and for music! One of his favorite quotes from a professor is “art is a way of giving the audience permission to revisit any big emotions they may have been feeling”. This quote sticks with him in all the works he has done, and he hopes that it shows. Lastly, his biggest motto is that you don’t have a good day, you make a good day.

Nadine Oglesby | ENsemble / Treble Voice Cover

Alan Stogin | Stage Manager

Anna Louise Martin | Project Development Manager

Aaron Quintana | Production Manager