MEZZO-SOPRANO

Jazmin DeRice, mezzo soprano, is a versatile vocalist, ranging from Renaissance, to jazz, pop, and RnB. She works with several chamber ensembles in Maine including Amethyst Chamber Ensemble, St. Mary Schola, Sheepscot Valley Chorus, Down East Singers, Lincoln Arts Festival, Maine Music Society, and Snow Pond Arts. Jazmin has performed with Opera Maine, Utopia Opera, Bronx Opera, and Floating Opera NYC with Isabel Milenski. She also gigs with many local bands, including her own, BobaFUNK. 

In addition to a robust upcoming performance schedule, Jazmin is a mentor for the Amethyst Project, adjunct voice at Bates College, Teaching Artist at 317 Main Community Music School, and has a small private studio in Woolwich. She is an active member of the Portland Rossini Club, and is part of the Maine chapter of NATS. Jazmin received her Bachelors and Masters in Vocal Performance from the University of Southern Maine, and PSD in Vocal Performance from Mannes School of Music. She has received awards from the Bay Chamber Concert series and multiple Maine NATS recognitions, including the Lillian Nordica Award. 

For more upcoming projects, visit jazminderice.com.

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, MEDIA COMPOSER & ARCHIVIST, CELLIST

Robin Lane is a cellist, composer, educator, music producer, and sound engineer living in Portland, Maine. In 2024, Lane graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Southern Maine with a Bachelor of Music in Music Performance with a concentration in composition. Lane performs classical, contemporary, and improvised works for public and private events throughout New England. Notable performance venues include the Camden International Film Festival, Colby College and Museum of Art, Bates College, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, One Long Fellow Square, SPACE, and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Lane often engages in interdisciplinary collaborations and performs frequently in wellness and mindfulness spaces. His original compositions explore the influence of mindfulness practices and nature on music creation, with the intention to be of service to the well-being of all. Notable composition installation venues include SPACE Gallery, Bates IM Studio, and a permanent installation at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Lane has been the cellist and sound engineer for The (stillness) Collective since 2018 and the cellist for Post Pardon: The Opera since 2023. He currently teaches young cellists at Palaver Music Center in Portland in addition to adult students at his own studio. Lane records, engineers, and produces his own music, along with the music of a growing number of local musicians, out of his studio, Robin’s Nest Recording in Rockland.

PIANIST

Morgan Lee has built a dynamic career as a soloist, collaborator, and teacher. She frequently performs with some of the most prominent ensembles and performing arts organizations in the state of Maine, including the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Opera Maine, Classical Uprising, the Colby Symphony Orchestra, and the Amethyst Chamber Ensemble. She has performed and competed in numerous music festivals in the US and abroad and has given recitals in New York City, Italy, Spain, France, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. An experienced collaborator, Morgan is currently a collaborative pianist for the Colby College Music Department and has served as staff collaborative pianist for the University of Southern Maine Osher School of Music and the University of Connecticut Music Department.

In addition to being an active performer, Morgan is a teacher with over a decade of experience instructing piano. She currently serves as an applied piano instructor for the Colby College Music Department and is on the piano faculty of Bay Chamber Music School. She has previously taught at institutions such as Eastern Connecticut State University, the University of Connecticut, the Bronx Conservatory of Music, and Mannes College of Music.

In 2022, Morgan received her Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance from the University of Connecticut, where she studied with Angelina Gadeliya. She also holds a Master of Music from Mannes College of Music and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. You can learn more about her work at her website morganleepianist.com and her instagram @morganleepianist.

FILMMAKER

Presley Ackeret is a writer, filmmaker, and interdisciplinary explorer of the great cosmic shrug we call existence. A Midwest-born, half-Korean, Mainer-aspiring New England transplant, she is drawn to the tension between inheritance and reinvention—what we carry, what we bury, and what returns to haunt us. Her work considers the unstable nature of being and authenticity, tracing how thought, feeling, and memory blur together to form—and unravel—our sense of self.

She serves as Communications Coordinator for Harvard University’s Department of Anthropology and Managing Director of Casey Can Artist Support Agency, collaborating with leading cultural researchers and artists worldwide. For Specter: A Musical Séance, Presley produces projected video and visuals that slip between the mundane and the uncanny, circling themes of personal mythology and quiet existential absurdity. Her montage-style approach reflects the liminality of local ghost stories and conjures a distinct sense of ontological unease.

Her projects examine how language and image can summon psychic dislocation, unsettling notions of “home” and how we inhabit our own narratives. Her writing has appeared in Boston Art Review, Streetlight Magazine, Eazel, Eat Like Bourdain, and other publications, and her films have been recognized by Lift-Off Global Network of Pinewood Studios. She aims to create experiences that feel deeply personal yet resonate with a shared sense of dissonance and longing—inviting audiences to linger in moments that resist tidy resolution.

Instagram: @presleyackeret 

PHOTOGRAPHER

S. Nash Callahan is a photographer born and raised in Maine. He has spent over half his life developing his photographic skills. Believing in the beauty of life’s imperfections, his images are never edited. Nash produced all of the promotional photos for Specter: A Musical Séance through double-exposure photography and without digital editing.

Nash spends most of his time repairing bikes at his shop, Capital City Cycles LLC in Augusta, Maine. He still photographs when time allows, and his shop also serves as the gallery for his photography.

STORYTELLER, PHOTOGRAPHER

Jake Benzinger is a photographer, book artist, and writer based between Providence, RI, and Rockland, ME. He received his BFA in photography from Lesley University, College of Art and Design, and is currently an MFA candidate at Rhode Island School of Design. His work explores self-created mythos, weaving together imagery to navigate the space between fiction and reality, investigating themes of identity, mysticism, animism, and death.

His work has been shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Haute Photographie Rotterdam, Center for Fine Art Photography, Glasgow Gallery of Photography, Candela Books + Gallery, 82Parris, Panopticon Gallery, RIT City Space Gallery, and more. He has been featured by numerous platforms, including GUP Magazine, Lensculture, Float Magazine, Lenscratch, Transference Magazine, and Fraction Magazine, and his publications are held in collections at the National Gallery of Art, the School of Visual Arts, SMFA at Tufts, and the Griffin Museum of Photography. His monograph, Like Dust Settling in a Dim-Lit Room (Or Starless Forest), was shortlisted for the 2023 Lucie Photobook Prize and has since sold out of its second edition.

Jake is a content editor for Lenscratch and the founder/director of wych elm, an independent press creating small-run photo books, zines, and fine art ephemera.

STORYTELLER

Tamsin Richardson was a ballet dancer, choreographer and performing arts teacher. She currently works as the office manager for a busy financial services practice in Oakland, Maine. She is an expert knitter and an avid gardener. When not at work she can be found chasing after a bossy but adorable mini sheep doodle and renovating a 145 year old Victorian home in Clinton, Maine.

STORYTELLER

A lifelong resident of Maine, Jennifer Scott is a Reiki Master-Teacher, Intuitive Life Coach, and Spiritual Connections Curator dedicated to helping others align with their highest potential. With a deep commitment to holistic healing and soul-centered growth, Jennifer combines energy work, intuitive insight, and compassionate guidance to support clients on their personal and spiritual journeys. Through one-on-one coaching, energy sessions, and curated spiritual experiences, Jennifer empowers others to reconnect with their inner wisdom, awaken purpose, and create meaningful transformation.