Recent Projects -
director / producer
Vox: The Hollow Between Them
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
The Hollow Between Them is a short film from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed and by Julia Benzinger and produced by Rising Waters Collective. A contemporary English adaptation of La voix humaine (adapt. Isaiah Bell), it features mezzo-soprano Lucy Weber with Amy Boers at the piano, exploring love, memory, and the spaces words can’t cross. The film’s intimate visual language is crafted by Director of Photography Andrew Ching, with editing by Bill Mohn and sound design by Bill Levey. Together, the team reimagines Poulenc/Cocteau’s iconic monodrama for the camera - urgent, vulnerable, and disarmingly present.​​​
Vox: The Art of the Inner Monolgue
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
Vox: The Art of the Inner Monologue is a filmed adaptation from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed by Julia Benzinger. Performed by soprano Ibidunni Ojikutu with pianist Jay Rozendaal, the piece reimagines Poulenc and Cocteau’s La voix humaine as an exploration of voice, identity, and the unseen dialogue within. Filmed in front of a live audience at the historic Lairmont Manor and filmed by Lars Kongshaug with Sound Design by Gabriel Mañalac, this interpretation becomes a visceral portrait of human connection, solitude, and self-revelation in the digital age.
Vox: Halfway to Herself
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
Vox: Halfway to Herself was a site-specific, ephemeral performance from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed by Julia Benzinger. Staged in a pop-up shop in Seattle’s South Lake Union, the work featured soprano Heather Dudenbostel with pianist Mark Davies. This fleeting iteration of La voix humaine explored the trauma of intimate partner violence and unfolded amid the movement of city life — passersby drawn in by the sound of a human voice suspended between heartbreak and renewal. A momentary intersection of art and everyday rhythm, it existed only once, in real time, then disappeared into memory.
Vox: The Sacred Between
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
Vox: The Sacred Between was a live, site-specific performance from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed by Julia Benzinger. Presented at First Church Seattle, it featured tenor Korland Simmons with pianist Mark Davies, reimagining Poulenc and Cocteau’s La voix humaine through themes of queer love, faith, forgiveness, and loss. Resonating within the church’s vast acoustic space, the performance invited audiences to witness a sacred dialogue between intimacy and transcendence—where vulnerability became prayer, and the human voice bridged the distance between the divine and the deeply personal.
Vox: The Echo in the Crowd
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
Vox: Echo in the Crowd was a live performance from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed by Julia Benzinger. Performed by mezzo-soprano Lucy Weber with pianist Jay Rozendaal at The Rabbit Box Theatre in Pike Place Market, this version reimagined La voix humaine as a surreal cabaret of public exposure and private unraveling. Set amid the hum of one of Seattle’s most iconic public spaces, the piece blurred performer and spectator, turning the audience itself into part of the drama, a living echo of the solitary voice at its center.
Vox: The Name is Missing
Rising Waters Collective, 2025
Vox: The Name is Missing was a live, site-specific performance from Rising Waters Collective’s Vox Project, directed by Julia Benzinger. Performed at ArtLove Salon, it featured Adia Bowen Tsi SÊ”uyuÊ”aÉ«, a citizen of the Upper Skagit Tribe, with pianist Jay Rozendaal. This iteration of La voix humaine confronted themes of erasure, abuse, and the enduring strength of Indigenous women, resonating with the stories of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). Intimate and unflinching, the performance transformed Cocteau’s monologue into an act of remembrance and reclamation, a voice rising from silence to be heard.
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Recent Projects -
producer
¡Navidad! The Mystery of Mary
Pacific MusicWorks, 2023
"The remaining acts—Rosa Mistica, Made de Dios, Estrella de Mar, and Reina del Cielo—followed suit, and as the music swelled and increased in strength, so did the relationship between the audience members and the ensemble. By the time intermission rolled around, there was no longer an unspoken barrier between the edges of the front row seats and the stage”
-Reagan Ricker, Teentix contributor
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A Concert with The Countess:
Baroque Meets Drag
Pacific MusicWorks, 2023
"If anyone releases standalone video of the final number, D'Urfey's "My thing is my own," it could become a Baroque viral sensation. As the Countess pranced around while making every intention in the lyrics as clear as could be, the audience spontaneously joined in on the refrain, "My thing is my own and I'll keep it so still / Yet other young lasses must do what they will." You had to be there.”
- Jason Victor Serinus, Classical Voice North America
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Monteverdi: Love & Revolution
Pacific MusicWorks, 2023
Claudio Monteverdi’s music broke the rules of Renaissance polyphony and created the foundations of modern music. Like Shakespeare, Monteverdi’s genius lay in his ability to communicate the full compass of human emotions, especially the most mysterious, tragic, and magical of them all – love.
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Murder & Mayhem
Pacific MusicWorks, 2023
The years leading up to the English Civil War in 1642 were full of riotous discord, reflected in the popular Broadside Ballads. At the same moment, William Lawes, the greatest English musical genius between Dowland and Purcell, was producing vocal and instrumental music of unparalleled beauty. His life was cut short in battle, but his legacy of musical jewels - including the unique Harp Consorts and songs achieved the perfect balance of emotion, words, and music - shed insight into life during this turbulent period of history.
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The Resounding Lyre
Pacific MusicWorks, 2023
The chosen instrument of Greek gods and heroes Apollo, Hermes, Eros, and Orpheus, the lyre's significance in Greek culture and its impact on music cannot be overstated. The Resounding Lyre explores works written for the harp, the baroque emanation of the lyre, spanning Italian, German, and Celtic traditions.
Featuring artists Stephen Stubbs, Maxine Eilander, Tekla Cunningham, Henry Lebedinsky, David Morris, and Danielle Reutter-Harrah. With music by Isabella Leonarda, Alessandro Stradella, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, and Georg Frideric Händel.
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