The Amity Trio is a chamber ensemble for soprano, horn, and piano that advocates for new music, especially music from underrepresented voices.

Kimberly Carballo serves in the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as Director of JVA (Jacobs Virtual Academy) and as Teaching Professor in the Chamber Music and Collaborative Piano department. Ms. Carballo is also an active international performer and educator, teaching both at the university and in her private studio. She is a strong believer in and practitioner of community engagement locally and globally. She founded Reimagining Opera for Kids (ROK), a music Bloomington-based community engagement and education program; participates annually as faculty advisor for the Indiana University portion of the team in the Cheerful Heart Music Education Mission in the Dominican Republic and Haiti; and is a founding member of the Amity Trio, a chamber ensemble that commissions and performs new music to amplify underrepresented voices.

Dr. Michael Walker inspires students and audiences alike with his multimedia, cross-cultural collaborations and imaginative recontextualization of the concert experience. As Associate Professor of Horn at the University of New Mexico and a founding member of the Amity Trio, he leverages skills in entrepreneurship, musicianship, and pedagogy to champion musical experiences outside the traditional Western conservatory canon.

Dr. Walker believes in creating and curating concert and listening opportunities through commissions and partnerships with composers, musicians, and artists. Amity Trio recorded its debut album, Between Us Now, in 2022, featuring commissioned music by composers who identify as women. A second series of albums, Border Crossings, featuring music by Mexican and New Mexican composers, is in progress. Amity Trio also has partnered with Mexican composer Nur Slim twice for bilingual children’s opera productions and produced both onstage and virtually, Lucrecia y el canto de los Dudasaurios (2022) and the upcoming Oliverso (2024). Dr. Walker has commissioned over thirty pieces for horn and natural horn, including chamber and solo pieces by Teresa Carreño, Alice Jones, Francisco Cortés-Álvarez, Tonia Ko, Lauren Bernofsky, Ryan Chase, and Dana Wilson.

Dr. Walker is also responsible for much of the entrepreneurial and organizational work that empowers his projects with Amity Trio and other musical collaborators. Over the last three years, he was awarded ten separate awards to achieve recording, performance, and commission-related goals. His students broaden their musical training by building leadership skills and experimenting with historically informed performance via his Seraphinoff replica natural horns from the early 19th century.

Dr. Walker also contributes to the local music scene as a performer, appearing regularly with the New Mexico Winds, Enchantment Brass, Opera Southwest, and Santa Fe Pro Musica. He served as Second Horn of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic for three years, and has performed with the Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Performance Santa Fe, Utah Festival Opera, and others. If he is not holding a horn, you can find him camping and fly-fishing the idyllic Southwest with his wife and daughter.

American soprano Katie Dukes Walker embraces the present-day relevance and excitement of classical music. She lives this belief through her work as an interdisciplinary artist, arts administrator, and educator. She believes the future of the creative arts lies within engaging new audiences in innovative and accessible ways. In addition to performing throughout the United States, Katie has performed internationally in locations such as Italy, Austria, Mexico, and Belgium. Her years of executive leadership in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors with Amity Trio, Studio Forza and Chamber Music Campania exemplify her love for arts administration and leadership.

At the core of all her artistic output, Mrs. Dukes Walker believes in the power of community engagement, interdisciplinary arts and arts leadership. Currently, through an exciting collaboration with Mexican Composer Nur Slim, Dukes Walker has led the development of the Oliverso opera ballet, Amity Trio’s second album Border Crossings, an innovative new multidisciplinary VR experience featuring music from Oliverso, and the creation of a film adaptation of the children’s opera Lucrecia y el canto de los dudasarios.

Dukes Walker is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Arts Leadership and Business and Interdisciplinary Arts Programs at the University of New Mexico, where she shares her knowledge of entrepreneurship and creative interdisciplinary collaborations with her students. As a singer of diverse chamber music and opera, Dukes Walker has brought music to new audiences on the international and national stage through KHFM 95.5 Classical Public Radio, Indiana University East, Indiana State University, the Durango Chamber Music Festival, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City, Film Premiere, Tiguex (Raven Chacon) Mvt. VI-Downhill Procession, Guild Cinema in Albuquerque, Opera Southwest, Reimagining Opera for Kids, Intimate Opera of Indianapolis, and with the Fiati Five wind quintet, the Kaemper Music Series, Carrizozo Music, and the Amity Trio (of which she is a founding member). In 2022, Amity Trio released their debut album Between Us Now and recorded their second album, “Border Crossings” in the Summer of 2024. Katie holds degrees in vocal performance from the University of Northern Colorado and San José State University. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her horn-playing husband Mike Walker, opera-loving dog Jake, and their daughter.