Water Color by Maureen Carson

Baritone Chaka Allen, originally from Chicago, Illinios, has enjoyed the grandeur and mystery of opera for almost 20 years. Trained in Los Angeles, he has sung Germont, Figaro, as well as several other baritone roles. Originally a trumpet player, the sound of opera appeals to him, and he hopes more people today learn of its beauty and power. Today, he lives in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, and is married with two young daughters.

Natalie Almeter is a soprano from Bradenton, Florida, and is currently a Master’s student in Vocal Performance at Georgia State University under Richard Clement. She holds a BM in Vocal Performance from the University of Central Florida. Her most recent engagements include singing the roles of Agnes Sorrel in Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans in the Russian Opera Workshop, and Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte in the Harrower Opera Workshop. She has also performed with Opera Orlando in 2018 as the Sandman and Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. While at UCF, she sang the role of Lauretta in both Gianni Schicchi and Buoso’s Ghost. Natalie was also cast as Barbarina in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro during Sarasota Opera’s 2015 season, after being a part of their Youth Opera program for three years. She has won several competitions and awards including The St. Boniface Young Artist Showcase Competition, The Grady Rayam Spiritual Competition, and a UCF Performance Excellence Award. She was accepted to study in Germany and Italy at both the Musiktheater Bavaria program and Rider University’s Florence program. Natalie has had the opportunity to sing in masterclasses with artists including Angela Meade, Denyce Graves, Angela Brown, and Carroll Freeman. She is thankful to Jesse Martins, her coach of many years, and looks forward to the adventures that are to come! 

Brittany Cusack is an Irish-American Dramatic Soprano. Recent

engagements include Gioconda in La Gioconda, Maliella in I Gioielli

della Madonna, Adriana in Adriana Lecouvreur, Senta in Der

Fliegende Holländer, Musetta in La Boheme, High Priestess in Aida

and Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro. Past engagements include Erste

Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Rossweisse in Die Walküre at Lincoln

Center, Ortlinde in Die Walküre, Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and Freia

in Das Rheingold. Brittany portrayed Lady Macbeth in the International

Electroacoustic Festival’s production Electrified Lady Macbeth. Ms.

Cusack graduated from Brooklyn College-Conservatory and

Shenandoah Conservatory and is Mark Schnaible’s student.

Baritone Ian Highcock received their Bachelor of Music Performance degree from the College of New Jersey in December 2011. As a member of TCNJ’s Lyric Theatre, Ian sang the roles of Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Doctor Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, and Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance. Ian again sang the role of the Major-General with Pennsbury Community Chorus in 2013. Ian was the bass soloist for TCNJ Chorale and Orchestra’s U.S. and N.Y. premieres of George Friedrich Haas’s Sieben Klangräume accompanying the unfinished fragments of Mozart’s Requiem. Ian sang the title role of Noah in Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde under the baton of James Moyer at Lawrenceville Presbyterian in May 2014.  In November 2014 Ian was the baritone soloist for the Fauré Requiem with Singing City under the baton of Jeffrey Brillhart.   Ian was a professional chorister with Opera Boheme NJ from 2009-2018, and their major credits with the company were the Notary in 

Don Pasquale, the Marquis in La Traviata and most recently Morales in Boheme’s 2016 production of Bizet’s Carmen. Ian was the Bass Section Leader at Trinity Episcopal Church in Moorestown under Vernon Williams for three years and is now the Bass Section Leader at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Freehold under Brit Montoro. Ian has been professional cantor at the Queenship of Mary Catholic Church in Plainsboro since 2014 and a soloist for Temple Har Sinai's High Holidays since 2012.

Soprano Kirsten C. Kunkle has been hailed as an outstanding singing actress with a voice that has been described as beautiful, ethereal, powerful, fiery, and bewitching. Among her favorite roles are Agathe in Der Freischütz, the title role in Suor Angelica, Magda and the Foreign Woman in The Consul,” Mimì in La bohème, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Iolanta and Brigitta in Iolanta, Zemfira in Aleko, Lisa in Pique Dame, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief, and the Witch in Hansel and Gretel. With the Philadelphia Opera Collective, she has created leading roles in numerous world premieres, including Edith Standen in Shadow House, Annie Jump Cannon in Jump the Moon, Edgar Allan Poe in Opera Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe, and Dr. Frankenstein in By You That Made Me, Frankenstein. In 2016, she made her professional straight play debut in Machinal with EgoPo Classic Theater and her professional musical theatre debut as Domina in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. She has an Honorable Mention for The American Prize in Voice – Professional Art Song and Oratorio Division (Women), as well as being a two-time semi-finalist for The American Prize in Opera (Women). She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2014, as well as being the Pennsylvania District National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Award winner that year. She won second place in the Roschel Vocal Competition in 2015. She attended Bowling Green State University and the University of Salzburg for her undergraduate studies, majoring in voice performance with minors in Italian and German. Her graduate degrees are in voice performance from the University of Michigan. A voting member of the Muscogee Nation, Dr. Kunkle commissioned and premiered sixteen original compositions, including one of her own, based upon the poetry of her ancestor and highly-acclaimed poet of the Native American Muscogee Nation, Alex Posey. She has recorded extensively through the Comic Opera Guild, specializing in the works of Victor Herbert. Her recordings are collected at the Library of Congress, the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Merkel Area Museum in Merkel, Texas. Ms. Kunkle is included on the list of Classical Native American Artists and Musicians at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and on the Molto Native Music list of performers. She has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is a successful voice educator. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Wilmington Concert Opera, a grassroots women and minority led opera company in Wilmington, Delaware. Most recently, she had her solo European debut with the Sofia Philharmonic in the role of Arabella in Johann Strauss II’s “Blindekuh.” She is also a NAXOS recording artist for “Blindekuh,” which was released in March of 2020 to extraordinary reviews.

Renée Richardson (soprano) is from Springfield, Pennsylvania. The Haitian- American singer is a recent graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), and now is a second- year Resident Artist with The Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA). Previous roles include Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Béatrice in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, and the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Cherubini’s Medea, all with CIM. Richardson has been seen in many Pensacola Opera productions including Carmen, La Bohème, and The Pirates of Penzance. At AVA, she has sung Foreign Princess in Dvořák’s Rusalka, thetitle role and Suor Dolcina in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and Inèsin Donezetti’s La Favorite. She has also been seen in Beethoven’s Ninth with the Kennett Symphony as the soprano soloist.