Korean-American soprano Jessica M. Choi is excited to be singing stateside again after an extended residence in the United Kingdom. Previous roles include: Mimì in La Bohème, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Nanetta in Falstaff, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Josephine in Pirates of Penzance, and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. Equally comfortable with contemporary repertoire, she has performed Athena in Arachne, Sister Rose in Dead Man Walking, and Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw. 

An accomplished recitalist, Ms. Choi has been featured at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Britten Theatre, St. Stephen’s Church, and the Korean Embassy of London. She has been heard as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and Krönungsmesse, and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung.

A native Texan, tenor Hugo Vera is described as possessing a “truly heroic voice” that is both “beautiful and brilliant.” Mr. Vera has performed over 50 roles and 65 large choral orchestral works with distinguished companies in the US as part of his musical and artistic development of the full lyric tenor repertoire. In addition to being on The Metropolitan Opera roster for seven seasons, Mr. Vera has sung with such prominent companies sich Lyric Opera of Chicago, Spoleto, USA, Kansas City Symphony, New York City Opera, Illinois Symphony, Indianapolis Opera, Opera Memphis, Center for Contemporary Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Sarasota Opera, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera North, The Minnesota Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Nashville Opera, Tanglewood Music Festival and Arizona Opera. As an active recitalist and clinician, he has performed recitals as an Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College, University of Texas-Pan America, Westminster College, Theatre Lawrence, Presbyterian College, GLOW Lyric Theatre, Edinburg Consolidated School District, Lawrence Arts Center, SUNY Oswego and Presbyterian College.

His 2021-2022 season includes performances Pinkerton in “Madama Butterfly” with Indianapolis Opera, Don Jose in “Carmen” with Opera Aegean (Turkey), “Passione” with GLOW Lyric Theatre,  debut with Lyric Opera of Orange County as Pinkerton in “Madama Butterfly,” “All is Calm” with Opera North and recitals in Los Angeles, Seattle, Lawrence, KS and Greenville, SC.

Hugo released a new recording in 2020 entitled “Romances and Poems” featuring the works of Russian composer Sergei Taneyev on the Centaur Recording label. It can be found on Amazon and iTunes. He is also featured and Emmy nominated in “Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera” which is also an official selection of the Lone Start Film Festival. Aside from being featured on various Metropolitan Opera Live in HD broadcasts, he can be heard in various world premiere recordings and broadcasts which include Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (Minnesota Opera), Craig Bohmler’s “Riders of the Purple Sage” (Arizona Opera) as well Paul Paray’s Mass and DVD of Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” (Metropolitan Opera) as well as the virtual world premiere micro-opera, “Wide Awake in the New City” by Lisa Neher.

Mr. Vera enjoyed the privilege of training with several noteworthy young artist programs including the Brevard Music Center, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Center, Chautauqua Opera, The Lyric Opera of Kansas City, The Minnesota Opera, Opera North, Sarasota Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera.

As an educator, he has served on the music faculties at Presbyterian College, New York University, University of Kansas, and the Midwest Summer Music Institute He keeps an active private voice studio in Tucson and New York City. He is Director of Vocal Arts & Opera at California State University, Northridge. He is also Executive Director, of Lawrence Opera Theatre (LOT) a summer music performing company as well as Artistic Director of the Vocal Academy of Opera (Turkey).

He holds a D.M.A. (Honors) in Voice/Opera and Choral Conducting from The University of Kansas, an M.M. (Honors) in Voice/Opera from The University of Kansas, and a B.M. in Voice from the University of Utah and Certificate in Grant Writing for Non-Profits from The University of Notre Dame. Further education includes The University of Michigan, and various summer vocal institutes.

Making her debut as Suzuki, I-Chin “Betty” Feinblatt has been featured in numerous professional performances since 2003, including Bach’s B minor Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem, Händel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. The latter performance was praised by Timothy Mangan of the Orange County Register as “delicate and aristocratic singing in her solos.” Among others, she has performed professionally with Pacific Chorale, Pacific Symphony, Long Beach Camerata Singers, Long Beach Symphony, National Children’s Chorus, Boston Pops, John Williams and Andrea Bocelli. In April of 2018 she was a soloist in the East Coast Premier of Philip Glass’ Passion of Ramakrishna at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Parts of this performance were included in the PBS Documentary American Voices in November 2019. Betty obtained her music performance bachelor degree from California States University of Fullerton. She has since focused majority of her work as a concert soloist and chorister.

Michael B. O’Halloran, baritone, graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with a Masters in Classical Voice Performance. He has been seen as Mercutio in Gounoud’s Roméo et Juliette with Pacific Lyric Association, Don Annibale in Donizetti’s Il Campanello with Capitol Opera, Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème with the Marina del Rey Symphony, Mizgir’ in the West Coast premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden with Independent Opera, Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with Mission Opera, and Peter in Hansel and Gretel with LOOC.

Previously, he has been seen as Marcello in La Bohème with Landmark Opera, and Lysander in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with Lyric Opera of Orange County. He workshopped the role of Tenorio in Armienta’s Bless Me, Ultima with Opera Southwest, and performed the role of the Policeman, as well as covered Orphée in Philip Glass’ Orphée as an Emerging Artist at Virginia Opera. Michael made his Virginia Opera debut as a Spectrum Resident Artist, singing Il Principe Yamadori and covering Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.

While at Manhattan School of Music, he was seen as Vernon in Summer and Smoke, having the honor of being a part of the world premiere recording, which was hailed as one of the “Top Ten New Recordings” by Opera News.
Mr. O’Halloran was featured as the first American as a junger Künstler Bayreuth as part of the Bayreuther Festspiele, and is a winner of the Aspen Music Festival vocal concerto competition, performing with the Aspen Festival Orchestra. He received first place in the Student Division of the Chicago Bel Canto competition, and first place in Division V of the Chicago area chapter National Association of Teachers of Singing auditions. He has participated in Master Classes with Richard Goode, John Wustman, Frank Corsaro, and Mark Delavan.

Pianist Sung Chang is known for his outstanding technical abilities, musical maturity, and sensitive yet powerful expression that shines through the keys. He has received critical acclaim for his “poetic imagination, superb technical skills, and, most importantly, a deep emotional connection to whatever music he plays” by Jeffrey Kahane.Born in Seoul, Korea, Sung Chang gave his debut concert at the age of five. At 16 he was accepted into the prestigious Korea National University of Arts, and his musical virtuosity attracted international attention when he became the youngest ever to win the Nagoya International Piano Competition in Japan. Since then Chang has gone on to win more than ten international competitions around the world including in the United States, Germany, Italy, Korea, and Japan. His impressive list of awards from the major international piano competitions includes- the first prize and the audience prize at the Chopin-Gesellschaft Hannover Internationaler Klavierwettbewerb, the first prize and the special award for the “Best Performance of a Virtuoso Piece” at the Bösendorfer USASU International Piano Competition, a silver medal with two special prizes in “Best Performance of a Work by a Classical Composer” and “Best Performance of a Work by a Spanish, Latin American or Impressionistic Composer” at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, and a silver medal at the New Orleans International Piano Competition. Chang currently resides in Los Angeles, California after completing further studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in Hannover, Germany and the USC Thornton School of Music.