Nicole Cabell, the 2005 Winner of the BBC Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff and Decca recording artist, is one of the most sought-after lyric sopranos of today.  Her solo debut album, “Soprano” was named “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone and has received an incredible amount of critical acclaim and several prestigious awards, including the 2007 Georg Solti Orphée d’Or from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique.

Nicole Cabell opens the new season with her first stage performances of Bess in Porgy and Bess with the English National Opera.  She will also make her Pittsburgh Opera debut as Mimi in La Bohème before returning to the Minnesota Opera for Violetta in La Traviata and to the Cincinnati Opera for Juliette in Roméo et Juliette.  In concert, Ms. Cabell will perform a set of songs on texts by Langston Hughes at the Metropolitan Museum, will sing the Mozart Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony and David Robertson before joining Master Voices and Ted Sperling at New York’s Alice Tully Hall.  Future engagements include returns to Atlanta, Japan, Montreal and Detroit.

Ms. Cabell’s last season included performances of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Flavia in Eliogabalo with the Dutch National Opera, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Michigan Opera Theatre, and Micaela in Carmen with the Atlanta Opera. Ms. Cabell was also heard in recital at the Frankfurt Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Harris Theater for Music in Dance in Chicago, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and in Louisville, Kentucky.  In concert, Nicole Cabell performed with the Lake Forest Symphony (Sisters in Song, a joint program with Alyson Cambridge, which was just commercially released by Cedille Records), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Cabell’s 2016-2017 season featured her debut as Bess in Porgy in Bess with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as performances of Mimi in La Bohème with the Minnesota Opera and the Cincinnati Opera and of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Angers Nantes Opera in France. In concert, she sang Shéhérazade with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Nashville Symphony and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Oregon Bach Festival.

The 2015-2016 season included Ms. Cabell’s debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in the title role of Handel’s Alcina and returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Violetta in La Traviata, to the Atlanta Opera as Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, to the Michigan Opera Theatre as Mimi in La Bohème and to the Cincinnati Opera in a new role: Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. On the concert stage, Ms. Cabell performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a solo recital in Baltimore.

Nicole Cabell’s 2014-2015 season included semi-staged concerts of Don Giovanni with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, her Opéra National de Paris debut (and role debut) as Mimi in La Bohème and Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with the Minnesota Opera as well as a return to Washington Concert Opera as Giulietta in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi.  In concert, she was heard with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5, with the Orchestre National de Lille in Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, with the San Diego Symphony in Strauss’ Four Last Songs, with the London Symphony Orchestra in Debussy’s La Damoiselle Elue, in a Puccini-Strauss gala concert in Hong-Kong, as Bess in an abridged version of Porgy and Bess at Ravinia with Bobby McFerrin, at the Oregon Bach Festival in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, at Bard’s Music Festival in Villa-Lobos’ Forest of the Amazon and at SUNY Potsdam in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. 

In the previous season Nicole Cabell made some exciting role debuts: first as Violetta in La Traviata with Michigan Opera Theatre (seen again later in the season at the San Francisco Opera), then as Medora in Il Corsaro with Washington Concert Opera.  She reprised the role of her triumphant San Francisco Opera debut: Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.  In concert, Ms. Cabell made her Paris debut in Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, appeared several times in Spain, first with the Orquesta de Galicia in a Barber/Mahler program, then on tour with the RPO and Charles Dutoit in Poulenc’s Gloria.  In London, she was heard with the RPO in the same Poulenc piece as well as with the BBC Orchestra, first in Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915 with Keith Lockhart and later in Elgar’s The Apostles with Sir Andrew Davis.  Further concert appearances included duke Ellington’s Sacred Music at Carnegie Hall, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony and Charles Dutoit at Tanglewood, and finally in a Barber/Brahms program in Nashville with GianCarlo Guerrero.  Nicole Cabell also appeared in recital in Chicago. 

Awards include first place in both the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition and the Women's Board of Chicago Vocal Competition.  Nicole Cabell was a semi-finalist in the 2005 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and earned first place in the American Opera Society competition in Chicago.  She is the 2002 winner of the Union League's Rose M. Grundman Scholarship, and the 2002 Farwell Award with the Woman's Board of Chicago.  Nicole Cabell holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music.  

Soprano Alexandra Smither is making a name for herself in the worlds of both old and new music. With a vocal technique described as “beautiful, elegant, and masterfully manipulated” (Schmopera), she was named one of Canadian Broadcasting Co’s 2017 “30 Young Hot Classical Musicians Under 30”. She was the grand prizewinner at the 2017 Eckhardt-Gramatée Competition, earning both first prize and the prize for best performance of the commissioned work, Nicole Lizee’s Malfunctionlieder. 

She made her debut with Houston Grand Opera as Younger Alyce in their production of Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, in which she “imbued her solo aria “My Darling Jim” with heartbreaking tenderness” (Texas Classical Review). She returned to Houston Grand Opera as Diana in Cruzar la cara de la Luna. In her 2018 New York debut at the Baryshnikov Arts Center of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza III she was called “an extraordinarily adept soprano, one who can shriek, gurgle, cackle, mutter, gesture, and declaim as well as sing beautifully” (The Threepenny Blog). 

As a 2017/2018 Soprano Fellow at the Tanglewood Festival, she made her Seiji Ozawa Hall debut at the Tanglewood Festival alongside Emanuel Ax and Bill Hudgins in Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. The festival also brought performances of selections from Berg’s Sieben Fruhe Lieder with the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, recital of French song, coached by Roger Vignoles, Bach cantatas under the baton of John Harbison, the premiere of Theo Chandler's Two Taylor Songs, and the premiere of a new work by Oliver Leith under the baton of Thomas Adès. Additionally, her “high bright voice embodied Max’s shrill ravings to perfection” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) in a memorial performance of Oliver Knussen’s “Where the Wild Things Are”, under the baton of Stefan Asbury.

Ms. Smither has held fellowships at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Songfest, Fall Island Vocal Arts, The Song Continues at Carnegie Hall, and the Music Academy of the West. Versatile in output, she has appeared in concerts ranging from Barbara Strozzi songs with acclaimed period ensemble Ars Lyrica, to the premiere of a work on climate change written for her at the Metropolis New Music Festival in Melbourne. Passionate about new works, she is a founding member of the Pushback Collective, a duo that explores, commissions, and promotes music that looks beyond the concert hall. 2019/2020 brings performances with Against the Grain Theatre, the California Symphony, National Sawdust and many more. She is absolutely thrilled to be making her Boston Symphony debut alongside her colleagues from Tanglewood. For more please visit www.alexandrasmither.com. 

Known for her vivid and touching vocal performances, mezzo-soprano Katherine Maysek is an artist equally at home on the stage and in the concert hall. Ms. Maysek loves the challenge of portraying many vastly different characters, be they within song, oratorio, or opera.

Ms. Maysek was a “standout” (The Wall Street Journal, August 2019) as Cherubino in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles at The Glimmerglass Festival. She will reprise this role at The Château de Versailles Spectacles in her European debut this December. In 2018 she debuted at Glimmerglass as Dinah in Berstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Lapák the dog in Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

Katherine made her Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in a rare production of Max von Shillings’ Mona Lisa. Other operatic roles include Brother (Stefan Weisman’s (The Scarlet Ibis), Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Lisbé (Grétry’s Zémire et Azor), Meg Page (Falstaff), Mrs. Grose (The Turn of the Screw), Nerone (L’incoronazione di Poppea) and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro).

Ms. Maysek has collaborated with the Concord Chorale, Burlington Choral Society, The Orchestra Now and the Blanche Moyse Chorale among others. Katherine’s concert repertoire includes Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with maestro Gerard Schwarz, Vivaldi’s Gloria with maestro James Bagwell and numerous Bach oratorios including the Christmas Oratorio, St. John Passion and Mass in B minor.

Katherine has also appeared with the Des Moines Metro Opera, the Tanglewood Music Center, Boston Opera Collaborative, Mass Opera, Opera Saratoga and the Berkshire Opera Festival. Katherine received her bachelors degree from McGill University and her masters degree from Bard College Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program. www.katherinemaysek.com

“[As Candide, he was] resonant, mellifluous and deft with dramatic nuance...” Tenor Eric Finbarr Carey will make several notable debuts in the 2019/2020 season on both the concert and operatic stages. This fall, he will appear as the tenor soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andris Nelsons in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, with Emmanuel Music in Bach’s B Minor Mass, with Odyssey Opera as Guildford Dudley in the world premiere of Arnold Rosner’s The Chronicle of Nine , and with the Battenkill Chorale in Mozart’s Coronation Mass. In the spring, Carey will make another appearance with the BSO in a performance of Doug Balliet’s Beast Fights as a part of their chamber music series in Boston and Tanglewood. 

Other appearances this season include a return to Concerts in the Village for Haydn’s Creation, recitals with pianist Javier Arrebola, three main stage productions with the Opera Institute, and John Stainer’s Crucifixion at Brick Church, NYC. 

This past summer, Carey joined the Britten-Pears Festival Young Artist Program before returning to the Tanglewood Music Center as a second-year fellow where he was featured in the American premiere of Richard Ayres’s The Cricket Recovers conducted by Thomas Adés and a concert of Bach Cantatas with John Harbison. Other recent appearances include Les illuminations with The Orchestra Now, as well as Alfredo (La traviata), Thibodeau (Dolores Claiborne) and Schoolmaster (Cunning little vixen) with the Opera Institute at Boston University, where he is currently in residence. Awards include the Encouragement Award at the Gerda Lissner Song Competition, the Grand Finals at the Joy in Singing Competition, and First Place at both the Sparks and Wiry Cries Song Slam Competition and the Bard College Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition. He holds degrees from Bard College, Peabody Conservatory, and The Johns Hopkins University. www.ericfinbarrcarey.com.

A native of White Plains, New York, bass-baritone William Socolof started his vocal and musical training at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. In 2019 he was honored to be selected as a participant with the distinguished Marlboro Music Festival, where he performed in various recitals and chamber music concerts. As a vocal fellow at Tanglewood Music Festival (2017–18), he appeared in Sondheim on Sondheim with the Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart, concerts of Bach Cantatas conducted by John Harbison, and premieres of new works by Michael Gandolfi and Nico Muhly. Socolof made his operatic debut at The Juilliard School in the 2016 production of Haydn’s La fedeltà premiata as “Melibeo”, and also appeared as “The Abbot” in Britten’s The Burning Fiery Furnace. At Juilliard, he has appeared in numerous recitals, as well as chamber and new music concerts and continues to do so this December, performing with The Juilliard Chamber Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. Other operatic performances include Die Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte) at the Chautauqua Institution. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Juilliard, where he is also currently pursuing his Masters Degree.