Holiday Singers

The Holiday Singers ensemble is made up of eight accomplished vocalists from the Boston area, all returning this year following the ensemble's debut in the 2021 Holiday Pops season. They perform in all six of the 2022 Kids’ Matinees as well as the Sensory-Friendly Concert. The singers were prepared by Lisa Graham, Music Director of the Metropolitan Chorale.

Mason Bynes is a Boston-based composer, vocalist, and multimedia artist who strives to bridge the gap between genre and sound in order to bring listeners together. She currently serves on the film/TV composition team at Raging Cloud Studios, and she also works as a career services advisor at Berklee College of Music. Her passion and musical curiosity have sparked of commissions with various ensembles. Bynes has performed as a vocalist with a variety of choruses and opera programs, including Odyssey Opera, Metropolitan Chorale, Dallas Highland Park Chorale, and University of North Texas Opera.

Jennifer Caraluzzi is a versatile vocalist and educator who serves on the voice faculty of the NEC Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education. She has performed with the Boston Pops, Boston Opera Collaborative, and Opera on Tap, and is an accomplished studio vocalist. She sings the title role in a critically acclaimed recording of Seymor Barab’s children’s opera Little Red Riding Hood. She also works in musical theater and cabaret and has collaborated on her own mix of the two, DuetAllNight, with tenor Eduardo Ramos. As the program manager for graduate studies at Berklee College of Music, Caraluzzi serves as the main advisor for the college’s Harvard dual degree program. She holds a joint MBA from Berklee College of Music and Southern New Hampshire University, and a Master of Music in vocal performance from New England Conservatory.

Soprano Caroline Corrales is an operatic star on the rise. In 2022, she joined the roster of Santa Fe Operas as an Apprentice Artist, singing in mainstage productions of Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Falstaff, and Huang Ruo's adaptation of M. Butterfly. Corrales received her operatic training under Dr. Lynn Eustis at the Boston University Opera Institute. An avid competitor, she has been named the Boston District Winner and New England Region Encouragement Award Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition (formerly the Met’s National Council Auditions). She has also recently been a finalist in the National Opera Association Vocal Competition and second prize winner in the Orpheus Vocal Competition, and was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the St. Botolph Club Foundation.

James Dargan is a creative artist and self-described authenticity addict from the Southeastern U.S. He is based in New York City, where he performs both as soloist and in ensembles, plays the violin, composes, writes, teaches, and translates poetry and prose from several languages. Dargan, a singer since he was a child, performs his social justice-themed programs “Oh, Glory!” and “Ladies Only” anywhere and everywhere. He also teaches on spirituals and other Black music, and he is honored to embody his family tradition of telling truthful stories. He is a founding member of the consortium Ring Shout.

Nathan Halbur is a baritone and composer based in Boston. He is active as a concert soloist, choral singer, and recording artist with Emmanuel Music, Ensemble Altera, Cantata Singers, Vox Futura, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, and the Metropolitan Chorale (as artist in residence), among many other ensembles and projects. He recently appeared in the world premiere of Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding’s opera …(Iphigenia) at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. He sang with the Boston Pops Holiday Tour in 2019. He is half of experimental lo-fi pop duo DREAMGLOW.

Tenor Wes Hunter regularly performs both standard and new repertoire. In addition to singing with the Pops Holiday Tour for several years, he also produces story-based cabarets at venues such as Club Cafe in Boston and the Duplex in New York City. Operatic highlights include Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Boston Opera Collaborative), Count Ory in Rossini’s Le comte Ory (Lowell House Opera), Oronte in Handel’s Alcina (Opera del West), Laurie in Adamo’s Little Women (MetroWest Opera), and Michael the Archangel in the workshop of Julian Wachner’s Rev 23 (Beth Morrison Projects). Hunter has also performed as a soloist in concert repertoire across the East Coast, including Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, Handel’s Messiah, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, and Schubert’s Mass in G.

Renese King’s array of musical talents has taken her from spiritual and gospel singing at the church podium to timpani playing on the Carnegie Hall stage. Her soulful, moving voice garnered her a Boston Music Award as Gospel/Inspirational Artist of the Year. Often singing her own arrangements, King has performed with many ensembles in the New England area and across the nation. Her voice is featured on the soundtracks of three award-winning PBS documentary films (Emmy, Peabody, and Sundance awards): Freedom Riders (2011), Freedom Summer (2014), and Tell Them We Are Rising (2018). Making her seventh Holiday Pops appearance with this season’s concerts, King appears regularly with the Boston Pops, having been a featured and guest soloist in concerts at Symphony Hall and on the Esplanade, in television broadcasts, and on the 2004 CD Sleigh Ride, alongside the Boston Pops Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and Boston Pops Gospel Choir. Renese King holds a position in Student Affairs, Diversity and Inclusion at Berklee College of Music and serves as music director at the Waymark Seventh Day Adventist Church in Dorchester and also of the New England Gospel Ensemble in Boston. She remains committed to the unifying and uplifting message at the heart of gospel music.

Tenor Charles Williamson opened his 2022-23 season with Dutch National Opera in the European premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue. From January to June, he joins the Metropolitan Opera for Wagner’s Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman as well as Terence Blanchard’s Champion. Williamson made his Met Opera house debut in the 2019 Grammy Award-winning production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Other ensemble highlights include the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Revelations. As a recitalist, he works to program traditional classical repertoire alongside lesser known and contemporary classical works composed by women and people of color. Charles Williamson is a native of Passaic, New Jersey.