Soprano Sherezade Panthaki enjoys ongoing international collaborations with many of the world’s leading conductors including Nicholas McGegan, Masaaki Suzuki, Martin Haselböck, Mark Morris, Nicholas Kraemer, Matthew Halls, Stephen Stubbs, and Gary Wedow. Celebrated for her “full, luxuriously toned upper range” (Los Angeles Times) and “astonishing coloratura with radiant top notes” (Calgary Herald), particularly in the music of Bach and Handel, Panthaki has performed in recent seasons with the New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium Japan, Wiener Akademie (Austria), NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover (Germany), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Early Music Festival, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Mark Morris Dance Group, New York’s St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, The Choir and Orchestra of Trinity Wall Street, and Voices of Music. Panthaki is no stranger to classical and modern concert repertoire; she is in high demand for her interpretations of Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Poulenc, and Orff, as well as numerous new-music premières. Her discography includes the recently released recording of Handel’s Joseph and his Brethren with Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque, solo Bach cantatas with the Cantata Collective, and Graupner’s opera Antiochus und Stratonica with the Boston Early Music Festival.

Born and raised in India, Panthaki holds graduate degrees with top honours from the Yale School of Music and the University of Illinois, and a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College. She is a founding member and artistic advisor of the newly débuted Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble—a vocal octet celebrating racial and ethnic diversity in performances and educational programs of early and new music. Panthaki is a frequent guest clinician and master-class leader across the US. She has taught voice to graduate music students at Yale University, and currently heads the vocal program at Mount Holyoke College.

From Vancouver, countertenor Nicholas Burns has been described as possessing a “thrilling voice” that “caresses the ear with its velvet,” and past performances have been described as a “revelation” (Opera Canada, Le Devoir, and Süddeutsche Zeitung). Recent performances include those with Les Arts Florissant, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Tafelmusik, and the Carmel Bach Festival. At the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, Burns performed Bach cantatas with Philippe Herreweghe. He has also appeared with the American Bach Soloists, Bachfest Leipzig, Stuttgart’s JSB Ensemble, Early Music Vancouver, Arion Baroque Orchestra, the Theatre of Early Music, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, L’Harmonie des saisons, and I Musici. In 2023, Burns was a winner of the Oratorio Society of New York competition at Carnegie Hall, les Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, the Vancouver International Music Competition, and Edmonton Opera’s Rumbold Vocal Prize. On the opera stage, Burns has performed in numerous Handel operas including Cesare in Giulio Cesare, Bertarido in Rodelinda, Polinesso in Ariodante, and Lichas in Hercules. He also gave the world première of the opera L’Orangeraie by French composer Zad Moultaka.

Upcoming performances include engagements with Opera San Miguel de Allende, Arion Baroque Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Tafelmusik, and the Montreal Bach Festival. Aside from singing, Burns is an accomplished bagpiper, having won the World Pipe Band Championships in 2012. 

American-born James Ley is a graduate of the Opera Studies program at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, and a finalist of the 2022 Operalia Competition. He has been praised for his “pure tone and innocent expressiveness” (OperaWire) and for his “lovely legato line and silvery tenor” (Seen and Heard International).  

In the 2024/25 season, Ley joins the ensemble at Semperoper Dresden where he sings Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) under Giulio Cilona, Baron Lummer in Axel Ranisch’s new production of Intermezzo under Patrick Hahn, Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor) under Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, and Jonathan in Claus Guth’s production of Saul under Leo Hussain. Ley returns to the role of Váňa Kudrjaš in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s new production of Káťa Kabanová at Bayerische Staatsoper conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and in concert, reunites with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski for Così fan tutte at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and makes his much anticipated Canadian début in Handel’s Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Jean-Sébastien Vallée.

Ley’s 2023/24 season included several débuts: Váňa Kudrjaš (Káťa Kabanová) for Bergen National Opera under Jiří Rožeň, Scriabin’s Symphony No. 1 with Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi and with Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid under Marzena Diakun, Messiah with Jacksonville Symphony under Courtney Lewis and at Wheaton College, Bruckner’s Te Deum with Atlanta Symphony under Nathalie Stutzmann, and Britten’s Nocturne with Aarhus Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Koncz.  

The 2022/23 season began with Ley’s début at Edinburgh International Festival as the Second Nazarene (Salome) with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner, set for commercial release by Chandos Records, and a return to Ferrando in a special production of the Da Ponte trilogy with Les Musiciens du Louvre under Marc Minkowski for performances and a recording in Versailles. Ley débuted as Vaudémont in David Bösch’s new production of Iolanta at Oper Bern under Nicholas Carter, with further performances of the role at Salzburger Landestheater under Leslie Suganandarajah.

The 2021/22 season included débuts at Gran Teatre del Liceu and Opéra National de Bordeaux as Ferrando with Les Musiciens du Louvre under Marc Minkowski. In concert, he joined Opéra de Limoges in Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk in Mendelssohn’s Elias.

For the 2020/21 season Ley was a member of the Opernstudio of Bayerische Staatsoper as the recipient of an Opera Foundation scholarship, where he sang the Messenger (Aida) under Zubin Mehta as part of the Munich Opera Festival. He has participated in the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence Académie, Salzburg Young Singers Project, and Internationale Meistersinger Akademie.

Filipino-American bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca is an in-demand vocalist who has performed more than 100 oratorios, new-music works, opera roles, song cycles, and collections. His “smooth, dark bass voice” can be heard on five GRAMMY® Award–nominated recordings. During the 2024/25 season, he will make his débuts with the Baltimore and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and Winston-Salem Symphony. Earlier in 2024 he appeared for the first time at Bachfest Leipzig with Bach Collegium San Diego, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus with the San Francisco Symphony. Other notable recent engagements include the 2023 Carmel Bach Festival as resident soloist and regular appearances with The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra.

Soloist highlights of recent seasons include Haydn’s Nelson Mass with Voices of Ascension in New York, Handel’s Messiah at Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society and at Carnegie Hall with Musica Sacra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at Washington Bach Consort, and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht with the St. Louis Symphony. Lagasca has collaborated with such conductors as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Pablo Heras-Casado, Nicholas McGegan, Jane Glover, John Butt, John Nelson, Matthew Halls, and Carl St. Clair.

Lagasca’s passion extends beyond performing. He is dedicated to advocacy for the Queer community and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). As a member of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, a musical group committed to diversity and social justice, he participates in creative outreach programming for various communities with limited access to the arts. His performances of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard reflect Lagasca’s dedication to works that address the LGBTQ+ community.

In addition to the great sacred works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, Lagasca enjoys performing music by living composers and has premièred works by Julia Wolfe, Jonathan Dove, David Lang, Jake Runestad, Alex Berko, Caroline Shaw, and Reena Esmail. He has sung Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, Jake Heggie’s The Moon Is a Mirror, Nico Muhly’s The Last Letter, and Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles. Lagasca also participated in the US première of the Jonathan Dove opera The Monster in the Maze with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.

Lagasca’s vocal talent was recognized early on, when he was growing up in the Philippines. He found love in singing with a choir and, from ages 16 to 20, toured with the world-renowned Philippine Madrigal Singers, inspiring a captivation with music, and leading him to his current path.