Rising star, Lauren Decker, possesses a booming contralto with “amber low notes” that is in a league of its own. She is lauded for “pouring out a dark, chocolatey sound with a plushness of tone and amplitude of voice rarely heard in a young singer”.

Ms. Decker most recently covered the role of Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, 1st Norn in Götterdämmerung, and performed Schwertleite in Die Walküre as a part of David Pountney’s “brilliantly imaginative”, new Ring Cycle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Lauren made her Lyric Opera debut as Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte and went on to perform as Jade Boucher in Dead Man Walking, First Maid in Elektra, Inez in Il trovatore, Enrichetta di Francia in I puritani, and Annina in La traviata. While there, she also covered the roles of Madame de la Haltière in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Hécuba/Anna in Les Troyens, and Marthe Schwertlein in Faust. Outside of the mainstage, Lauren was seen as Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief at the Grant Park Music Festival.

In summer 2019, Ms. Decker made a triumphant debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Elgar’s Sea Pictures, a signature work for her. She has also performed in concert with the South Dakota Symphony in Mahler 8, the Apollo Chorus/Elmhurst Symphony in the Verdi Requiem, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe.

Additional roles in her repertoire include Ulrica from Un ballo in maschera, Principessa in Suor Angelica, Azucena in Il trovatore, and Dame Quickly in Falstaff.

Lauren was a quarterfinalist in the 2019 Operalia competition in Prague. She is a recent recipient of the Richard F. Gold career grant and was a national semifinalist in the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, having previously been a two-time recipient of an Encouragement Award at their Upper Midwest Region. Winner of the 2019 Edith Newfield Scholarship from the Musician’s Club of Women of Chicago and 2018 Lola Fletcher scholarship in voice with the American Opera Society of Chicago, Decker has been featured in the Harris Theater’s Beyond the Aria series alongside Christine Goerke and Eric Owens and, later, Michael Fabiano and Zachary Nelson.

In addition to her four year tenure at the Ryan Opera Center, Decker has participated in the Britten-Pears Program at Snape Maltings, United Kingdom, Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, the American Wagner Project (Washington, D.C.) and the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto (Italy). The Wisconsin native holds a B.F.A. in vocal performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She currently resides in Milwaukee.

A native of Barranquilla, Colombia, Laureano Quant holds a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale University. Highlights of his repertoire include Belcore, The Elixir of Love, Guglielmo, Così fan tutte, Figaro, Saverio Mercadante’s I due Figaro, Maguire, Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, Zurga, The Pearl Fishers, Vittorio and The Boarder, Nino Rota’s I due timidi, Demetrius, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Captain and Prince Ragotsky, Candide.

In the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Quant was awarded Second Place in both the Western Region (2022) and the Southeastern Region (2020). He has also won the Luminarts Cultural Foundation Men’s Voice Fellowship (2023), the Online Audience Award in Houston Grand Opera’s Concert of Arias (2020), and First Prize in the Premio de Canto Ciudad de Bogotá (2018). Quant has participated in prestigious programs such as the Merola Opera Program and SongStudio, the latter led by Renée Fleming at Carnegie Hall, and has appeared in concert with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Praised for her “radiant and all-encompassing soprano” (Chicago Tribune), Michelle Areyzaga performs a diverse range of orchestral, oratorio, opera, and chamber repertoire. As a “consummate vocal actress” (Fanfare), she is held in high regard throughout the United States and abroad for her “appealing, expressive soprano” (New York Times).

Michelle has appeared as soloist with orchestras and festivals across the country including the Chicago Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Colorado Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Wichita Symphony, Flint Symphony, Fort Wayne Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony, Hartford Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Toledo Symphony, Rochester Symphony; the Ravinia, Oregon Bach, Blossom, and Grant Park music festivals.

Abroad, Ms. Areyzaga has performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, and Uruguay’s Orquesta Sinfónica del Sodre. She sang in Costa Rica’s first performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass with the National Symphony Orchestra under conductor John Nelson. She appeared as soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor at England’s York Minster Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Church in Oxford. At Paris’s L’église de la Madeleine, she was soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the orchestra of London’s Royal Academy of Music and the St. Charles Singers.

Michelle has sung leading roles for New York City Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Birmingham, and other regional companies. Some of her favorite roles include Micaela (Carmen), Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Musetta (La Bohème), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and Cunegonde (Candide). Her staged portrayals have consistently garnered high praise such as “sensational” for her performances of Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi (The Chicago Reader) and “stunning” as Bubikopf in Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Opera Magazine, London).

Highly respected for her work as an avid chamber musician and recitalist, Michelle has been a repeat guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the New York Festival of Song, the Avalon String Quartet, The Lincoln Trio, and has been a member of the Chicago Ensemble since the beginning of her career.

Renowned for her artistry with new music and contemporary composers, Ms. Areyzaga has been honored to perform and record multiple world-premieres for composers Gwyneth Walker, Lita Grier, Stacy Garrop, Fabio Luisi, and Gustavo Leone. Her most recent art song album, Were I With Thee, features all contemporary American art songs with texts by women, including world-premiere recordings of works by Wayland Rogers and Gwyneth Walker. Artsong Update praised Were I With Thee as “one of the finest art song CDs ever… a ground-breaking art song CD of twenty-first century sensibility.”

As a lifelong champion of Leonard Bernstein’s music, Michelle toured Bernstein on Broadway for six years together with Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, Jamie. Ms. Areyzaga was named Musical Ambassador of the Ravinia Festival’s Bernstein at 100 Centennial Celebration.

Ms. Areyzaga is artist faculty at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Loyola University Chicago. Michelle is passionate about guiding and inspiring her private voice students through her knowledge of vocal literature, technique, and her training as a life coach.

In the 23/24 season tenor Jonathan Johnson returned to Opera Colorado as the Steersman in Der Fliegende Höllander and made his debuts with Washington Concert Opera in La Rodine and North Carolina Opera as Alfredo in La Traviata. He appeared at Opera Colorado in Die Todt Stadt, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in Harvey Milk, the Tulsa Opera as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicci,and Opera Omaha as Anthony in Sweeney Todd. Other notable recent appearances have included the Prince in The Love for Three Oranges at Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19, Jonathan Dale in Silent Night at Utah Opera, Beppe in I Pagliacci at Opera Colorado, the title role of Bernstein’s Candide with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, and Des Moines Metro Opera; Anna Bolena at Canadian Opera Company<, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance and Lensky in Eugene Onegin at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Fenton in Falstaff at San Diego Opera, and Lindoro in L’italiana in Algeri at the Portland Opera. A graduate of the Patrick G. & Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s professional artist-development program, he appeared in the house’s main productions of Les Troyens, Lucia di Lammermoor, The Merry Widow, Der Rosenkavalier, Capriccio, The Magic Victrola and Mieczysław Weinberg’s Holocaust opera The Passenger.

Jonathan Johnson performed The Messiah with Camerata Chicago in 2019, 2021 and 2023.

Jonathan Johnson performing with Camerata Chicago in 2019. Photo Credit Dan Andersen.