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In the world-premiere of Josephine with UrbanArias, “… the afternoon belonged to Melissa Wimbish, who was creating the role of Josephine Baker … Beautifully prepared, vocally stunning, and theatrically riveting, Wimbish effortlessly held the audience in her hand throughout this one-woman show.” (Washington Post) In 2016, she made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut after winning the prestigious NATS Artist Award. Career highlights include Mysteries of the Macabre and Candide with Baltimore Symphony, Paul’s Case with UrbanArias and Prototype Festival, Nimue in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Camelot, Carmina Burana and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center, and Mozart’s Requiem with Richmond Symphony.

Her work is relentless in variety, spanning classical, contemporary, and popular styles. In the 2020-21 season, Wimbish self-directed a groundbreaking recital for the INVISION recital series and sang the roles of Alberto Gonzales in Melissa Dunphy’s Gonzales Cantata as well as Pamina in a brand new production of The Magic Flute, set to a revamped script and libretto by an all-Black creative team and cast. In addition to returning to UrbanArias for the 2021-22 season, Melissa will make her soloist debut with the Vermont Symphony, workshop Jessica Meyer’s 20 Minutes of Action with Sandbox Percussion Ensemble at Yellow Barn’s Chamber Music Residency, and compete at Stockhausen Courses in Kürten. She co-leads the Baroque pop duo, Outcalls, whose song “No King” was named one of Baltimore Sun’s Most Defining Songs of 2017. Outcalls was awarded a Baker Artist Award in 2021 and will release their third studio album, Greatest Hits, in fall 2021.

Noted for his “silken tenor”(Opera News), Eric Finbarr Carey is the most recent winner of the Meyerson Zwanger award and 2nd prize in the New York Oratorio Society competition at Carnegie Hall. 

This season he presents a varied repertoire of the renaissance to music being written today. This season in concert Carey will be the tenor soloist in Bach St. John Passion with Princeton Pro Musica conducted by Maestro Ryan Brandau, and will sing Evangelist in the same piece with Bach in Baltimore. As a 2022-23 artist with Bach in Baltimore he will sing as tenor soloist in various Bach Cantatas, and present two recitals with the group. He was tenor soloist in the world premiere of the lost mass of Orlandini and Händel’s Dixit Dominus with Upper Valley Baroque, where he returns this spring as soloist in Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. He will perform and record the world premiere of Andrew Faulkenberry’s oratorio The Crooked Cross in 2023. 

An Avid recitalist with “captivating vocal quality”(Operawire), he will sing a series of solo recitals this spring with pianist partner Bethany Pietroniro in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Hudson Valley, and will also present a recital of Monteverdi, Händel, Caccini and Air de Cour with Theorbist Richard Stone of Tempesta di Mare. 

A specialist in the music of Benjamin Britten, this fall Carey sang in two of his operas: the role of Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw with Opera Baltimore, and the Tempter in Enigma Opera’s The Prodigal Son, as well as concert performances with Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players in Britten’s Canticle V. This spring he will sing Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Concerts in the Village. Carey was a two time fellow at the Britten-Pears Programme in Aldeburgh, UK with mentorship from Mark Padmore and Roderick Williams. 

Carey made notable debuts in the 2020/21 season on both the concert and operatic stages. He appeared 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, and Odyssey Opera with a “very strong performance”(Gramophone UK) which was “an oasis of lyricism” (Bachtrack) in the world premiere of The Chronicle of Nine. Carey has held residencies in the Renée Fleming Song Studio at Carnegie Hall, the Britten-Pears Festival Young Artist Program, and Tanglewood Music Center as a two time fellow. 

At Tanglewood, he had the pleasure of working extensively with Dawn Upshaw, Margo Garrett, and Alan Smith. As a second-year fellow, 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 performances include Les illuminations with The Orchestra Now, and Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress), Alfredo (La traviata), Thibodeau (Dolores Claiborne) and Schoolmaster (The cunning little vixen) with the Opera Institute at Boston University, where he was in residence. Awards include 2nd place in 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 also received a grant from Boston University as one of the winners of the 2020 Kahn grant. He holds degrees from Bard College, Boston University, and Peabody Conservatory/The Johns Hopkins University. He is currently based in Philadelphia.

Carl DuPont is an artist, innovator, and educator dedicated to Transformational Inclusion and Care of the Professional Voice. His “rich, nuanced baritone” (Columbus Underground) has held center stage in performances at The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Carolina, Opera Columbus, First Coast Opera, Toledo Opera, Opera Saratoga, Sarasota Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera, El Palacio de Bellas Artes, Opera Company of Brooklyn, The IN Series, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and Leipzig Opera. Recent roles include Hawkins Fuller in Fellow Travelers, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, and Leporello in Don Giovanni. His articles can be found in The Laryngoscope and the Voice and Speech Review. DuPont can be heard on the world premiere recordings of the Caldara Mass in A Major, The Death of Webern, and his solo album, The Reaction. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music (BM), Indiana University (MM), and the University of Miami (DMA), he currently serves on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, the Carey School of Business executive education division, and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival; he is the co-artistic lead for the Kennedy Center’s Washington National Opera Initiative. This season he makes a role and company debut as Stephen Kumalo in Lost in the Stars with the Annapolis Opera Company, returns to Bach in Baltimore as the bass soloist in St. John’s Passion, sings the baritone solo in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, and reprises the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah for the Baltimore Choral Society.