John Solomon Collins was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Growing up, he was always surrounded by music, hearing his mother sing with the church praise team and participating in the children’s choir. He became resistant towards singing in middle and early high school, but as time went on, his love for singing and passion for creating art became clearer to him; so he decided to pursue a career in vocal performance. After winning first place in the Coalition of African Americans in the Performing Arts’s Scholarship Competition in 2020, he began studying vocal performance under Kevin Short at the University of Maryland. While there, John Solomon performed as Sylvester in OperaTerps’ production of Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, sang in the chorus of the Maryland Opera Studio’s production of La bohème, and was awarded second place at the Sue Guetz Ross Memorial Competition presented by the Friday Morning Music Club. He was also accepted into the Honors Performance Series, which took place last summer at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. John Solomon is looking forward to joining the Class of 2026’s cohort of the Maryland Opera Studio, continuing his education at the University of Maryland.

Jason Rylander has been praised by the Washington Post for his “strong, clear tenor” and for
performances that “coupled sonorous warmth and emotional depth”. He has performed with some of the
East Coast’s leading early music ensembles, including the Washington Bach Consort, Bach Sinfonia,
Cathedra, Mountainside Baroque, Opera Lafayette, and the TENET/Green Mountain Project. Recent solo
performances include the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion, Handel’s Messiah and Acis and Galatea,
Haydn’s Creation, the Monteverdi Vespers, the Mozart Requiem, and a concert of Dowland’s lute songs
on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Jason has also performed at the American Bach Soloists
Festival, Amherst Early Music Festival, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. When not singing,
Jason serves as the legal director for the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, and
is interested in linking music and social change. He currently resides with his wife, children, and a red
labrador retriever, in Arlington, Virginia.