Down from a pool of nearly 300 contestants, ten unique talents representing four countries compete for a top prize of $25,000 on 4 May in Rochester, NY! Read below about the 2024 finalists, judges, and the Competition alumni performing at this year's event.
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Kaileigh Riess is thrilled to return to the LLC after winning a Lys Symonette Award in 2021 and reaching the semis in 2023. Favorite credits include Violetta Valéry (La Traviata), Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Blanche (Dialogue of the Carmelites). Kaileigh has earned distinction in the Laffont, Jensen Foundation, and American Traditions competitions. She studied at Northwestern University, USC, and the Boston University Opera Institute, and has been an apprentice artist at Virginia Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Central City Opera, and Music Academy of the West. Kaileigh is represented by Encompass Arts and is based in NYC.
Kentucky native Logan Wagner has originated multiple roles with Cincinnati Opera Fusion: New Works. Recently: Clarence Elkins (Blind Injustice, PEAK Performances), Beadle Bamford (Sweeney Todd, Dayton Opera), Marcellus/Second Gravedigger (Hamlet, CSO/Opéra Comique), Timothy Laughlin (Fellow Travelers, CCM), Monostatos (The Magic Flute, Utah Festival Opera), Padre (Man of La Mancha, Utah Festival Opera). He was a 2023 Apprentice Artist with Des Moines Metro Opera, and will join the Wolf Trap Opera Studio in 2024 to sing the Brother in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins. He is a Pasadena Vocal Competition Career Grant Recipient, and holds a MM from CCM, where he is now pursuing an Artist Diploma.
Originally from Burundi, Queen Hezumuryango holds a BM and MM in Vocal Performance from the University of Montreal, and is a member of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio. Credits include La marquise de Berkenfield (La fille du regiment), Mercédès (Carmen), Tisbe (La cenerentola), Carmen (La tragédie de Carmen), Madame Larina (Eugene Onegin), and Zita (Gianni Schicchi). She was a semifinalist in the 2021 OSM Competition, and has participated in programs of the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute, Highlands Opera Studio, and the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance. This year she received an Encouragement Award in the Laffont Competition, and won the Canadian Opera Foundation’s David and Ann Sutton Award.
Joseph Sacchi is a native of Salem, OR, now based in NYC. He holds a MM (Manhattan School of Music) and a BM (Central Washington University), and has been a resident artist with St. Petersburg Opera, Opera Maine, Sarasota Opera, Opera North, Prelude to Performance, and the VOICE Festival. He has received Wagner Society of New York Singer Encouragement Grants, a George and Nora London Encouragement Award, and was a 2023 Giulio Gari Foundation finalist. Credits include Florestan (Fidelio), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer), Malcolm (Macbeth), Persée (Persée et Andromède), Albert (Albert Herring), Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus), Carl-Magnus (A Little Night Music) and Armored Man (Die Zauberflöte).
Ana Karneža is an actor and singer from Ptujska Gora, Slovenia, currently finishing her last year of the MFA acting program at The Juilliard School. Ana began her performing career as a singer in her home country where she performed at various notable televised music festivals as well as full evening concerts. Prior to studying at Juilliard, Ana spent her undergraduate years at NYU Abu Dhabi, one of the most international and diverse universities, where she studied global theater. Her recent theater performances include The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Azdak), Wintertime (Maria), And Then We Were No More (workshop of original play by Tim Blake Nelson).
Ta’Nika Gibson’s most recent Broadway credits include Lucinda in the award-winning Into The Woods and Diana Ross in Ain’t Too Proud. Regional favorites are the historic all African-American Oklahoma! (Laurie) at Denver Center, Aida (Aida), Dreamgirls (Lorell), and The Wiz (Dorothy). Ta’Nika appears in HBO’s Winning Time! as Debbie Allen, and Iron Fist on Netflix. A staunch advocate for the arts, foster care, and adoption, Ta’Nika is on the Board of Believers at You Gotta Believe and works with Broadway for Arts Education. She is grateful to her parents and her team at CAA and Thomas Green Entertainment for making her dreams a reality! @tanika_renee_gibson
Jason Zacher was a 2023 Kentucky Opera Sandford Studio Artist, where he sang Colline in La bohème, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, and Henry in The Gift of the Magi. As a 2023 Glimmerglass Young Artist he performed Argante (Rinaldo), covered Pangloss/Voltaire (Candide), and was a featured soloist alongside Natalie Merchant and Anthony Roth Costanzo. Mr. Zacher is presently a member of Atlanta Opera’s Glynn Studio Artist program, where he performed in Frankenstein, Rigoletto, La bohème, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He made his Carnegie Hall debut this season (Messiah, The Masterwork Chorus), and will return this spring and summer to Carnegie Hall (Lord Nelson Mass) and Glimmerglass, respectively.
Capable of bel canto to “can belt-o” and everything in between, Houston-born Rebekah Howell’s recent roles include The Witch (Into the Woods), Cunegonde (Candide), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Mother Abbess (The Sound of Music) and Nannetta (Falstaff). She will soon perform Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta, and Stella in Les Contes d’Hoffmann at Opera in Williamsburg, and Adina (cover)(L’elisir d’amore) and Zaneeta Shinn/Mrs. Squires (cover)( The Music Man) at Charlottesville Opera. Based in Nashville, TN, Rebekah teaches voice at Belmont University. She was the inaugural winner of the Kurt Weill Award at the Lenya Competition (2021), a semifinalist in 2022, and again a finalist in 2023.
Christian Mark Gibbs is a Guyanese-American artist born and raised in New York City. He recently made his Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated Camelot, and has sung at the Met, Washington National Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He made his Off-Broadway debut at Lincoln Center Theater in the award-winning, Intimate Apparel, and his international debut in West Side Story (Tony) at Finland’s Savoy-teatteri. As a soloist, he has sung with the London Symphony Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, and Feinstein’s/54 below. He sang on the soundtrack of the feature film, The Woman King, and has a BM and MM in Vocal Performance. www.ChristianMarkGibbs.com
Kendra Dyck is excited to return to the Lenya Competition as a first-time finalist, after reaching the semifinals in 2023! She “possesses a pleasant, sweet-toned soprano that she’s well capable of coloring for dramatic effect” (Opera Ramblings) and is a “natural comedienne” (Opera Canada). Kendra has sung multiple world premieres including Bestiary I and II by Bekah Simms (JUNO Award, Classical Composition). Roles include Ida (Die Fledermaus), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Gretel (Hansel & Gretel) and Doralee Rhodes (9 to 5: The Musical). A native of southern Ontario, she holds a BM from Wilfrid Laurier University and an Artist Diploma from The Glenn Gould School.
Nicole Cabell, 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and prizewinner of the 2002 Lenya Competition, is one of today’s most sought-after lyric sopranos. Career highlights include Violetta in La Traviata (ROH, San Francisco Opera), Adina in L’elisir d’amore (Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Met), Pamina in Die Zauberflöte (Chicago, Met, Deutsche Oper Berlin), Contessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro (Chicago, Grand Théâtre de Genève), Micaela in Carmen (Met, Chicago, Berlin), and Musetta in La Bohème (Teatro Colòn Buenos Aires, Met, Chicago, Covent Garden, Santa Fe Opera, WNO). Her recordings include Soprano; Silver Rain; Chanson D’Avril; Mademoiselle—Première Audience, Unknown Music of Nadia Boulanger; and Musetta in La Bohème with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon as well as in La Bohème: The Film. Nicole holds a BM in Vocal Performance from Eastman, where she has been an Assistant Professor of Voice since 2020.
Jeanine Tesori is a composer of musical theatre, opera, and film. Her musicals include Kimberly Akimbo; Soft Power; Fun Home; Shrek The Musical; Caroline, or Change; Thoroughly Modern Millie; and Violet. She is a two-time recipient of the Tony Award for Best Score and a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her operas include A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck; The Lion, The Unicorn and Me; and Blue, which received the MCANA Award for Best New Opera. For her opera Grounded, she was one of the first two women to be commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera. It will open the Met’s 2024-25 season. Tesori served as Supervising Vocal Producer on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. She is the Founding Artistic Director of New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center series and a lecturer in musical theater at Yale University.
Tazewell Thompson boasts more than 150 directing credits, including many world and US premieres. His Porgy and Bess: Live from Lincoln Center was nominated for multiple Emmys. As a playwright, he has received 9 Barrymore Awards, 5 NAACP Awards, 3 Carbonell Awards, and an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. His poem “Ghostlight,” about Broadway’s closing during the pandemic, covered the entire page of The New York Times opinion page. His opera Blue, written with Jeanine Tesori, has received accolades from the Music Critics Association of North America, The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian. The current staging at ENO is a 2024 Olivier Award nominee for Best New Opera Production. The work has been produced internationally at 9 venues to date. His new opera, Jubilee, about The Fisk Jubilee Singers, will have its world premiere at Seattle Opera in October 2024.
Join us in Kilbourn Hall at 8:00 pm, for a special concert from four Competition alumni: Michael Maliakel, now in his third year as Aladdin on Broadway; Analisa Leaming, who has appeared on Broadway in such shows as The King and I, School of Rock, and Hello, Dolly; Jacob Keith Watson, currently appearing on Broadway in Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along; and Rebecca Jo Loeb, a regular on such stages as the Metropolitan Opera, LA Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin, and star of the German premiere of Kurt Weill’s Love Life.
The concert will be emceed by longtime President and CEO of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization and eleven-time Lenya Competition judge, Ted Chapin.
Analisa Leaming (’07) is forever grateful for how the Lenya Competition changed her life and has supported her throughout her career. On Broadway she has starred as Anna Leonowens in The King and I at Lincoln Center, Principal Rosalie Mullins in School of Rock, as well as Anita in On the Twentieth Century starring Kristin Chenoweth and Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Middler. National tours include Grace Farrel in Annie and Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly! Other favorite credits include Mabel in Pirates, or Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder’d, Maria in The Sound of Music, and the title role of Mary Poppins. In addition to her work on stage, Analisa is the creator of the podcast Soulful Ambition and is a life coach, wife, and Mom to two young boys.
Rebecca Jo Loeb (‘08) has sung around the world as a contemporary repertoire specialist. This season she will be seen with NYFOS and in Norway in Written on Skin with the composer on the podium. She has performed in multiple world premieres, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Omar (Spoleto Festival), Requiem by George Tsontakis (Albany Symphony), p r i s m (LA Opera) and Written in Skin (Festival d’Aix.) She has numerous credits at the Met, Oper Köln, and Dutch National Opera, and spent five seasons with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Hamburgische Staatsoper. In 2017 she starred in the German premiere of Weill’s Love Life at Theater Freiburg. Rebecca has performed in concert throughout the world, including at the Hamburg Ballet, NYC Ballet, Carnegie Hall, and the Kurt-Weill-Fest.
Michael Maliakel [“Molly-uh-kell”] (‘15) is currently starring as Aladdin on Broadway. He is featured in three PBS specials: Broadway’s Brightest Lights, An Evening with Lerner and Loewe, and Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir. Other credits include the national tour of Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard (Anything Can Happen: The Songs of Maury Yeston, Bernstein’s Mass, She Loves Me, and Monsoon Wedding. TV: BULL, FBI, Good Morning America, and The View. He has sung with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, National Philharmonic, Tallahassee Symphony, Savannah Philharmonic, and American Pops. Winner of top prizes in American Traditions, NATS competitions, and Gerda Lissner Foundation, Michael and his wife welcomed a beautiful baby girl last year. @michaelmaliakel
Jacob Keith Watson (‘12) has appeared on Broadway in Carousel (Enoch Snow), Hello, Dolly! Violet, The Phantom of the Opera (Joseph Buquet), Amélie (World Premiere and OBC), and currently Merrily We Roll Along (Terry/Mr. Spencer). He was seen in the Encores! productions of 1776 (Robert Livingston), Mack & Mabel (Harry) and Oliver, and toured as Amos Hart in Chicago. On screen: Mr. Bundles in NBC’s Annie and John Dixon on HBO’s The Gilded Age. Regional: Into the Woods (The Baker), Shrek the Musical (Shrek), The Music Man (Marcellus) Swept Away, Benny & Joon (Waldo), Seussical (Horton), As You Like It (Corin), Twelfth Night (Feste), La Boheme (Rodolfo), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Count Almaviva cover), and Pagliacci (Beppe). Jacob is a winner of the NATS Competition and a regional finalist in the Met Auditions.
Ted Chapin is currently Interim CEO of Broadway Licensing Global. Previously, he was president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, where “made new shoes from old leather” (NY Times). He oversaw eight Tony Award-winning revivals as well as Broadway premieres of newly created shows including Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, as well as television productions of The Sound of Music Live! on NBC and the multi-racial Cinderella on ABC. In 2003 his award-winning book Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical “Follies,” was published by Alfred A. Knopf. He is co-founder of the Encores! series at New York City Center and producer of two seasons at the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists. He is honored to be receiving an honorary degree in May from the Manhattan School of Music.
