Sadie Spivey

Sadie Spivey is a singer, actor, and director who tells dynamic stories through contemporary idioms and canonic repertoire. Recent engagements include new works by Christopher Cerrone (In a Grove), Emma O’Halloran (A Mass For Women In Bathrooms), and repertory favorites La Vie Parisienne and My Fair Lady. Drawn to cross-genre work, she recently co-divised a new rock opera, 1518, performed Poulenc’s seminal monodrama La voix humaine, and presented a fully staged song recital produced by City Lyric Opera. She is a graduate of the Vocal Arts Program at Bard Conservatory (MM Vocal Arts) and Penn State (BM Voice Performance, BFA Acting). @sadiespivey

Erik Grendahl

Praised for his “smooth, copper-hued baritone” (Opera News), Erik Grendahl has appeared with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Virginia Opera, Opera Baltimore, Santa Fe Opera, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his roles range from Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia to Escamillo in Carmen and Joseph De Rocher in Dead Man Walking. As an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera, he debuted as the Steersman in Tristan und Isolde and René Gallimard in M. Butterfly. An accomplished concert soloist, his repertoire includes major works by Bach, Brahms, Finzi, and Fauré. Erik is a winner of the George and Nora London Competition, a Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition Semifinalist, and a 3^rd prizewinner in the Gerda Lissner Lieder/Song Competition.

Ilanna Starr

Canadian-American mezzo-soprano Ilanna Starr is currently a Studio Artist with The Atlanta Opera, following a two-year residency with Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique. Recent role highlights include Flora in La traviata (Atlanta Opera), L’enfant in L’enfant et les sortilèges (Tanglewood), the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods (Opera North), and Nerone in L’incoronazione di Poppea (Opéra de Montréal). She has trained at Tanglewood, SongFest, and Chautauqua, and will appear this summer with Opera Neo, the Ravinia Steans Institute, and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. A two-time Metropolitan Opera Laffont Award winner and Belvedere Competition semifinalist, she has also received prizes from the National Opera Association and NSAL, among others. A lover of dogs, rush theater tickets, and Baroque rage arias, Ilanna digs singing from her heart and laughs from her belly (and vice versa). ilannastarr.com @ilannastarr

Stavros Koumbaros

Stavros Koumbaros is honored to be back at this year’s Lenya competition after being a 2023 finalist. A Brooklyn-based singer and actor, Stavros has appeared in the national tour of Les Miserables (Joly, u/s Marius). Regional credits include: Beautiful (Barry) at WPPAC, Titanic (Fleet) at Milwaukee Rep, West Side Story (Tony) at Summer Rep, and Jesus Christ Superstar (Jesus). Education: BFA from CCM. Many thanks to his coaches: Joey, Hannah, and Jen, as well as his family and friends for their constant support. stavroskoumbaros.com

Claire Griffin

Claire Griffin is a soprano and actress from Brevard, NC. 2026 engagements: Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), Ilia (Idomeneo), Soprano Soloist (Mahler, Symphony No. 4). Recent: Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Polly Peachum (The Threepenny Opera), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), Mag (Richard Wargo’s Ballymore), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland u/s (Chasing Rainbows: A New Musical). She has sung on the stages of Goodspeed Opera House, Washington National Cathedral, Aspen Music Festival, Piedmont Opera, Greensboro Opera, and the Brevard Music Center. Claire joins The Florentine Opera’s Donald and Donna Baumgartner Studio Artist Program in the fall to sing Annina (La traviata), Nella (Gianni Schicchi), and Papagena (The Magic Flute). She received her PAC/MM from the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute in 2026/2025.

Gemma Nha

Praised for her “pure musical pageantry” (Chicago Tribune), Korean-Australian soprano Gemma Nha is in the ensemble at Volksoper Wien, where she has performed Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Maria (West Side Story), and Wendla (Spring Awakening). This summer Gemma makes her Sydney Opera House debut as Gilda (Rigoletto). Gemma trained with Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, Wolf Trap and Santa Fe Opera, and earned an MM from Juilliard (Kovner Fellow) and a BA from Univ. of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She was the first female vocal winner at the Seoul International Music Competition and a National Semifinalist of the Laffont Competition. Credits include Soeur Constance (Dialogues des Carmélites); Ruth Baldwin (Later the Same Evening); Zerlina (Don Giovanni); and Tuptim (The King and I).

Dominic Delzompo

Dominic Delzompo is a bass-baritone, songwriter, composer, and music producer residing in Los Angeles, California. Dominic sang on the 2026 Grammy Award-winning recording of Gabriela Ortiz’s Yanga. In 2025, he released a 17-song album, Hypomanic God Complex, as Intrnet [sic] Boyfriend which he supported with a 30-date tour. In 2024, Dominic returned to his alma mater, UCLA, as a Guest Artist to debut a role in The Grand Hotel Tartarus, and sang the roles of John F. Kennedy and Francis Crick in scenes from LSD: The Opera at REDCAT. In prior concert seasons, Dominic has sung at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl, Pauley Pavilion, the Rose Bowl, and other venues.

Francesca Mehrotra

Francesca Mehrotra is an Indian-American singer / actor who finds her artistic home in telling stories through song, and is thrilled to return to the Lotte Lenya Competition for the third time! Francesca is currently playing Christine Daaé in Masquerade (NYC debut), the off-Broadway immersive revival of The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Diane Paulus. Recent appearances include Caroline in Titanic at the Marriott Theatre, A Little Night Music at Ogunquit Playhouse, Johanna in Sweeney Todd with Pacific Symphony, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance at Opera Colorado, Clara (u/s) in The Light in the Piazza at Central City Opera, Gilda in Rigoletto at Opera Colorado, and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. All Glory to God.  francescamehrotra.com. Instagram: @francesca.mehrotra.

Matthew Dexter

Matthew Dexter, bass-baritone from McKinney, TX, is a member of the 2026/27 Ryan Opera Center ensemble at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Matthew recently earned his MM degree in Early Music Voice from Yale University and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. While at Yale he performed in Jephtha (Zebul), Siddhartha, She (Abinaswar), and Il martirio di Sant’Orsola (Guilio), and toured internationally as Raphael in Die Schöpfung with Yale Schola Cantorum. As a vocal fellow at Spoleto Festival USA he appeared in multiple choral concerts, the 2022 world premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar, and Vanessa as the Old Doctor. Dexter toured as a soloist with Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra in the winter of 2025 and recently performed with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra as an invited soloist.

Lila Chrisp

Winner of the 2023 Ton und Erklärung singing competition and nominated for “Young Artist of the Year” in Opernwelt‘s Critics’ Survey 2025, British mezzo-soprano Lila Chrisp is a member of the soloist ensemble at Theater Freiburg in Germany. Her repertoire ranges from core opera roles (Charlotte, Werther; Hänsel, Hänsel und Gretel; Ruggiero, Alcina) to musicals and crossover projects (Amy, Company; Lucy, Die Dreigroschenoper), as well as several European and world premieres of contemporary operas. Also a keen performer of song repertoire, Lila has performed recitals at the Konzerthaus Berlin, Beethovenfest Bonn and the Münchner Künstlerhaus. Lila studied Music at Oxford University before completing an MA in Opera at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Kyle Scatliffe

Kyle Scatliffe currently appears as the Phantom in the off-Broadway production of Masquerade and previously played Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson in the Broadway production of Hamilton. His theatrical credits include Enjolras (Les Miserables), Harpo (The Color Purple) on Broadway, Haywood Patterson in the London premiere production of The Scottsboro Boys (Olivier Award Nomination), Coalhouse in Ragtime (Zach Theatre), Jud Fry in Oklahoma! (5th Avenue Theatre), Marley in A Christmas Carol: The Concert (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/PBS) and Mitch Mahoney in 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Alabama Shakespeare Festival). He has appeared in televi­sion roles on “Bull” (CBS) and “Chicago P.D.” (NBC). Kyle is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and a prizewinner of the 2010 Lenya Competition.

Ted Sperling

TED SPERLING has maintained an active and successful career in the theater and concert worlds for over forty years. He is the Artistic Director of MasterVoices, was music director of the recent Broadway productions of Floyd Collins and My Fair Lady, and leads the NYU Broadway Orchestra, training the next generation of Broadway musicians. He has been a Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya enthusiast for a very long time, and enjoyed judging this competition with the legendary Teresa Stratas and Ted Chapin many moons ago… delighted to return this weekend!

Mr. Sperling won the 2005 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his orchestrations of The Light in the Piazza, for which he was also music director. Broadway and off-Broadway credits include Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, A Man of No Importance, A New Brain, Floyd Collins, and Sunday in the Park with George. Mr. Sperling was an original cast member of Titanic. He has directed the premieres of four off-Broadway musicals: Red Eye of Love, The Other Josh Cohen, See What I Wanna See, and Striking 12. Mr. Sperling’s work in the concert hall as conductor and/or director includes Show Boat with the NY Philharmonic; The Pirates of Penzance, A Chorus Line and Cabaret for the Public Theater; Sweet Smell of Success, Of Thee I Sing, The Grapes of Wrath, Dido and Aeneas, and Orfeo ed Euridice, all for MasterVoices. Guest conducting engagements include Iceland Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Toronto Symphony and San Diego Symphony. He will make his Hollywood Bowl debut this summer. Works by Kurt Weill that Mr. Sperling has led with MasterVoices include The Firebrand of Florence, Knickerbocker Holiday, The Road of Promise (released on Navona Records) and Lady in the Dark. He directed and conducted a concert of selections from Street Scene recently with vocalists and instrumentalists from the NYU Steinhardt School. Mr. Sperling’s television appearances include many “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcasts. He appeared as Steve Allen in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” For more information, visit www.tedsperling.net.

Jeanine Tesori

Jeanine Tesori is a composer of musical theater, opera, and film. She is a two-time recipient of the Tony Award for Best Score and a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2015, she and Lisa Kron became the first female team to win the Tony for Best Score for Fun Home. Her other works include Kimberly Akimbo (with David Lindsay-Abaire); Soft Power (David Henry-Hwang); Caroline, or Change (Tony Kushner); Mother Courage and Her Children (Tony Kushner); Twelfth Night (LCT), Violet (Brian Crawley); Thoroughly Modern Millie (Dick Scanlan); and Shrek The Musical (David Lindsay-Abaire). For her opera, Grounded (with librettist George Brant), she became one of the first two women to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, and the first woman in its history to open a season. Her operas include A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck (Tony Kushner); The Lion, The Unicorn and Me (J. D. McClatchy); and Blue (Tazewell Thompson), which received the MCANA Award for Best New Opera. Tesori is the founding Artistic Director of New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center Series. She is the co-creator of the Cast Album Project, with Taneisha Duggan and Anne Kauffman, and tall popPy, a mentoring and micro-financing initiative cofounded with Darren Biggart and Torya Beard. She was the Supervising Vocal Producer on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and wrote the score for numerous Disney animated sequels, including Mulan 2 (with Alexa Junge). Tesori is a graduate of Barnard College, a Professor of Practice at Yale University, and a proud member of The Dramatists Guild.