About the artists

Tommy Wazelle

Praised for his “strong, keening tenor,” “liquid tonal qualities” and “beautiful diction,” Tommy Wazelle is an accomplished opera, oratorio, and musical theater singer and an Emmy-winning television voice actor. A member of AGMA, AEA, and SAG-AFTRA, he has performed leading roles and solos with opera and musical theater companies and orchestras in the United States and abroad, including at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and in Europe, Israel, and the Caribbean. He is also known for the voice role of Pig on the syndicated PBS Kids show Peg+Cat. Originally from Alma, Arkansas, he holds bachelor’s degrees in trumpet performance and music composition as well as a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Arkansas. His operatic training includes three summers with the International Vocal Arts Institute, an apprenticeship with Des Moines Metro Opera, and two seasons in Tulsa Opera’s Studio Artists program. He is a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Regional Finalist, a National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition Regional Winner, and a recipient of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition Encouragement Award. READ MORE

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Katherine Lee

Based in New York City, Katherine has cultivated a full musical life of performance and teaching. In performance, she prizes deep musical thought and authenticity of expression, particularly enjoying close collaborations with fellow musicians and composers. As a teacher, Katherine passes on her attention to detail and reverence for vocal craft, helping to free and celebrate the voices of students both beginner and advanced. The 2025-2026 season includes Opera Essentia’s distilled productions of Handel’s Radamisto and Tolomeo, appearances with Concerts on the Slope, Brooklyn Art Song Society and solo appearances in Mozart's Vespers and Handel's Messiah. 

Katherine holds a double Bachelors in Voice and French from Oberlin College and Conservatory, as well as a Masters in Music from Bard Conservatory. She currently serves on faculty at Manhattan School of Music, Concordia Conservatory and the University of Mount Saint Vincent. READ MORE

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Helen Karloski

Mezzo-soprano Helen Karloski has been praised for her “genuine mezzo timbre” (Opera News) and a voice “beautifully suited for oratorio” (Santa Fe New Mexican). She has been gaining recognition particularly in her portrayal of the oratorio repertoire. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Ellen Lopin Blair Award for First Place in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition. Ms. Karloski’s 2022-23 season includes performances with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, National Concerts, the Choral Society of Grace Church, St. Andrew Music Society, Park Avenue Armory, Voices of Ascension, American Soloists Ensemble and Musica Sacra.

The New York Times wrote of her performance in Georg Philip Telemann's rarely performed oratorio Der Tag des Gerichts, "Helen Karloski commanded attention as Reason." Ms. Karloski made her Lincoln Center debut in Mozart’s Solemn Vespers with the Mostly Mozart Festival under the baton of Iván Fischer and her Carnegie Hall debut performing Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Bruckner’s Te Deum under the baton of Kent Tritle with the Oratorio Society of New York. Recent solo appearances include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Harry Bicket and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Omaha Symphony, the world premiere of Evan Fein’s Deborah with Musica Sacra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the American Classical Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Copland’s In the Beginning with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space and the Alto soloist in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the New York City Ballet.  READ MORE

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Max Tipton

Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a dignified and beautiful singer, bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton performs and records in opera, oratorio, chamber music, and art song throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Recent recordings & engagements include Haydn’s Creation with Pacific Symphony, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with Bach Collegium Japan for a debut in Tokyo, covering the title role in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Handel & Haydn Society under Raphaël Pichon, a recording of Nicolaus Bruhns’s solo cantatas for bass with Masaaki Suzuki for the BIS label, the role of Phoebus in Bach Cantata No. 201, Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde, with Dana Marsh and the Washington Bach Consort for the Acis label, Christus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at Spoleto Festival USA, Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Göteborg Baroque, and the Bach Mass in B-Minor for Avie Records with Nicholas McGegan & Cantata Collective. In 2023-2024 he records 17th century German cantatas for the BIS label with Masaaki Suzuki at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, is a soloist with Bach Collegium San Diego at the annual BachFest Leipzig in Germany, and returns to Tokyo with Bach Collegium Japan for Handel’s Messiah. He holds an MMus from Yale University and resides in New York City. READ MORE