Handel's Messiah

Sarah Lawrence enjoys a widely varied career as a singing actor in opera, musical theatre, and in concert, singing everything from Baroque to Broadway. Sarah has performed with the symphonies of Augusta, Omaha, Madison, Milwaukee, Boise, the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, the San Luis Obispo Symphony Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, singing repertoire including Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Bach’s B Minor Mass, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Prokofiev’s Ugly Duckling. A frequent pops soloist, Sarah has sung concerts of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, and Bernstein, and was a guest soloist with Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis with Omaha Symphony. Equally comfortable on the stage, Ms. Lawrence has performed more than 30 roles in opera and musical theatre, including Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Frasquita and Micaela in Carmen, and Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte. She has appeared with Madison Opera, Skylark Opera, Light Opera Oklahoma, Opera Omaha, and the Guthrie Theater. With Lyric Opera of the North she has appeared in the title role in Handel’s Semele, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Norina in Don Pasquale, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and Gilda in Rigoletto. With Colder By the Lake, she created the roles of Missy in Les Uncomfortables by Tyler Kaiser, and Pristine in Phantom of the NorShor. A fan of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operettas, Sarah has appeared as Rose Maybud in Ruddigore, Angelina in Trial by Jury, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance. Musical theatre roles include Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Lily in The Secret Garden (The Duluth Playhouse), Ivey Smith in On the Town and Eileen in Wonderful Town (Skylark Opera), and Julie Jordan in Carousel (Minnesota Orchestra). Ms. Lawrence appeared as Christine Daaé as a member of the Third National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera and in Phantom: The Vegas Spectacular.

Recent engagements include a turn as Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Lyric Opera of the North, and Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella with Skylark Opera, and a return to Oratorio Society of Minnesota, singing Alzheimer’s Stories, a cantata about memory loss. Sarah makes her home in Duluth with her husband, Calland Metts and daughter Giulia Grace. For more information about Sarah Lawrence, please visit sarahelawrence.com.

Sadie Cheslak is a dramatic mezzo soprano currently based in Chicago, Illinois. She is a native of Duluth, Minnesota and pursued her Bachelor of Music degree at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, her Master of Music at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and now is working towards her Post-masters Certificate in Voice at DePaul University where she studies with Dr. Linda Di Fiore. Sadie has been seen in a variety of roles including Florence Pike in Albert Herring with DePaul Opera Theater, Lampito in Lysistrata by Mark Adamo with Pittsburgh Festival Opera where she served as a Hans and Leslie Fleischner Young Artist, as Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia with Lyric Theater @ Illinois, as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance with the Sinfonia da Camera, as an outreach artist for Lyric Opera of the North’s Little LOON tours, and more. Ms. Cheslak has been privileged to workshop and premiere many new works including Lumee in Beth Morrison Project and Pulitzer prize winning opera Prism by Ellen Reid, Jane Doe with composer Ilya Demutsky in his opera Black Square, the title role of The Surrogate by Sky Macklay, and Mary in The New Motive Power by Elizabeth Gartman, all in her time at the University of Illinois. Alongside her passion for new opera is a love of concert soloist singing. Sadie has been seen as Bathsheba and alto soloist in Honegger’s King David, as Maria in Respighi’s Lauda per la Nativitâ del Signore, and as the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Mendelssohn’s 3 Hymns, Op. 96, J.S. Bach’s Weinachts-Oratorium, C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat, and Rachmaninoff’s The All-Night Vigil. Recently, Sadie was awarded first place in the Evanston and North Shore Musicians Club Scholarship Competition, and has placed as finalist and runner up in the DePaul Concerto Competition (2023), the 2023 Kleinman Competition, and the North Shore Choral Society’s Donald Chen Young Artist Competition.

Upcoming engagements include role premiers of Ruth in Dark Sisters by Nico Muhly and Olga Olsen in Street Scene by Kurt Weill, both with DePaul Opera Theater, as well as a debut performance with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra as the alto soloist in Mozart’s Vesperae solennes di confessore. This is Sadie Cheslak’s debut with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

Hailed as an “impressive tenor” (The New York Times) who sings with “sweet vibrancy” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer) Gene Stenger is one of the country’s most called upon Bach specialists who is also heralded for his performances of oratorios by Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Mozart. Mr. Stenger’s 2023-2024 season includes solo debuts with the Washington Bach Consort (Bach’s St. John Passion), Winston-Salem Symphony (Handel’s Messiah), North Carolina Baroque Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah), Baltimore Choral Arts Society (Bach’s Magnificat), and Resonance Works Pittsburgh (Bach’s Magnificat & Esmail’s This Love Between Us). He makes returning solo appearances with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah), Bach Society of St. Louis (Bach’s St. John Passion), Colorado Bach Ensemble (Bach’s Mass in B Minor), Upper Valley Baroque (Bach’s St. John Passion), Bach Collegium at St. Peter’s NYC (Bach’s St. John Passion), Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity New York (BWV 75 & 165), and a return solo quartet performance of David Lang’s the little match girl passion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Gene holds degrees from Yale University’s School of Music, and Institute of Sacred Music, Colorado State University, and Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music. Recent discography credits include the role of the Minstrel/Narrator in the world premiere recording of Arnold Rosner’s opera The Chronicle of Nine with Odyssey Opera, and BMOP, tenor soloist in Schmelzer’s Le Memorie Dolorose with TENET Vocal Artists and ACRONYM, tenor soloist on Yale Schola Cantorum’s album Fauré Requiem and other sacred music led by David Hill released on Hyperion Records, and a new solo quartet recording of David Lang’s the little match girl passion which will be released on Cantaloupe Records this Fall. He currently resides in New Haven, CT, where he serves as instructor of voice at Yale.

American Bass-Baritone Timothy Jones enjoys a reputation as a charismatic presence on operatic and concert stages throughout the United States, Europe and South America. The Boston Globe hailed his voice as “stentorian and honeyed” and the Chicago Tribune called his “complete connection with the text extraordinary.” The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review praised him for his theatricality, noting that he “relished the dramatic possibilities of the songs' text and music.” Mr. Jones has soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra singing Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. He has also performed with Boston Baroque, Baltimore Symphony, St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, Austin Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Portland Symphony, Saginaw Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Utah Symphony, Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony. His repertoire includes the Bach’s St. John Passion, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Verdi’s Requiem and “A Sea Symphony” by Vaughn Williams. He has commissioned and premiered numerous compositions by composers Derek Beryl, Robert Avalon, James Balentine, Laura Carmichael, John Vasconcelos Costa, Kevin Puts, Marcus Maroney, Pierre Jalbert, Karim Al-Zand, Anthony Brandt, Kieren MacMillian, David Passmore, David Cutler, Jeffrey Goldberg, David Heuser, Doug Opel, and Jeffrey Nytch. Mr. Jones is an alumnus of Centenary College and the University of Michigan. He is currently a professor of voice at the University of Houston Moores School of Music.