About Our Donors

American soprano Angela Meade is the winner of both the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award and the 2011 Richard Tucker Award. In 2008, she joined an elite group of history’s singers when, as Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani, she made her professional operatic debut on the Met stage. Since then, she has fast become recognized as one of today’s outstanding vocalists, excelling in the most demanding heroines of the 19th-century bel canto repertoire as well as in the operas of Verdi and Mozart.

In the 2024-2025 season, Angela Meade made notable returns to Teatro La Fenice, The Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Teatro Carlo Felice in celebrated role portrayals. She returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Leonora in Il Trovatore in David McVicar’s critically acclaimed production, conducted by Daniele Callegari. She sang the title role in Lucrezia Borgia in Munich and made her debut as the title role in Die Liebe der Danae at Teatro Carlo Felice, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Concert appearances included Mahler 8 with Nashville Symphony and Mahler 2 with San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare.

On the concert stage, Ms. Meade has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cincinatti Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, among others. Conductors with whom she has collaborated include Roberto Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, Marin Alsop, Marco Armiliato, Maurizio Benini, Will Crutchfield, Thomas Dausgaard, Plácido Domingo, Charles Dutoit, Riccardo Frizza, Manfred Honeck, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Donald Runnicles, Gerard Schwarz, and Osmo Vänskä.

A native of Washington State and an alumna of the Academy of Vocal Arts, Ms. Meade has triumphed in an astounding number of vocal competitions: 57 in all, including many of the opera world’s most important prizes. In addition to being a winner at the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as documented in The Audition, a film subsequently released on DVD by Decca, she was also the first singer to take first prize in both the opera and operetta categories of the prestigious Belvedere Competition.

John Matthew Myers has garnered acclaim for his “astonishing resourcefulness and tonal beauty” and “wealth of tone colors and emotional nuance” (New York Times),  “lovely, warm tenor of considerable promise” (Opera News), and “remarkable emotional depth and range” (Opera Magazine) in recent collaborations with companies such as the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Verbier Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Opera National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, and Teatro la Fenice. His critically acclaimed solo debut album, a thoughtful program of works by American and American émigré composers titled Desiderium with pianist Myra Huang, was released on AVIE Records in 2022.

In the 2024–2025 season, Myers joins Evgeny Kissin in recital at Carnegie Hall alongside Sasha Cooke and Susanna Phillips in Shostakovich’s From Jewish Folk Poetry, returning to Carnegie Hall soon after to join the American Symphony Orchestra in the title role of Strauss’s Guntram in concert. He performs Handel’s Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck and with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and sings Mahler’s 8th Symphony with Nashville Symphony Orchestra and the Grant Park Music Festival. He joins Oregon Symphony as tenor soloist in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, and Los Angeles Philharmonic as Waldemar in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder conducted by Zubin Mehta. In concert, he sings Iopas in Les Troyens at the Seattle Opera with Ludovic Morlot and Cavaradossi in Tosca with the Richmond Symphony under Valentina Peleggi. With the Opera Carlo Felice Genova, he debuts as Midas in Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae under Fabio Luisi and as well as The Tenor/Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos with Opernhaus Zürich conducted by Markus Poschner in a new production by Andreas Homoki. During the summer, he sings Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh at the Bard Festival.

Originally from southern California, Myers received his graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, was a Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Apprentice Artist with Santa Fe Opera, an alumnus of the Verbier Festival Academy, and a fellow with Music Academy of the West. He won Third Prize and the Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert Lieder at the 2022 Wigmore Hall Bollinger International Song Competition.