Ariana Maubach is a second year Resident Artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) in Philadelphia, PA. This season she will portray Marthe in Faust and Dorabella in Così fan tutte. Previous roles include Smeton in Anna Bolena, Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia, Berta in The Barber of Seville (AVA), and Linette in The Love for Three Oranges (Des Moines Metro Opera). This past fall, she won both First Prize and Audience Choice Award at the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Competition. Maubach is an alumna of the Music Academy of the West, College Conservatory of Music at University of Cincinnati, The Glenn Gould School, and Eastman School of Music.

Angelo Moretti debuted professionally in 2022 as Ruiz in Verdi’s Il Trovatore at Opéra de Montréal, where other recent roles include Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Don Curzio in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and Gastone in Verdi’s La Traviata. He also portrayed Count Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at UofT Opera along with Martin in Copland’s The Tender Land. This season, Moretti performs as a soloist in Handel's Messiah with Orchestre Classique de Montreal and returns to Opéra de Montréal as Parpignol in Puccini's La Bohème and in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, reprising Teapot and adding the roles of L’Arithmétique and La Rainette. 

Praised for his “excellent baritone” (Le Devoir) and “outstanding acting” (Opera Canada), Acadian bass-baritone Nicholas Murphy is a rising name in Canada. Currently in residence with Calgary Opera’s McPhee Artist Development Program, Murphy looks forward to making his mainstage debut with the company as Maestro Spinelloccio and Pinellino in Gianni Schicchi. Recent roles include Don Bartolo in The Barber of Seville with Brott Opera and Highlands Opera Studio, and Pandolfe in Cendrillon and Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola with Opera McGill. This past season he placed as a finalist in the Wirth Vocal Prize, Atelier lyrique’s Talent Gala, and the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Competition.

Emma Pennell (they/them) is a Two-Spirit opera singer with Mi’kmaw roots from South River, rural Northern Ontario. Educated in Voice Performance and Indigenous Studies at Western University, Cambrian College, and The Glenn Gould School, Pennell is an Indigenous activist dedicated to carving spaces in opera. They recently debuted at Koerner Hall with Tanya Tagaq for The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Pennell’s notable roles include Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff and Kitty in Ian Cusson’s Indians on Vacation at the Banff Centre. In October 2024, they placed as a finalist and secured Second Prize in the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Competition.

Emily Rocha is a Portuguese-Kiwi soprano born in Oshawa. A recent U of T Opera graduate, she was awarded Second Prize at the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Competition in 2023, was a District Winner at the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and received the Nora London Encouragement Award at the George and Nora London Foundation. In 2024, she was a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Recent opera credits include Adina in The Elixir of Love, Micaëla in Carmen, Gilda in Rigoletto, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Ernestine in M. Choufleuri…, Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities, Erste Dame in The Magic Flute, and Cassandra in Disobedience (premiere). This season at the COC, she covers Anna in Nabucco and Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.

Northern Ireland-born Duncan Stenhouse is a Calgarian bass and composer who recently completed his Advanced Operatic Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music under the support of the Sybil Tutton Opera Award and Philip Hattey Prize. Stenhouse is also a proud alumnus of the Memorial School of Music in St. John’s, NL. While living in London, England for his studies, Stenhouse performed in various summer festivals including Longborough Festival Opera, Garsington Opera, Opera Holland Park, and Hurn Court Opera. During this time, he sang in operas by Britten, Dvorák, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Strauss, Stravinsky, and Verdi. He was named one of CBC’s “30 hot classical musicians under 30” in 2024 and won the Sarah Harrison Prize at the Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year Competition. This season with the COC, he performs the role of High Priest of Baal in Nabucco, First Apprentice in Wozzeck, and Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin. 

“Versatile and vocally powerful” baritone Ben Wallace currently studies at the University of Toronto. He completed his Bachelor of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he received the Laurier Alumni Gold Medal and won the Laurier Concerto Competition. Recent performance highlights include Figaro in The Barber of Seville (Highlands Opera Studio), Pandolfe in Cendrillon (UofT Opera), John Brooke in Little Women (Opera Laurier), Baron Douphol/Doctor Grenvil in La Traviata (Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony), and a workshop performance of Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s Indians on Vacation at the Banff Centre. Wallace, also a conductor, formed his own chamber choir and orchestra in 2022 and has since premiered three choral works by Canadian composer Justin Lapierre.

Romanian-Canadian pianist Elisabeta Cojocaru is deeply committed to sharing her love for music as a collaborative pianist, soloist, and educator. An alumna of Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Ottawa, she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Université de Montréal (UdeM). Cojocaru’s research takes a personal twist, delving into the performance practice of Romanian Art Song, reflecting her dedication to interpreting and preserving her cultural heritage. During her studies, she participated in summer festivals such as the Franz Schubert Institute in Austria, l’Académie vocale internationale de Lachine in Montréal, SongFest in Nashville, Opera Nuova in Edmonton, and Exzellenz Labor Oper in Germany. In Montreal, Cojocaru served as a collaborative pianist for the premiere of Sortilegio and productions with Opera McGill.

Kimly Mengyin Wang is an accomplished pianist with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from Boston University. Born in China and educated in Germany, Canada, and the United States, she holds a Graduate Diploma in Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree in collaborative piano, and a bachelor’s degree in solo piano performance from the University of Western Ontario. Her career spans solo recitals, chamber music, and opera performances across North America, Europe, and China. She has extensive experience in vocal coaching and operatic work and has served as a vocal coach at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and as a répétiteur for opera productions at the Boston University Opera Institute. Beyond performance, Mengyin Wang is a passionate arts administrator, serving as the Artistic Director of the International School of Art Canada and as a board member of the Chinese Artists Society of Toronto.

Liz Upchurch is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where she won several prizes as solo pianist and accompanist. As a music director, vocal coach and repetiteur she has worked in 21st-century and traditional opera, music theatre, and theatre. She has also covered a wide range of working techniques with singers, actors and instrumentalists in community and educational projects. For many years she worked with young artists at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh where she played for masterclasses with artists such as Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Suzanne Danco, William Pleeth and Dame Joan Sutherland. Ms. Upchurch has also worked at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg festival in Germany and the National Theatre in London. She held a faculty position in the 20th-century opera and song program at the Banff Centre for the Arts and was repetiteur and chorus director at Edmonton Opera. As a pianist she has performed all over Europe and has been broadcast with the BBC, Norwegian Radio and CBC. Ms. Upchurch also appeared as a judge on Bravo’s hit series, Bathroom Divas: So you want to be an opera singer!

As Performance Kinetics Consultant with the COC Ensemble Studio, Jennifer Swan works in private and group sessions with Canada’s top emerging singers. Her methodology creates, sustains and strengthens a singer's breath support, a technique which evolved from her extensive dance and Pilates background. Her voice method has also been an integral part of the program at the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI) since 2008. She joined the teaching team at St Andrews by-the-Sea in 2016, has been a regular guest lecturer at the University of Toronto’s voice studies program since 2010, and has led annual workshops at Choirs Ontario since 2012. As resident choreographer for the Toronto Children’s Chorus since 2011, she choreographed the world premiere of Nikmaq by Donald Patriquin as well as debuts of Tsimshian Welcome Chant by Patriquin in 2015 and Arctic Lights by Lori-Anne Dolloff in 2016. Ms. Swan has also worked extensively with various international Olympic athletes, including figure skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. She choreographed their award-winning Carmen in 2013 and their programs for the 2014 Olympics. Ms. Swan is the artistic director of Performance Architects/Swan Studio Dance and Children’s Dance Project in London, Ontario. She obtained her bachelor of arts degree (honours) in dance from the University of Waterloo.

After a twenty-five year career on the international operatic and concert stages, soprano Wendy Nielsen is now Associate Professor in Voice and Opera at the University of Toronto. She is also Head Vocal Consultant for the COC Ensemble Studio and maintains an active private voice studio in Toronto, teaching many of Canada’s prominent performers. Launched in her own performing career by the COC as a member of their Ensemble Studio, Ms. Nielsen made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1996 as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte under the baton of James Levine. Subsequent performances at the Met over 12 seasons included: Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Micaëla in Carmen and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Her international orchestral performances were numerous, notably opening the Lucerne Summer Festival as Elsa in Lohengrin with Ivan Fisher conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Other significant performances included appearances with the Beijing Philharmonic; New York Philharmonic; Beethoven Festival in Krakow, Poland; Madrid Sinfonica; Prague Autumn Festival; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Düsseldorf Philharmonic; and Montreal Symphony Orchestra. A native of New Brunswick, Ms. Nielsen attended Mount Allison University and earned a Bachelor of Music from the University of Lethbridge, as well as a Masters of Music in Opera from the University of British Columbia. She also holds three honorary doctorates and has garnered numerous awards recognizing her contributions nationally, provincially, and locally. 

Dr. Steven Leigh has been working as the COC Ensemble Studio Corrective Phonetics for Opera Singers Specialist (C-PhOS) and Lyric Diction Coach since 2015. Dr. Leigh earned his PhD from the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Dr. Leigh's PhD dissertation study, Lyric Diction Instruction Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Search for Instructor Qualifications, Dr. Leigh empirically examined, tested, and identified the pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and the amalgam, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) credentials required for Lyric Diction Instruction. The study produced eleven findings, including the creation of a new branch of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986; 1987), i.e., Lyric Diction Instruction Pedagogical Content Knowledge (LyD-PaCK). Additional findings included the pedagogical motivity engine for lyric diction instruction, i.e., the Three Structures; the Assessment Intervention Outcome Extended Spiral - a delineated method for phoneme analysis and treatment; as well establishing that corrective phonetics instruction; necessarily precedes, and thereby, facilitates, lyric diction instruction. Dr. Leigh's doctoral research won several awards including three Ontario Graduate Scholarships, an OISE Funding Grant, an OISE Academic Excellence Award, an OISE Fellowship, and a Doctoral Completion Award.

The PhD dissertation study is a continuation of Dr. Leigh's MA thesis empirical study, Testing an Approach to Teaching Italian Lyric Diction to Opera Singers: An Action Research Study. The findings of the MA study have been published as: The Seven Point Circle and the Twelve Principles: An evidence-based approach to Italian Lyric Diction Instruction. The article outlines Dr. Leigh's pedagogical approach, i.e., The Seven Point Circle, and the code of ethics through which he teaches, i.e., the Twelve Principles. The MA study also won several awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), an OISE Funding Grant, an OISE Academic Excellence Award. Prior to Dr. Leigh's graduate studies, he earned a BA from the U of T Second Language Learning (Italian) with a double minor in Italian Culture and Communication Studies and Near and Middle Eastern Studies (Arabic Language and Linguistics). Dr. Leigh also has a Licentiate Diploma in Music Performance from McGill University (Voice).

Dr. Leigh has given masterclasses in opera lyric diction at the U of T’s Faculty of Music and the Irish National Opera Studio and has been a lyric diction instructor at the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute in Montreal and at the Opera on the Avalon in St. John’s, NL. In addition to his work at the COC, Dr. Leigh teaches a series of lyric diction classes he developed for the Royal Conservatory of Music's Taylor Academy and has previously taught at the Glenn Gould School. Highlights from Dr. Leigh's professional career as an opera singer include performing the world premiere performance of Srul Irving Glick’s A Life's Journey (Songs for Isaac) in Toronto; Don José with the Illinois Opera Theater; the Duke in Rigoletto at Fairfield Halls, England; and appearances in Montreal with the Cantabile Chorale and Orchestra. His extensive vocal work includes studies with Joan Dornemann, Nico Castel, Mignon Dunn, Louis Quilico, Maria Cleva, Lucy Arner, Puli Toro, Deborah Birnbaum, and Norma Newton, Stuart Hamilton, Lynn Blaser, and Margaret Lobo