Houston Grand Opera has announced the nine finalists selected for the 34th Annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers.

The 2022 finalists are sopranos Amanda Batista, Tatiana Carlos, Meryl Dominguez, and Olivia Smith; mezzo-soprano Shannon Keegan; baritone Navasard Hakobyan; bass-baritones Jongwon Han and Evan Lazdowski; and bass Jonas Jud.

The competition will culminate with the 2022 Concert of Arias, during which the finalists will vie for the opportunity to win up to $10,000 in cash prizes and the opportunity to attend HGO’s young artist training program, the HGO Studio. HGO will present the competition live from the Wortham Theater Center on January 21, 2022, at 7 p.m. CT. The event will also stream on HGO Digital and HGO’s social platforms.

A panel of four prominent judges comprising HGO General Director and CEO Khori Dastoor, HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers, HGO Artistic Advisor and soprano Ana María Martínez, along with special guest judge, soprano Christine Goerke, will adjudicate the vocalists’ performances in the Concert of Arias.

“The Concert of Arias represents the purest distillation of this company’s values, as nothing is more important to us than the future of this art form,” said Dastoor in a press statement. “Each year we put all we have into developing the talents of the finest young artists in the country through the HGO Studio program, and that starts with this thrilling competition.”

Out of an initial field of 768 candidates, HGO selected 18 semifinalists and then whittled that in half. For the concert, each finalist will sing two arias from the operatic repertoire, with accompaniment by HGO Studio alumnus and HGO Principal Coach Kirill Kuzmin.