The Hildegard Behrens has announced that the 2023 awardee is Canadian tenor Matthew Cairns.

The tenor is a first-year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and was a Grand Finals winner in the Met’s 2022 Laffont Competition. This season, he made his Met debut as the Messenger in “Aida” and covered Bob Boles in “Peter Grimes.”

This season he sings at the Canadian Opera Company and Des Moines Metro Opera. He also won the George London Foundation Encouragement Award.

Cairns was a finalist in the 2022 Neue Stimmen Competition, the first prize winner in the 2018 Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Competition and winner of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Music Young Artist Development Prize.

The 2023 Hildegard Behrens Foundation award ceremony at the Metropolitan Opera Grand Tier was held on Feb. 9, 2023, with MET Assistant Conductor, pianist and HBF board member Bryan Wagorn, entrepreneur, philanthropist and HBF board member Richard Strother, Foundation Chairman Dr. Gaston Ormazabal, 2023 HBF prize winner Matthew Cairns, and Executive Director of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program Melissa Wegner.