Home

Congratulations to 2024 Rocky Mountain Region winner and Grand National Finalist Tessa McQueen!

 

After winning here, she went to New York for the National Semifinals and was one of the winners. Over the next week, she received intensive training from Met coaches, then sang the Met Opera’s Grand National Finals. She got to sing with the Met Orchestra and received a $10,000 prize, valuable teaching for a week, and won the attention of some of the top opera directors in the world, at the Met and at countless other opera houses.
 
TESSA McQUEEN is in her second year of her Master of Music degree at Rice University and will graduate in May 2024. She graduated with a BM from Oklahoma City University in 2019. In the summer of 2023, Tessa sang with Wolf Trap Opera as a Studio Artist where she covered the role of Marguerite in Faust and performed in the chorus of Semele and Faust. Past credits include Krystyna Zywulska in the newly edited premiere of Jake Heggie’s Two Remain with Central City Opera in 2022. She was the recipient of the Young Artist of the Season Award at CCO. Congratulations Tessa, and Toi Toi Toi!

Upcoming Competitions

Utah district – 11/2/24
Mexico district – 12/3 & 12/4/2024 (tentative)
Arizona District 12/14/24
CO/WY district 2/1/25
Rocky Mountain Region 2/8/25
 
New York: National Semifinals 3/9/25
Grand Finals (with Met Orchestra): 3/16/25

 

The Rocky Mountain Region now consists of more District Competitions than ever, in Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado/Wyoming.  The Region Finals brings together the absolute top singers from all six states! We are flying out out judges, renting out the Calvary Baptist Church, and generally will be busy covering all the expenses of a traditional round of auditions. Metropolitan Opera National Council Executive Director Melissa Wegner worked closely with us to get all the pieces in place again. This past year, our expenses added up to $26,000, similar to previous years. And that’s where you come in! We got to a little over $20,000 last year, bringing us to within $5000 of our goal, and well above the previous year’s $16,000. Our new goal is $26,000 for our annual expenses plus $5000 to catch up with last year ($31,000 total). We are off to a good start this season with $14,107 so far. Your involvement will help singers advance their careers!

 

 

Thank you to our Sponsors!

Galen & Ada Belle Spencer Foundation
Introducing the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition Grand Finals Winners!

 

* Daniel Espinal, Tenor
* Lydia Grindatto, Soprano
* Navasard Hakobyan, Baritone
* Meridian Prall, Mezzo-Soprano
* Emily Richter, Soprano

Congratulations to all who participated in the Competition this season.

Photo by Natalie Powers/Met Opera

Support the Rocky Mountain Region: Donate Now!

Donations to our organization provide prize monies for award winners and support the costs incurred in hosting both the Colorado-Wyoming District and Rocky Mountain Region rounds of the Competition. It is important to note that even though the Colorado-Wyoming District and Rocky Mountain Region are officially sanctioned by The Metropolitan Opera and feed the national competition finals, we do not receive any funding from the national office. All funds needed for the Colorado based competitions must be raised locally through the generous donations of individual opera lovers like you. 

We are very serious about doing everything we can to keep this Competition open to our local and regional singers. We recently learned that Philadelphia, a major District and home of the Curtis Institute, has had to close its doors. Let’s not allow this to happen here!

If you are not yet on our email list and wish be added to our subscriber list, please email us at bruggenthies@comcast.net.

Scroll to Top