Zoë Chessa is a soprano based in Baltimore, Maryland. She is an enthusiastic interpreter of early music, opera, Jewish music, and choral repertoire. 

Recently, Zoë appeared as a soprano soloist with the Charlotte Bach Festival as a Vocal Fellow. She has performed operatic roles with Amherst Early Music Festival, Shenandoah Bach Festival, Peabody Opera Theatre, Chicago Summer Opera, and Pittsburgh Opera. An avid ensemble singer, Zoë has sung with the Peabody Camerata, NEXT ensemble, and in student collaborations with Blue Heron and Lorelei ensemble under the direction of Dr. Beth Willer. She also sings with the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble and DUALIS ensemble in Baltimore. Zoë currently serves as the cantor at Oseh Shalom Synagogue in Laurel, Maryland. 

As a Jewish musician, Zoë seeks to produce thoughtful and creative work building on her rich tradition. She received the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship and a Peabody Launch Grant towards pursuing research in medieval Jewish music of the Levant, and recently produced a concert series surrounding this study. A lover of languages, she is a three-time recipient of the Max Kade scholarship, which has funded her German language studies abroad as well as her participation in the Middlebury German for Singers program. She is a recipient of a full vocal scholarship from the Lute Society of America during the 2026 Lutefest, and received the Encouragement Award at the Handel Aria Competition in 2026.

Zoë holds an M.M. in Historical Performance in Voice from the Peabody Institute, where she studied with Randall Scarlata, and a B.F.A. in Vocal Performance from Carnegie Mellon University under Sari Gruber.

Cuban-American mezzo-soprano, conductor, and voice teacher Jade Espina is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy with a cognate in Choral Conducting at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, where she serves as a Head Teaching Assistant for the Department of Vocal Performance. She holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Boston University and dual Bachelor of Music degrees in Voice Performance and Choral Music Education from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Before beginning her doctoral studies, Jade taught elementary music and middle school choir in Framingham Public Schools for four years and has worked extensively with the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, the Handel and Haydn Society Youth Chorus, Boston Children’s Chorus, Voices Boston, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artist Vocal Program, where she recently completed her third consecutive summer on the voice faculty. Beginning in Fall 2026, she will join the faculty at Florida Atlantic University as Adjunct Instructor of Music Theatre Voice and serve as a Teaching Artist with Florida Grand Opera.

As a performer, Jade has appeared with Frost Opera Theater and Florida Grand Opera, where she is a two-year participant in the CANTO (Classical Arts Network for Training and Outreach) initiative. During the 2026–2027 season, she will perform with the Florida Grand Opera chorus in Nabucco and the Viva Verdi! Concert. She has also collaborated with Odyssey Opera, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Opera Collaborative, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Cantata Singers, and the NEMPAC Opera Project. Jade performed with the Odyssey Opera Chorus and Boston Modern Orchestra Project on two GRAMMY-nominated recordings: The Lord of Cries by John Corigliano and The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe by Dominick Argento. She is thrilled to join The Thirteen as a 2026 Vocal Fellow.

Evan Tiapula is currently pursuing a Doctor of Music degree in voice under the instruction of Dr. Brian Horne at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Originally from Brisbane, California, Tiapula earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory with a concentration in voice and minor in composition as well as a Master of Music degree from IU Jacobs. With Oberlin Opera Theater, he performed Count Robinson in Il Matrimonio Segreto, Martino in L’occasione fa il ladro, Superintendent Budd in Albert Herring, and Voltaire, Pangloss, Cacambo, and Martin in Candide. At IU Jacobs he has played Frank in an abridged version of Die Fledermaus, Salvador Dalí in Mason Bates’ The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Melisso in Alcina, and Benoit/Alcindoro in La Boheme. Tiapula has appeared as a soloist with the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, St. Francis in the Fields (Kentucky), and the Concentus Ensemble under the direction of Dana Marsh. In the Spring of 2025, Tiapula was a first place winner along with collaborator and composer Steven Naylor of the Indiana songSLAM competition for the performance of "Rilke's Fruits.” A frequent performer of new compositions, Tiapula will be singing the world premiere of a piece by Clark Nichols as a result of a Georgina Joshi Composition Commission Award in the Spring of 2027. At age 15, he was the youngest-ever member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.

James Allen is a tenor from Savannah, Georgia. He has been on stage in roles such as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw), Sam Kaplan (Street Scene), and Orfeo (L’Orfeo). He has been a Young Artist with the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory and Opera Neo, a Vocal Fellow with the Spoleto Festival USA, and attended the Castleton Festival both as a singer and pianist to play Robert Schumann’s “Dichterliebe.” He has earned degrees from Georgia Southern University (BM) and the University of South Carolina (MM and DMA) with his dissertation titled “A Performance and Pedagogical Guide to William Butler Yeats Songs by Ben Moore.” James recently completed the 2025-2026 season as a member of the VOCES8 U.S. Scholars Professional Development Program and the JSB Ensemble of the International Bachakademie Stuttgart. James is also the artistic director of the vocal ensemble Gallus Camerata based in Columbia, South Carolina, and he is on the rosters of the professional choral ensembles Servire and the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati.