Featuring
SHAFER: Hymn to God the Father (World Premiere)
O’REGAN: Critical Mass (East Coast Premiere)
MOZART: Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339
With: The City Choir of Washington, Soloists from the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, and The City Choir Orchestra
Join us as we celebrate our 20th season by honoring the bedrock of our past and championing the bright future of choral music. The celebration opens with the world premiere of a new commission by our Artistic Director Emeritus, Robert Shafer, followed by the East Coast premiere of Tarik O’Regan’s kaleidoscopic Critical Mass, a work that began as a commission for the coronation of King Charles III.
The concert concludes with the pure, transcendent majesty of Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore, featuring soloists from the Wolf Trap Opera Studio. You won’t want to miss this spectacular concert—the perfect, inspiring launch for our 2026–27 season!
Featured Artists
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Soprano Calista Smith was recently a Studio Artist at Wolf Trap Opera this summer, where she sang a “lovely voicing” of the Shepherd in Tosca at the Filene Center, as well as performing Zerbinetta in scenes from Ariadne auf Naxos (Washington Classical Review). This year, Calista was named a District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition’s North Carolina District, as well as an Encouragement Award winner from the Southeast Region of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. During her two summers at the Aspen Music Festival, Calista appeared as the German woman in Jimmy Lopez's Bel Canto and covered Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, studying with Professor Gwen Coleman. Calista earned a BM in voice and opera and a BA in communications from Northwestern University, where she sang Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, Cendrillon in Cendrillon, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Oberto in Alcina, and the soprano solo in Beethoven’s Mass in C Major. Originally from Houston, Texas, Calista also played the violin and piano for 15 years.
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Madison Kavanaugh is a Mezzo-Soprano studying at The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Amy Johnson. At CCM she performed as Le Directeur in Les Mamelles des Tirésias as well as participated in the university’s Jennifer Higdon Festival as a soloist. She is also a graduate of Louisiana State University where she performed in roles such as Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, Dritte Dame (Cover) in Die Zauberflöte, and Madame de la Haltière (Cover) in Cendrillon. Madison has participated in many summer festivals including Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices (2024) and the Wolf Trap Opera Studio (2025, 2026). During her time in the Studio she performed in Studio Spotlight, a scenes program, as well as covered Filipyevna in Eugene Onegin and Madame de Croissy in Dialogues des Carmelites.
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Rudy Polk is a tenor from Clinton, Mississippi with considerable achievements as a young musician. Rudy recently graduated from the University of North Texas with a B.M. in Vocal Performance. At UNT Opera, Rudy performed the roles of Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Young Man (Aleko), Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi), and Adult Martin in the staged world premiere of That Hellbound Train, and he was the Tenor Soloist (King David) with the UNT Grand Chorus. Rudy also performed as Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) and the Tenor Soloist (Messiah) at the Brevard Music Center. Rudy was a finalist winner of the SVA Undergraduate Competition Upper Division 2025, a recipient of the UNT Winspear Opera Scholarship, and was recently selected as a 2025-2026 Presser Undergraduate Scholar. This summer, Rudy was studio artist with Wolf Trap Opera, and currently, Rudy is pursuing a M.M. in Opera at Yale.
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Christopher Gray is an emerging bass-baritone from Dallas, Texas, recognized for his “vocal expression” and “dramatic clarity.” Recent operatic credits include the title role in Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, Schaunard and Colline in La bohème, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, the Sodbuster in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up, and Masetto in Don Giovanni. In concert, he has appeared as bass soloist in Bach’s Magnificat in D Major with the Denton Bach Society and performed Leporello’s Catalog Aria from Don Giovanni with the UNT Concert Orchestra as a winner of the William Gammon Henry Concerto Competition.
During the summer of 2026, Gray joined Wolf Trap Opera as a Studio Artist, making his Filene Center debut as a Jailer in Puccini’s Tosca and covering Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin and Angelotti in Tosca. Earlier that season, he was selected for Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists Vocal Academy. In 2025, he was a Studio Artist at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he performed Samana I in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis and Melissa Studdard’s oratorio Siddhartha, She and appeared as a Customs Sergeant in Puccini’s La bohème.
Gray has received recognition in numerous national and international vocal competitions. In 2026, he was a Tulsa District Winner and Midwest Region Second Place winner in the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. He also received First Prize in the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, First Prize in the collegiate division of the MIOpera International Vocal Competition, First Prize in the Young Patronesses of Opera/Florida Grand Opera Voice Competition Junior Division, and First Prize in Mobile Opera’s Madame Rose Palmai-Tenser Voice Scholarship Competition. Additional honors include the Audience Choice Award and finalist distinction in Opera Grand Rapids’ 2026 VanderLaan Prize, the 2025 William Gammon Henry Concerto Competition at the University of North Texas, and a 2025 Schmidt Vocal Arts Undergraduate Award.
Gray earned his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of North Texas, where he studied with bass-baritone Stephen Morscheck. He began his Master of Music studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in the fall of 2026 under the tutelage of Robin Rice. His upcoming engagements include Truffaldin in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos with Rice University.
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A native of Michigan, Benjamin is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance, where he studied organ with Robert Glasgow, harpsichord with Edward Parmentier, and conducting with Jerry Blackstone and Steven Davis.
He received a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied organ with John Walker, and was the recipient of the Bruce R. Eicher Prize in Organ.
In the fall of 2019, Benjamin was appointed Lecturer in Organ at the Catholic University of America Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art.
Additionally, Benjamin did postgraduate coursework in music composition and voice at the Catholic University of America. Concert and organ recital opportunities have taken him throughout the United States and abroad, and frequently include collaborations with singers and instrumentalists.
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Tarik Hamilton O’Regan is a London-born composer based in San Francisco. Working across opera, dance, orchestral, choral, and chamber music, he is drawn to subjects at the intersection of history, literature, memory, and public life. Recognized with two GRAMMY® nominations and two Ivors, his work has been recorded on more than fifty albums, and is regularly performed throughout the world.
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Robert Shafer, one of America’s major choral conductors, served as Artistic Director of the City Choir of Washington for its first fifteen years, after leading the Washington Chorus for over 35 years, where he won a GRAMMY for Best Choral Performance for a live concert recording of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. He has prepared choruses for many of the world’s leading conductors, including Sir Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, and Mstislav Rostropovich, and led numerous European concert tours, most recently to England in July 2018 with the City Choir of Washington.
A student of the distinguished Nadia Boulanger, in 1969 he won first prize in composition at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, and his works have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. He served as Artist-in-Residence and professor of music at the Conservatory of Music of Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, from 1983 until his retirement in 2016. In 1989, he was honored by the Virginia Council on Higher Education with an Outstanding Faculty Award for his public service, research, and teaching, the first teacher in the arts to receive this award. In July 2022, he retired from the City Choir, and is now our Artistic Director Emeritus.
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Versatile, engaging, and spirited, Erin Freeman is the Artistic Director of the City Choir of Washington, Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus, Artistic Director of Wintergreen Music, and Principal Conductor of the Richmond Ballet, the State Ballet of Virginia. She previously had successful tenures as Director of the award-winning Richmond Symphony Chorus and Director of Choral Activities at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Her guest conducting engagements have included the New York City Ballet, Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and numerous other ensembles, and she has conducted at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, La Madeleine in Paris, the Kennedy Center, and beyond, and has led and/or prepared the Richmond Symphony Chorus for multiple recordings, including the GRAMMY-nominated release of Mason Bates’ Children of Adam.
She has been a finalist for Performance Today’s Classical Woman of the Year, and has been named one of Virginia Lawyers Weekly’s “50 Most Influential Women in Virginia” and an “Extraordinary Woman Leader” by the VCU School of Business. She holds degrees from Northwestern University (BMus), Boston University (MM), and Peabody Conservatory (DMA). For more information, visit www.erinrfreeman.com.
Getting There / Parking
National Presbyterian Church is on the corner of Nebraska Avenue NW and Van Ness Street, near American University, and features abundant free parking behind the church.
By Metro, the Tenleytown Station on the Red Line is about a ten-minute walk from the church (from the Metro, walk south on Wisconsin and turn right onto Nebraska at Tenley Circle; the church is two blocks from the circle).
From the church’s main entrance, take the stairs or elevator to the third floor to reach the sanctuary for the concert.
