About Us
Experience | Leadership
B.L.A.C. is comprised of twelve of the leading BIack classical vocal artists and musicians performing and teaching around the world today. All of B.L.A.C.'s founding Board Members and Executive Director share the singular common goal to uplift, empower and create mentorship, scholarship and performance opportunities for others in their community so that the greater musical arts community may benefit from their enormous gifts and talents.
Executive Director
Alyson Cambridge
Board Members
J'Nai Bridges
Lawrence Brownlee
Nicole Heaston
Kenneth Kellogg
Laquita Mitchell
Kenneth Overton
Morris Robinson
Karen Slack
Kevin Short
Russell Thomas
Talise Trevigne
Alyson Cambridge
Executive Director
Alyson Cambridge is one the most diverse and compelling vocalists on the scene today, performing for over two decades on the world’s leading opera and concert stages – The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and New York's Broadway Theatre but to name a few. The lirico spinto soprano heroines of Puccini, Mozart and Bizet have been her calling card in opera, but she is equally at home in musical theater and jazz, acclaimed for her performances in Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, The Sound of Music and in her Broadway debut. Album recordings include From the Diary of Sally Hemings, Until Now and Sisters In Song. An active producer, Alyson co-created and produced the original rock opera fusion show, Rock Me Amadeus Live, as well as other musical concerts and events. In addition to performing and producing, Alyson also maintains a busy modeling and television career, and dedicates her spare to time to artistic and philanthropic causes close to her heart.
J'Nai Bridges
Board Member
Two-time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), has graced the world’s top opera and concert stages including the Metropolitan Opera, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dutch National Opera and many more. In 2022 she was announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders. She led a highly successful panel on race and inequality in opera with the Los Angeles Opera that drew international acclaim for being a “conversation of striking scope and candor” (The New York Times). Awards include a 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Award, a 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant, 1st prize winner at the 2016 Francisco Viñas International Competition, a 2012 Marian Anderson award to name a few. A native of Tacoma, Washington, she completed a three-year residency at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, earned her Master of Music degree from Curtis Institute of Music, and her Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music.
www,jnaibridges.com
Lawrence Brownlee
Board Member
Lawrence Brownlee is a leading figure in opera, both as a singer on the world's top stages, and as a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. Captivating audiences and critics around the globe, he has been hailed as “an international star in the bel canto operatic repertory” (The New York Times), “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars” (The Guardian), and “one of the most in demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR). With an ever-increasing presence in opera, recitals, and concerts, Lawrence Brownlee has cemented his place as one of the top artists in classical music. He is a regular guest at the world’s most important opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House - Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra national de Paris, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Real, Opernhaus Zürich, and Wiener Staatsoper. He is a frequent recitalist and regularly performs at world-renowned recital venues including Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall. Mr. Brownlee serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Vocal Arts Department at the famed Juilliard School of New York City, and is a regular clinician giving masterclasses both in the US and abroad.
Nicole Heaston
Board Member
Praised by the Houston Chronicle for her “warm supple soprano” and by the New York Times for her “radiant” and “handsomely resonant voice”, soprano Nicole Heaston has appeared with opera companies throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Staatsoper Hamburg , and the Glyndebourne Festival. Ms. Heaston has a diverse repertoire that spans the Baroque repertoire from the title role of Handel’s Alcina to contemporary opera with Missy Mizzoli’s The Listeners, which was written specifically for Heaston. She has performed iconic roles as the title role in Samuel Barber’s Vanessa and Massenet’s Thaïs. Equally active as a concert and recital soloist, Heaston has performed with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Further showcasing her versatility, she created the Purple Robe Series, featuring songs from a large variety of genres including Opera, R&B, Gospel, Rap, and Musical Theater. The series went viral, especially for its episode honoring Juneteenth featuring Lift Every Voice and Sing as arranged by Roland Carter and performed by a chorus of outstanding and legendary Black opera singers.
Kenneth Kellogg
Board Member
Praised for his "commanding stage presence" and "rich, resonant bass,” Kenneth Kellogg was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He has been named as the inaugural Artist Ambassador at Seattle Opera. He began formal training at the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. Kellogg is an alumnus of the Adler Fellowship Program at San Francisco Opera and the Domingo-Cafritz Emerging Artist Program at Washington National Opera. He trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts and holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Ohio University. While maintaining a busy performance schedule, he is a frequent guest teacher, mentor, and lecturer for music programs through across the US.
Laquita Mitchell
Board Member
Soprano Laquita Mitchell consistently earns acclaim on eminent international opera and concert stages, leading performances with Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Opéra Comique in Paris, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Tanglewood Festival, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Orchestra, among many others. Ms. Mitchell is the soprano soloist in the 2021 Grammy- nominated oratorio “Sanctuary Road” by Paul Moravec and the Oratorio Society of New York. With an active concert and operatic career, Ms. Mitchell is also an educator who holds voice faculty positions at Mannes School of Music and at Brooklyn College CUNY. Ms. Mitchell is a distinguished alumnus of Westminster Choir College and Manhattan School of Music.
Kenneth Overton
Board Member
In 2020, Kenneth became a Grammy Award Winner for Best Choral Performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by JoAnn Falletta. In the following season, Kenneth made his Metropolitan Opera debut joining the Grammy Award winning cast of Porgy and Bess. On the operatic stage Kenneth has sung leading roles across the globe including, San Francisco Opera, Welsh National Opera, Royal Danish Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, Opera Carolina, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Palacios Bellas Artes, Bregenzer Festspiele, Nashville Opera and Opera Memphis. On the concert stage Kenneth has been a soloist with The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, The Sopot Festival in Poland, Lithuanian State Orchestra, The New York Choral Society, The Washington Chorus, The National Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic in such prestigious Halls as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center. In addition to performing, Kenneth has branched into film production, and as a clinician and teaching artist at various conservatories, festivals, and schools of music.
Morris Robinson
Board Member
Morris Robinson is considered one the most interesting and sought-after basses performing today. He regularly appears at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is a graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Program. He debuted there in a production of Fidelio and has since appeared as Sarastro in The Magic Flute (both in the original production and in the children’s English version), Ferrando in Il Trovatore, the King in Aida, and in roles in Nabucco, Tannhäuser, and the new productions of Les Troyens and Salome. He has also appeared at the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Teatro alla Scala, Volksoper Wien, Opera Australia, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. His many roles include the title role in Porgy and Bess, Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Ramfis in Aida, Zaccaria in Nabucco, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Commendatore in Don Giovanni, Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo, Timur in Turandot, the Bonze in Madama Butterfly, Padre Guardiano in La Forza del Destino, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, and Fasolt in Das Rheingold.
Kevin Short
Board Member
Bass-baritone Kevin Short has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Teatro San Carlo, Paris Opéra Comique, Teatro Nacional de Săo Carlos, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Welsh National Opera, Grand Théatre de Luxembourg, Oper der Stadt Köln, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Bregenzer Festspiele, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Savonlinna Festival.
Kevin’s concert work includes performances with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Berlin Rundfunkorchester, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Swiss and Italian RAI Orchestra, Radio France Orchestra, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Marseille, New Japan Philharmonic, Nagano Winter Olympics Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg State Symphony and the Moscow Philharmonic in Russia. Kevin can also be heard on the Pentatone, San Francisco Classics, and Naxos recording labels and teaches voice at the Juilliard School of Music, the University of Maryland and the Curtis Institute of Music.
Karen Slack
Board Member
Praised for her “sizable voice that captured all of the vacillating emotions” (The New York Times), Karen Slack is "not only one of the nation's most celebrated sopranos, but a sought-after curator and a leading voice in change making spaces in classical music.”She has performed on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, San Francisco Opera, and many others. Internationally she has appeared with the Scottish Opera, Melbourne and Sydney symphonies, Bergen Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic.A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Slack is an Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, voice faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada and has recently been named Lyric Unlimited Artist-in-Residence at Lyric Opera of Chicago for the 2024-2025 season as well as Artist-in-Residence at leading entrepreneurial institution Babson College. A native Philadelphian, Slack is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship.
Russell Thomas
Board Member, Treasurer
With a “heroically shining tone of exceptional clarity and precision” (Opera Magazine) and “gorgeously burnished power” (The New York Times), Russell Thomas uses his signature elegance and intensity to create vivid character portrayals on the world’s most important stages. Acclaimed for his “voice of intrinsic warmth and refined sense of style” (Opera News), Mr. Thomas has been recognized as a leading interpreter of the Verdian repertoire. Having appeared in leading roles in 14 of his operas at The Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bayerische Staatsoper, Houston Grand Opera, Oper Frankfurt, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra de Paris. As a tireless advocate for equity, inclusivity, and the sustainability of opera, he’s developed programs designed to mentor and support Highschool students from underserved communities as well as students from HBCUs. Mr. Thomas is the first singer appointed Artist-in-Residence at L.A. Opera and The Atlanta Symphony. He is Professor of Practice at Indiana University, a premiere institution for operatic training.
Talise Trevigne
Board Member
Talise Trevigne is an accomplished artist who has garnered recognition for her exceptional performances in both Standard and Contemporary Opera. Ms. Trevigne’s most notable appearances are in the title role of Madama Butterfly, as Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, and her portrayal of the Three Heroines in Les Contes d'Hoffmann at Opera de Lyon under the baton of Kazushi Ono, and later at the Israeli Opera with Frederic Chaslin. Her recent highlights are her portrayal of Violetta in the highly acclaimed productions of La Traviata at Opera Montreal and Calgary Opera, marking her return to the role since winning the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Award for in 2007. Ms. Trevigne’s notable collaborations in new works include the creation of roles such as the role of Clara in It's a Wonderful Life, the role of Pip the cabin boy in the world premiere of Moby-Dick at the Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, and Washington National Opera and PBS, the role Ma in Missy Mazzoli’s highly lauded Proving Up at Omaha Opera and at Lincoln Centre, and the role of Patience in the world premiere, Castor and Patience, voted by the New York Times Best Opera of 2022. Equally at home in concert repertoire, she sung Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under the baton of Leonard Slatkin with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, as well as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Nathalie Stutzmann to sing Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido in the Maestra’s inaugural concert, a European tour with the Munich Philharmonic, performing Mahler's Second Symphony under the direction of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, and a return appearance with the CBSO for Tippett's A Child of our Time, in the UK and Germany, again under the baton of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Trevigne was recognized with a Grammy Award nomination in 2016 for her recording of Christopher Rouse's masterpiece Kabir Padavali with the Albany Symphony in the category of Best Solo Classical Album.
