Boston Pops Holiday Singers

The Boston Pops Holiday Singers, which made its debut in the 2021 Holiday Pops season, is made up of accomplished vocalists with Boston connections. They perform in all seven of the 2024 Kids’ Matinees as well as the Sensory-Friendly Concert. The singers were prepared by Lisa Graham, music director of the Metropolitan Chorale.

Mezzo-soprano and contemporary vocalist Carrie Cheron has been celebrated internationally on a wide variety of stages. She is a regular soloist with and member of Emmanuel Music, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Boston Baroque, Lorelei Ensemble, and the folk/baroque collective Floyds Row, and is a featured soloist on all four of Skylark’s Grammy-nominated recordings, including the most recent, Clear Voices in the Dark, which is nominated for a Grammy in 2024. Recent and upcoming solo performances include appearances with Plymouth Philharmonic, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Monadnock Music Festival, and Portland Bach Experience, and in June 2024 she performed as a soloist with Emmanuel Music at BachFest Leipzig. In December, she is a soloist alongside Tony Award-winning actress Christine Baranski and Skylark Ensemble in a performance of Benedict Sheehan’s musical interpretation of A Christmas Carol at the Morgan Library in New York City. As a performing singer/songwriter, Cheron has been celebrated by the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Great Waters Folk Festival, and Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. She has shared the stage with such artists as Sweet Honey In The Rock and Anaïs Mitchell. A dedicated educator, Carrie is an associate professor of voice at Berklee College of Music. Please visit www.carriecheron.com.

James Dargan is a musician and writer from North Carolina. He is based in New York City, where he performs both as soloist and in ensembles, plays the violin, composes, writes, teaches, and translates poetry and prose from several languages. Dargan, a singer since he was a child, has shared his voice and carefully curated programs all over the US and Europe. He also teaches on spirituals and other Black music and is honored to walk in his family tradition of telling truthful stories. Dargan relishes writing for Black singers, and he is currently writing two operas. He is a founding member of the consortium Ring Shout.

Boston native Brandon Grimes sang the roles of Henry Ford, Lawrence Train Conductor, and New Rochelle Ensemble in Ragtime: The Symphonic Concert with the Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart in spring 2023 at Symphony Hall and again that summer at Tanglewood. He recently created the role of the Messerschmidt triplets in the world premiere of MacGyver: The Musical and can be heard on the album released in early 2023 on Spotify and Apple Music. National tours: Jekyll and Hyde, All is Calm. Off-Broadway: Calamity Jane (Musicals Tonight!). Regional: Cabaret (Cliff, Peterborough Players), Julius Caesar (Brutus, Hanover Theatre), The Greenbrier Ghost (Greenbrier Valley Theatre), Man of La Mancha (New Repertory Theatre), Hamlet (Laertes, Colonial Theatre), The Producers (Barnstormers Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Anthony, NextDoor Theatre), Company (Bobby, Texas Repertory Theatre), Pirates of Penzance (Ordway Center), 1776 (Cape Playhouse). TV: Titans of Hollywood (Curiosity Stream). Film: Abominable; A Voice; Strapped for Danger; Before. Grimes is a proud teacher of singing and a composer/lyricist. He earned his master of music degree from University of Houston and a bachelor of music from University of Michigan.

Nathan Halbur is a singer, composer, producer, recording engineer, music engraver, and graphic designer. He sings opera, choral music, old music, new music…even the jazz opera …(Iphigenia) by Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding. He sings with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, Skylark, Ensemble Altera, and Enigma Chamber Opera. He’s sung with the Boston Pops and Holiday Singers since 2021. (He was the voice of the Grinch in 2021…and he’s reprising it now!) He directed a show called Photoplay at the Brattle Theatre combining short films with improvised musical accompaniments. He produced and sang on an entirely improvised album with Nightingale Vocal Ensemble called Composition Sped Up. In opera, has performed the role of Leporello in Don Giovanni and performs new/modern works, including a workshop of a new Mark Adamo opera at New England Conservatory and The Burning Fiery Furnace by Benjamin Britten. He is on a Grammy-nominated album from Skylark called Clear Voices in the Dark. His vocal and choral compositions have been performed at the Museum of Science, the Sparks & Wiry Cries National songSLAM, Otter Creek Music Festival, and more. He has a band called DREAMGLOW, which performs all kinds of avant-garde art at the intersections of music (many genres) with other disciplines like poetry, dance, and sculpture. Their latest project was Slumber Party at The Rockwell, and their next project Press & Sniff will be on exhibit at SMFA at Tufts starting January 29, 2025.

Renese King’s array of musical talents has taken her from spiritual and gospel singing at the church podium to timpani playing on the Carnegie Hall stage. Her soulful and moving voice has garnered her numerous featured and guest solo appearances with the Boston Pops, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Pops gospel chorus, and many other ensembles across the nation. Most recently gracing the soundtrack of Harriet Tubman, Visions of Freedom, now streaming on PBS, her voice is a feature on the soundtracks of three Emmy, Peabody, and Sundance award-winning PBS documentary films: Freedom Riders (2011), Freedom Summer (2014), and Tell Them We Are Rising (2018). Singing “Hallelujah, I’m a Travelin’," she leads a chorus of freedom riders in spontaneous expression of solidarity in the Oprah Winfrey television special The Freedom Riders Reunite 50 years Later. A “Gospel/Inspirational Artist of the Year” Boston Music Award recipient, she is a pianist at the Waymark SDA Church in Dorchester, MA, music director of the New England Gospel Ensemble, and a Berklee College of Music alumna. She remains committed to sharing the unifying and uplifting message at the heart of gospel music.

Imogen Parry is a singer and recording artist from London, UK, experienced in classical, jazz, pop and contemporary genres. While studying at the University of Glasgow, Imogen pursued her love of musical theatre playing lead roles in numerous shows including The Last Five Years and Urinetown, and while studying abroad at Boston College in the USA played Wendla in Spring Awakening and Peron’s Mistress in Evita. After graduating, Imogen joined the Grammy Award-winning vocal group, The Swingles, with whom she toured internationally and performed in prestigious venues worldwide for 5 years, including at the BBC Proms in 2024. As a session singer, Imogen has contributed to over 100 films, TV shows, video games, and commercials. She has provided backing vocals for artists such as Sam Smith for BBC Live Lounge and Ellie Goulding at the Royal Albert Hall, and has recorded music for Jacob Collier and Gareth Malone. She is currently the conductor for the LSO Discovery Choirs, leading rehearsals for young singers aged 8-18, and is always encouraging young people to make music. Imogen is thrilled to be back in Boston to join the Boston Pops Holiday Singers this December, and looks forward to celebrating the season with some fantastic festive songs. 

Soprano and Massachusetts native Kaileigh Riess is a dynamic performer dedicated to bringing fierce authenticity, lyrical beauty, and vivid expressivity to operatic, crossover, and contemporary repertoire. Favorite stage credits include Nannetta (Falstaff), Violetta Valéry (La traviata), Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), Contessa Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Laurie (The Tender Land), and Blanche (Dialogues of the Carmelites). Kaileigh completed her education at Northwestern University, USC, and the Boston University Opera Institute and has since worked with Virginia Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Central City Opera, Pacific Northwest Opera, and Beth Morrison Projects. On the competition circuit, Kaileigh has received awards in the Lotte Lenya Competition, the Laffont Competition, and the Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition and was a recent quarterfinalist in the American Traditions Competition. Kaileigh is represented by Encompass Arts.

Baritone Christopher Weigel (December 14 & 15) is a classical singer, teacher, composer, actor, and contemporary recording artist. Graduating with an M.M. from New England Conservatory in 2013, after earning a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance and music education from Ithaca College, Weigel has crafted a dynamic career in music. He currently serves as a choir director at Stoughton High School and a cantor at St. Brigid and Gate of Heaven Churches in South Boston. His time at NEC saw him starring in a traveling outreach opera for children in Greater Boston, taking a lead role in the U.S. premiere of Rossini’s La Gazzetta, and performing as a dueling pianist at the renowned Lansdowne Pub. He opened for Pentatonix in 2019 in a vocal quartet. For the past decade, Weigel has been an integral part of the Metropolitan Chorale and Boston Pops annual Holiday Tour, showcasing his vocal percussion skills and assuming understudy and cover roles for prominent solo performances. 2023 is his second year appearing with the Holiday Singers octet. Weigel also served as the baritone artist in residence for the Metropolitan Chorale from 2014 to 2019.

The American tenor Charles Williamson is an increasingly important operatic performer. Williamson has performed different roles in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, including Daddy “Honey Man” Peter for Greensboro Opera and Des Moines Metro Opera and Mingo at the Metropolitan Opera, where he debuted in the chorus of its Grammy Award-winning production in 2019. Moreover, Williamson has joined the Lyric Opera of Chicago singing chorus in their productions of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Tosca. In 2021-22, Williamson returned to the Metropolitan Opera to join the chorus in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Verdi’s Don Carlos. In 2023, he also joined the choruses of Blanchard’s Champion and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin.