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 the Holiday Pops Kids’ Matinees as well as the Sensory-Friendly Concert. The singers were prepared by David Hodgkins, artistic director of Coro Allegro in Boston and the New England Classical Singers in Andover.

Grammy® nominated soprano Corrine Byrne has made her career singing repertoire from the Medieval to Baroque era as well as music by living composers. She has made solo appearances with the American Classical Orchestra, the Boston Symphony. Orchestra Chamber Players, The New York Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, The REBEL Baroque Ensemble, Symphony New Hampshire, Emmanuel Music, the Lake George Music Festival Orchestra, the Kansas City Baroque Consortium, Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, Westchester Oratorio Society, and Mountainside Baroque. Byrne sings regularly with Lorelei Ensemble, including on their recently GRAMMY® nominated album: Beaufort Scales (Chris Cerrone). Byrne appeared with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra under Simon Rattle, Boston Early Music Festival, the Tallis Scholars & Carnegie Hall Chamber Chorus, and is on the roster of Boston Baroque and Emmanuel Music. Byrne has sung extensively with ground-breaking vocal ensemble Cut Circle (runner-up for 2024 Gramophone award), and is the co-founder of both Ensemble Musica Humana and The Byrne:Kozar:Duo, recently featured on NPR, American Public Media's Performance Today, and New Yorker Magazine's 2017 Notable Recordings. Byrne is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donate a percentage of their concert fee to organizations they care about. Byrne supports the Cares Foundation and South Shore Habitat for Humanity through her performances. She is currently serving as a faculty member at Harvard University's Holden Voice Program and Longy School of Music at Bard College. 

Grammy®-nominated 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 of Skylark’s Grammy®-nominated recordings. Recent and upcoming solo performances include appearances with Emmanuel Music, Plymouth Philharmonic, New Bedford Symphony, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Monadnock Music Festival, and Portland Bach Experience. Carrie made her international solo debut with Skylark Ensemble at St. John's Smith Square in London, which was accompanied by a live on-air performance on BBC Radio 3's "In Tune;" and in June 2024, she performed as a soloist with Emmanuel Music at BachFest Leipzig. This holiday season, she returns as 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 and The Breakers in Newport, RI. 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. She is thrilled to return to the Holiday Pops this year! 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.

Soprano Sonja DuToit Tengblad has appeared as a featured soloist with A Far Cry, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Minnesota’s Bach Roots Festival, and recently checked Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center off the bucket list with the New York City Chamber Orchestra. In addition to her independently curated projects Modern Dickinson and Beat Song, ensemble singing is a cornerstone of her career. She sings with the Grammy-nominated Lorelei Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, Blue Heron, Cut Circle, and the Grammy-winning ensemble Conspirare (which makes her mom very proud). After her son was born in 2017, she had a minor existential meltdown and founded Beyond Artists and Mothers Out Front East Boston. When the discovery of Ziva Meditation fixed it all, she became an official ambassador for the programs. You can learn more about all this and her teaching method, The Regulated Voice, on her website (www.sonjatengblad.com). She teaches at Wellesley College and Harvard University. 

Boston native Brandon Grimes is so excited to be returning to the Pops for a 3rd year with the holiday singers! He also played Henry Ford in the Pop’s Ragtime. Brandon is currently playing Mr. Salt in the Global tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and will be back touring in Asia later this month. Original Casts: MacGyver, the musical (Stages Houston and concept album); National Tours: Jekyll and Hyde, All is Calm; Off-Broadway: Calamity Jane (Musicals Tonight); Regional: Next to Normal (Forestburgh Payhouse- Dr. Madden), Cabaret (Peterborough Players - Cliff), Julius Caesar (Hanover Theatre - Brutus), Hunchback of Notre Dame (Greenbrier Valley Theatre- Phoebus), Man of La Mancha (New Rep), Hamlet (Colonial Theatre - Laertes), The Producers (Barnstormers), Sweeney Todd (NextDoor Theatre - Anthony), Company (Texas Rep - Bobby), 1776 (Cape Playhouse); TV: Titans of Hollywood (Curiosity Stream); Film: The Compatriots, Abominable, Before. Brandon is also a proud teacher of singing, and a composer/lyricist. Much love to his husband Neil and his parents who make the world better every day. MM: University of Houston. BM: University of Michigan.

Nathan Halbur is an eclectic singer, composer, and bandleader. He frequently appears with the Boston Pops — as a singer, and as voice of Dr. Seuss's Grinch — and as a soloist with Emmanuel Music. Other highlights include the Carnegie Hall world premiere of Heidi Breyer's Amor Aeternus: A Requiem for the Common Man, the world premiere of Wayne Shorter’s …(Iphigenia) alongside Esperanza Spalding, Handel's Alcina (MassOpera), and Mark Adamo's Lysistrata (Odyssey Opera). He also collaborated closely with Adamo in a workshop of a new opera at the New England Conservatory. Nathan has performed with Skylark at The Met Cloisters, the Hispanic Society of America, and at the Morgan Library alongside actress Christine Baranski. He's on Skylark’s GRAMMY-nominated Clear Voices in the Dark, Ensemble Altera’s Dazzling Light, and appears in concerts with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and many other ensembles. Nathan's compositions for voices and strings have received premieres at Boston's Museum of Science. A collaboration with musician Angela Yam, artist Kledia Spiro, and ten poets — exploring connections between scent, sound, and movement — was featured in an exhibition at SMFA at Tufts. His setting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 is a winner of the 2025 WNYC Public Song Project. An avid improviser, Nathan produced Nightingale Vocal Ensemble’s album Composition Sped Up, and directed the live show Photoplay at The Brattle Theatre. He curates a series of Exploratory Choral Meditations, probing the intersections of diverse art, sonic experimentation, and social justice. His band DREAMGLOW synthesizes his many artistic interests, as on the album mélo-fi, and the recent Slumber Party tour, which culminated in a show at The Rockwell with dancer Cassie Wang and installation artist Yolanda He Yang.

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.

Praised by the Boston Musical Intelligencer for his "clear, powerful burnished tenor, resonant and easy even in the highest reaches of his voice," the lyric tenor Fausto Miro is known for his "thrilling dramatic impact" (South Florida Sun Sentinel) on the stages of some of the country's leading ensembles. This includes the New York Opera Studio, Boston Opera Collective, Opera Tampa, St. Petersburg Opera Company, The Florida Orchestra, Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and the Opera Festival of San Luis Potosi, where he succeeded as a finalist in the Linus Lerner International Vocal Competition. A resident of Boston, Mr. Miro performs throughout New England with Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, Boston Baroque, Cappella Clausura, The Copley Singers, Labyrinth Choir, Rumbarroco, The Arch Street Band, The Nightingale Ensemble, Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, Renaissance Men, Handel Society of Dartmouth, La Donna Musicale, The Sarasa Ensemble, Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, and The Boston Pops.

Zipporah Peddle is delighted to return to Symphony Hall for this year’s holiday celebration with the Boston Pops, having last appeared with the Pops in Ragtime: The Symphonic Concert in 2023. A versatile performer known for expressive musicianship and heartfelt storytelling, she has shared her voice across North America in concerts, theatrical productions, and nearly 3,000 performances as the lead vocalist in Cirque du Soleil’s acclaimed O. Her stage career spans musical theatre, symphonic collaborations, cabarets, tours, and new musical development. Favorite credits include Kate in Kiss Me, Kate (Nevada Conservatory Theatre) and Tiffany in I Was Looking at the Ceiling, and Then I Saw the Sky (Long Beach Opera). She has toured internationally with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale and appeared as a guest entertainer and production vocalist with multiple cruise lines. Whether in intimate recital settings or large-scale productions, she brings a warm artistic presence that resonates with audiences.

Eduardo Antonio Ramos Suárez, celebrated for his “extraordinary, clear, and sweet” voice (Boston Arts Review), is a versatile and compelling tenor hailing from Ponce, Puerto Rico, whose career encompasses a wide variety of genres and styles. A graduate of SUNY Fredonia (B.M. ‘10) and the New England Conservatory (M.M. ‘13), he has taken the stage to perform numerous principal and comprimario operatic roles over the past decade. Mr. Ramos Suárez is also a highly sought-after concert artist, serving as a frequent roster singer for Labyrinth Choir, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, and the Metropolitan Chorale, and is a dedicated member of Renaissance Men, New England's premier male vocal chamber ensemble.

Baritone Christopher Weigel is a versatile classical singer, teacher, composer, actor, and contemporary recording artist. A graduate of the New England Conservatory (M.M., 2013) and Ithaca College (B.M. in Vocal Performance and Music Education), he has built a dynamic and multifaceted career throughout the Greater Boston area. Weigel currently serves as Choir Director at Stoughton High School and as a cantor for St. Brigid and Gate of Heaven Churches in South Boston. His work at NEC included starring in a touring opera outreach program for children, performing a principal role in the U.S. premiere of Rossini’s La Gazzetta, and appearing as a dueling pianist at the Lansdowne Pub at Fenway. In 2019, he performed as part of a vocal quartet that opened for Pentatonix. He served as the Metropolitan Chorale’s Baritone Artist-in-Residence from 2014 to 2019 and continues to appear frequently as a soloist with the ensemble and other groups across Greater Boston. A seasoned live performer, Christopher regularly sings the National Anthem at Gillette Stadium for the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution, most recently kicking off the 2025 Patriots home opener. In addition to his classical and choral work, he writes and records original music; his latest single, “Tonight,” is available on all major streaming platforms. Weigel lives in the Greater Boston area with his wife, Kelly, while actively pursuing new opportunities as a performer, educator, and recording artist. Christopher and Kelly welcomed their first child, Kate, into their lives in April of 2022, and are looking forward to welcoming their second child in March of 2026.