The Fort Worth Opera on Wednesday announced its Hattie Mae Lesley Resident Artists, which include a graduate of the University of North Texas.
Malcolm Payne Jr., a native of Blytheville, Arkansas, joins Adia Evans, Nathaniel Catasca, and Kaswanna Kanyinda as residents who will perform with the opera this year.
“I am excited to be able to commit my time to music 24/7 with a supportive artistic team that I can trust is committed to my professional development,” says Payne, a baritone, in a statement. “The repertoire this season is thrilling, and I am grateful to work with a company that does so much community outreach through their work and repertoire.”
Payne’s experience includes starring roles in a variety of productions with the Fort Worth Opera over the past year, including A Night of Black Excellence, and managing creative aspects of production while being an assistant director for Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, last year. He also was recently featured in a new musical production Simon of Cyrene as Jesus.
Payne is also an accomplished flute player who has been featured with the Fort Worth Opera, among others.
“His talent and professionalism and just everything were so impressive this past year that we asked him to be a resident artist,” director of children’s opera theater production and civic impact, Sheran Goodspeed Keyton says. “He is a well-rounded young man, performer, and potential administrator. This program is a platform for young artists who are dangerously close to being a professional level and getting agents and managers.”
Evans, a 2021 graduate of the University of Tennessee, is a soprano. Catasca, a tenor, has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s in music and literature from the Eastman School of Music. Kanyinda, a mezzo-soprano, received the Wilde Award for her performance as the Mother in Opera MODO’s production of The Consul. She has a master’s degree from the University of Michigan.
The Hattie Mae Lesley Resident Artist program, established in 2015, allows young artists to train through professional experience onstage. The performers also will participate in masterclasses with established artists and agents brought in by the Fort Worth Opera.
Performers are selected through a rigorous nationwide audition process in New York in December.
“I’ve always been a mentor, and my goal has always been to have young artists come in, assess where they are, and then watch them grow in the areas they need to grow in,” Keyton says. “Whether it be knowing how to market themselves, or strengthening with different languages. And then us being able to help them leave as better people.”
