Grace Notes

Volume 5

March 2025

Amanda Forsythe, soprano

Celebrated for her performances on both sides of the Atlantic, Amanda Forsythe is a regular soloist with the highly acclaimed baroque ensembles Les Talens Lyriques, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Tafelmusik, Apollo’s Fire, Opera Prima, Pacific Musicworks, Early Music Vancouver, and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She sang Euridice on the recording of Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers with the Boston Early Music Festival which won the GRAMMY AWARD for Best Opera Recording. Her début solo album of Handel arias “The Power of Love” with Apollo’s Fire was recently followed with the highly praised “Heavenly Bach”. She toured with the outstanding French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, performing works based on the Orfeo myth, and subsequently recorded the role of Euridice in a new edition of Gluck’s Orfeo for the ERATO label. Her discography includes more than 25 albums and DVDs, many of them premiere recordings. 

Chelsea Helm, soprano

An active choral artist and oratorio soloist, Ms. Helm appears regularly with Seraphic Fire, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, True Concord Voices & Orchestra, The Thirteen, Upper Valley Baroque, and Conspirare, with whom she was nominated for 2020, 2022, and 2023 GRAMMY® awards for Best Choral Album. She has also appeared with Artefact Ensemble, Vocal Arts Ensemble Cincinnati, Kinnara, the Carmel Bach Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the American Soloists Ensemble, the Voices of Ascension, Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity, the Charlotte Bach Festival, Spire Chamber Ensemble, the Benedict XVII Ensemble, and the Concordia Chamber Players. This season she makes debuts with the Washington National Cathedral and the Washington Bach Consort.

In addition to a small private studio, Ms. Helm is an Adjunct Instructor of Voice at Southern Virginia University, as well as Senior Voice Faculty at the Classical Music Institute in San Antonio, Texas.  Chelsea is originally from Michigan and currently lives in Washington DC.

Gene Stenger, tenor

An active choral artist and oratorio soloist, Ms. Helm appears regularly with Seraphic Fire, the Santa Fe Hailed as an “impressive tenor” (The New York Times) who sings with “sweet vibrancy” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer) and creates “the most lasting moments” (The Virginia Gazette) of the performance, Gene Stenger has made his mark as specialist in oratorio and opera repertoire. 

Equally at home in chamber music, he has performed with numerous professional ensembles, including the GRAMMY® award-winning Apollo’s Fire: the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, the GRAMMY® nominated True Concord Voices and Orchestra, the GRAMMY® nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street, the Clarion Music Society, and the Yale Choral Artists.

Gene is originally from Pittsburgh PA and currently resides in New Haven CT, where he serves as instructor of voice at Yale University.

Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a dignified and beautiful singer, bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton enjoys an active career in opera, oratorio, and chamber music, performing and recording throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. A versatile singer, Mr. Tipton’s repertoire ranges from Machaut and Monteverdi to Britten and Bolcom, with his interpretations of the works of Bach and Haydn being acclaimed in particular for their strength and sensitivity.

Recent recordings include Nicolaus Bruhns’s solo cantatas for bass with Masaaki Suzuki for BIS Records, a Grammy nomination for Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with Seraphic Fire, Bach’s St. John Passion as Christus with Cantata Collective & Nicholas McGegan, and several records with Cut Circle for the Belgian label Musique en Wallonie

Max resides in New York City.

Musician Profiles: L’Allegro Soloists

GRACE NOTES