To celebrate and spotlight some of the field’s top emerging singers, OPERA America recently asked company leaders to nominate the singers and production artists who have caught their ears and eyes.

Soprano Brittany Olivia Logan wanted to be a marine biologist. But during her junior year at California State University at Long Beach, she took a voice class as an elective. Logan’s professor pulled her into her office at the end of the semester and insisted that she change her major to music.

“She thought I had something special,” says Logan, who had had no prior musical training.

Dr. Katharin Rundus took Logan under her wing, providing voice and piano lessons and taking her protégé to her first opera, The Magic Flute at LA Opera. Logan furthered her studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her first role was with Cincinnati Opera. “I auditioned to sing for the chorus and wound up getting a contract to be in the company’s young artist program for the summer,” she says.

Logan went on to sing at Wolf Trap Opera and train at the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, appearing on the Met stage as Clotilde in Norma and Anna in Nabucco.

“Brittany is a world-class singer,” says Sarah Zsohar, artist services manager at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, where Logan recently sang Liù in Turandot. “She brings not only her amazing artistry to the production, but her positive attitude and infectious energy. She is friendly to her colleagues whether they are fellow singers or members of the production team.”

This season, Logan will sing Musetta in Pittsburgh Opera’s production of La bohème and the Strawberry Woman in Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, where she will also cover the role of Liù. This summer, she will sing Persephone in the world premiere of Lalovavi (Kevin Day, composer; Tifara Brown, librettist) at Cincinnati Opera.

In the Wings is underwritten by generous support from Laurie E. Nelson Randlett, trustee of the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.