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

If an opera singer trained as a composer first, would it change the way they perform?

“It helps me to be more expressive,” says Colombian baritone Laureano Quant, who is increasingly finding his skills in demand at opera companies around the U.S. “I try to understand everything about how my line fits into the harmonic structure. It’s an intellectual, analytical approach, but it informs how I phrase things emotionally,” he continues.

Quant is the first musician in his family. His first brush with opera came during college at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, where he auditioned for the school’s chorus while studying composition. He was accepted, and he so enjoyed his first experience singing on stage that he began studying voice as well. Later, he studied voice at Manhattan School of Music and the Yale School of Music.

Described as an “electrifying performer” by Opera Maine Artistic Director Dona D. Vaughn, Quant has gone on to perform as a member of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, where he sang Le Dancaïre in Carmen and Stárek in Jenůfa. He has performed with New Orleans Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Madison Opera, and the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, in addition to companies in his home country. In the fall of 2025, Quant debuted with the Dallas Opera as Zuniga in another Carmen. He will return to Madison Opera to sing Guglielmo in Così fan tutte in the spring.

To this day, composition holds a special place in his life. “I also always love to collaborate with new composers on new repertoire,” Quant says. “Composing for the voice is not as easy as some instruments, you know? I see my role as helping understand idiomatic writing for the voice.”

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