Originally from Colorado, soprano Tessa McQueen was a 2024 National Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, now in her second year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. During the Met’s 2025–26 season, she covered the role of Helen in the company premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, sang the First Lady in The Magic Flute, and will sing Annina in La Traviata. Later this season, she will appear as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the National Symphony Orchestra. She made her Met debut last season as Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto and sang the Priestess in Aida and covered Chloë in The Queen of Spades.

Recent operatic engagements include Nedda in Pagliacci and covering Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Merola Opera Program’s Schwabacher Summer Concert Series, covering Marguerite in Faust at Wolf Trap Opera, and the Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia and the title role of L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Rice University.

Notable concert performances include Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with The City Choir of Washington, John Rutter’s Requiem with the Rice Chorale, and the Met’s Summer Parks Recital Series as part of the City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage Festival. In addition to her success in the Laffont Competition, she won first prize in the 2025 Premiere Opera Foundation International Vocal Competition, third place in the 2023 Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition, third place in the 2022 Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition, and was the recipient of the 2022 Young Artist of the Season Award from Central City Opera.

She is an alumna of San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program, the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, Opera Saratoga Young Artist Program, and the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program at Central City Opera. She holds degrees in voice from Oklahoma City University, where she graduated with honors, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.