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Our Killer Team
Killer Queen Opera is a woman-lead artist collective based in the NYC area.
Our Mission: Relevance, Representation & Accessibility​​​
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Scroll below to read more about Killer Queen co-founders, members, artists, and donors.
Karina Camile Parker
co-founder & co-director
she/her/hers
Karina Camile Parker (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based director, soprano, and teaching artist. Karina is the co-founder of Killer Queen Opera Co, an innovative new opera company, & The Music Co-Lab, a voice studio for singers of all ages and musical backgrounds. Karina is an active teaching artist, currently working as an Associate Conductor for the National Children’s Chorus.
As a multi-disciplinary director and performer, Karina specializes in early music, new works, folk music, performance art, and musical theater. She has worked with organizations such as the NBL, Carnegie Hall, DECODA Music, Pittsburgh Resonance Works, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and The Laguna Beach Playhouse. Some of her recent directing highlights include iPhone Arias (Hawthorne), La Voix Humaine (Poulenc), 9131: A Sing Sing Opera* (Wilson), Being Ariodante* (Dawe), and L’incoronazione di Poppea, (Monteverdi).
Karina also specializes in solo, chamber, and choral music. Her past choral work includes performances under the direction of internationally renowned conductors Manfred Honeck, Andrés Cárdenes, Eph Ehly, and many more. Karina has had the honor to work with many ensembles such as Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, UN Symphony Orchestra, and The Canticum Novum Singers.
Karina received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in vocal performance and Certification in music education from Carnegie Mellon University. Karina is proudly queer and disabled.
Christina Swanson
co-founder & co-director
she/her/hers
Mezzo-Soprano Christina Swanson (she/her) is a performer, director, and performance artist based in New York City. Swanson received her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan and her Master of Music from New York University. In the arenas of opera and concert, Swanson has performed with the Oratorio Society of New Jersey, Utah Festival Opera, Lakeland Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Surry Arts and Events in Maine, Hudson River Opera, Opera MODO, NYU Opera Theater and as a soloist with the NYU Orchestra.
Swanson thrives as a theater-maker and director. She is the co-founder of Killer Queen Opera Company, with which she co-directed and co-produced a film version of the opera L’incoronazione di Poppea, supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council. The film was made available to Brooklyn communities in three public venues, fulfilling Killer Queen’s mission of relevance, representation, and accessibility. Other directing includes “Last Resort: An Evening of Opera Scenes,” with the New York University Classical Voice Collective.
Swanson is also a movement artist and performance artist. She co-choreographed the new musical, “Triangle Cruise,” which premiered in NYC in June 2022. In her music and performance art, Swanson explores themes of physical identity through original movement and sound. Her performance art has been seen at the Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Montreal Fringe festivals, in addition to Movement Research in New York City.
Marie Anello
Grants & Production Assistant
she/her/hers
Marie Anello (LA MUSICA) is a classically trained mezzo-soprano with experience in opera, musical theater, cabaret, jazz, voice acting, and drama. She has had the pleasure of performing with companies like the Penobscot Theatre Company, New York City Opera, Soho Playhouse, Write Act Repertory, Encompass New Opera Theatre, the Pittsburgh Festival Opera Young Artist Program, and as Ottavia in Killer Queen Opera's inaugural film production "Poppea." Recent credits include Izzy in the world debut of "Trapped! The Musical: A Lobster Tale", Betty Compton in the immersive production "Tammany Hall", and her one woman cabaret, Spektorology, co-produced with Killer Queen Opera.
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Marie also works as a writer and editor, specializing in book reviews, publishing industry journalism, and graphic novels.
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www.marieanello.com
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Jay St. Flono
Artist in Residence
he/she/they
Jay was born in the hamlet of East Meadow, New York and raised in Queens and Brooklyn. Under the guidance of their musical mother, Patricia, Jay began piano lessons and learned Hymns and Spirituals as part of the Sunshine Choir at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church as a boy soprano.
Throughout grade school, Jay played clarinet, violin, handbells and contrabass while performing with the OnStage Contemporary Theater Arts Company in Hempstead, New York, studying West African (Malian) dance, ballet and musical theater. Jay auditioned and was accepted into the Choir Academy of Harlem in 2004, singing with the Boys Choir at the Summer Music Institute at Skidmore College and at Madison Square Garden for the Republican National Convention. Upon graduating high school in 2008, Jay briefly studied Humanities at Onondaga Community College, intending to become an English Literature teacher, but at their mother’s urging switched to Vocal Performance.
Jay studied Voice at Mannes School of Music, minoring in Creative Writing at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, completing short stories and poetry while also performing partial operatic tenor roles such as Acis in “Acis and Galatea” and Nemorino in “L’Elisir d’Amore”. Jay devoted much of their time to independent performance study, programming three recitals of Lieder, Spirituals and Baroque art song and arias.
Jay has performed as a soloist and ensemble-member in the world of Oratorio and African-American Sacred Music, including the Wendell Whalum Recital at the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference and Choir Directors/Organists Guild Workshop in Hampton, Virginia (2014) the Brooklyn Ecumenical Choir and the Brooklyn Contemporary Chorus. As a versatile vocalist, Jay has also performed in jazz and gospel ensembles, with performance highlights including the Ancestral Chorus of “The Maafa Suite: A Healing Journey”, at Carnegie Hall for the Havasi Symphonic Concert (2015) and and most recently in the Pyer Moss Tabernacle Choir Drip Choir Drenched in the Blood for various performances in New York Fashion Week. Other performance highlights include the role of The Queen of Hearts in the musical “Alice Wonder” at The New School and Feinstein’s/54 Below. During the 2019/2020 season, Jay joined the Ensemble cast for the premiere of “Stonewall” at New York City Opera, a work commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that helped further advance the LGBT Rights Movement.
In 2020, Jay began privately studying Voice with mezzo-soprano, Kori Jennings. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jay listened intently to their instrument as their voice began to further shift in a higher direction and vocally transitioned back to soprano. This change also coincided with their public expression as a 2 - spirit / nonbinary person, allowing Jay to completely revamp their career during the Great Pause. Jay marked their return to live performance in autumn 2021 as the soprano soloist in the premiere of “Deep Blue Sea” with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Since that time, Jay has performed with the Unsung Collective in performances at Lincoln Center and The CARA and is currently at work on numerous musical projects, namely the role of Cosima in “Spirit in the Vine” and has been a featured soloist for the Grace Chorale of Brooklyn.
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