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The Perspective Collective

Since 2016, this chamber ensemble has had a grassroots evolution. Members Erin Brittain, Rachael Basescu, Grant Mech & Patrick Fink have presented recital, cabaret operatic & theatrical works throughout New York City, & along the East Coast including Princeton/New Jersey, Philadelphia/Pennsylvania, & Asheville/North Carolina. Their recital concert, Stranger In A Strange Land, performed at the 2017 Fringe Arts Festival in Philadelphia, drew praise from the Broadstreet Review, for their “clear and tender renderings” of art song written by and from the perspective of immigrants and refugees. 

TPC has commissioned and premiered several mini-opera projects. In 2018 the TPC premiered Michael Leibowitz’s, For Love of Country, a dark fable inspired by the real-life headlines of a Russian spy who infiltrated the NRA to influence American politics, to sold out audiences at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival in North Carolina. In 2020, TPC returned to the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival to premier Pripyat, a one act opera by composer Sunny Knable about the fallout (literally and figuratively) of the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster. TPC kicked off 2022 with a workshop performance of Stephanie Leotsaka’s mini-opera adaptation of Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s haunting short story about the mistrust and dark secrets hiding within a pious puritan community.

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Meet the Members

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Mezzo Soprano

Rachael Basescu

Rachael is a music teacher, performer, administrator, non-profit manager and music director in the greater Philadelphia area. She holds degrees from Messiah University and Drexel University in music education and arts administration.  

As a classical vocalist, she has performed with the Susquehanna Chorale, Singing City, Collegiate Chorale, Montgomery County Chorale, and Vox Ama Deus.  She served as a soloist for multiple churches across the mid-Atlantic region including, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lemoyne, PA where she is a recorded soloist now a part of the Smithsonian Institute’s John Philip Sousa Archives.  Critics have described her abilities to “capture the entirety of the elegant experience.”  


Currently, she is the choral director at Marple Newtown High School, where her choirs have gone on to perform throughout the United States, winning many prizes.  As a concert soloist, Rachael has sung performances of the Mozart Coronation Mass as part of choral festivals at the Princeton University Chapel, and on tours overseas in Poland, Germany, Estonia, Sweden and the UK with the Shepherd Singers.  As a founding and performing member of The Perspective Collective, Rachael has performed in multiple recitals at the Philly Fringe Festival, Uptown Arts Stroll of Manhattan, Asheville Fringe Festival and throughout England.

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Soprano

Erin Brittain

Soprano Erin Brittain has performed over 30 different roles in opera, operetta, and musical theater and sung for audiences both regionally and overseas. Critics have described her as “evanescent” possessing “a fine clear tone and an expressive manner.” Some favorite roles include Berta in il barbiere di Siviglia. with Christman Opera, Clorinda in La Cenerentola with ARE Opera, Beatrice in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers with Opera Fayetteville. Miss Pinkerton in The Old Maid and The Thief and as the Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto both with Hubbard Hall Opera, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro with the Stonyhill Players, Auretta in Mozart's early opera L'Oca del Cairo with Garden State Opera. As a concert soloist, Erin has sung performances of the Mozart Coronation Mass and the Faure Requiem as part of a choral festivals at the Princeton University Chapel, and on tours overseas in Poland, Germany and the UK with the Kips Bay Chorale. In 2020 she will join their next tour in Estonia and Sweden. As part of The Perspective Collective, Erin has performed in recitals at the Philly Fringe, and in the well-received 2019 premiere of mini-opera For Love of Country at the Asheville Fringe Festival in North Carolina about the infiltration of a Russian spy into American politics, as The Spokeswoman, a character based on NRA frontwoman Dana Loesch. Erin holds an undergraduate degree from New York University and a Masters from The Peabody Institute, both in classical voice.

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Baritone

Grant Mech

Grant Mech holds degrees from Westminster Choir College, where he studied voice with Margaret Cusack and conducting with James Jordan.  An alumnus of Opera New Jersey’s young artist program, Grant has appeared in numerous operatic productions, including Alcina (Melisso) with The Cantanti Project, La Clemenza di Tito (Publio) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Bartolo) with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, the titles role in Don Giovanni and Gianni Schicchi with Delaware Valley Opera, Turandot (Mandarin) with New Rochelle Opera, La Serva Padrona (Uberto) and The Pirates of Penzance (Police Sergeant) with Boheme Opera NJ, and La Belle Hélène  (Agamemnon) with Opéra du Périgord, and  La Cambiale di matrimonio (Tobias Mill) with Garden State Opera.  He has appeared in concerts and recitals, singing works such as Brahms’ Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Schubert’s Schwanengesang.  He has appeared in concerts with the early music ensemble La Fiocco and Downtown Music Productions.  

Grant is the director of music at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in New York and the choral director at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, NJ, where he overseas eight performing ensembles.  He has served as a conductor of the Down Town Glee Club in New York and on program faculties at Wyoming Seminary (PA) and the Lawrenceville School (NJ).  Grant’s choirs have toured extensively in the U.S., singing at prestigious venues in Boston, New York, and Washington D.C., and abroad in England, Poland, and Germany.

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Pianist

Patrick Fink

Patrick Fink pushes eighty-eight black and white buttons in a wide variety of professional settings.
He holds a degree in jazz piano from Temple University and is classically trained as well. Notable
highlights of collaborative piano experience include the Vivaldi Gloria , the Fauré Requiem , Mozart’s
Coronation Mass , Paulus’ A Dream of Time , and accompanying choral festivals in NYC and Princeton.
With the Perspective Collective, Patrick premiered Mike Leibowitz and Jeremy Bassecu’s one act
opera For Love of Country at the 2019 Asheville Fringe Festival. He’s also toured with choirs in the
US and Europe. Exploring the timbre of a rhodes electric piano, Patrick recorded Debussy’s Ariettes
Oubliées with soprano Diana Corliss (2015). Patrick regularly brings a mixture of artistically fulfilling
repertoire and whatever-the-next-gig-is selections to his current teacher, Tom Lawton. He is from
Pittsburgh and currently calls Philadelphia home.

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