Boasting a beautiful blend of three of Boston’s best voices, New England Tenors opens the 2011-2012 Standing Room Only Season on Saturday night, October 15 at 7 p.m. with “Songs of Love and Inspiration.”

Standing Room Only is a subscription series of four concerts in Wakefield, Massachusetts that benefits The Building Fund at 326 Main Street, also the home of the Unitarian Universalist Church and the Linden Tree Coffeehouse.

New England Tenors is an ensemble that harmonizes the appealing sounds of a classical tenor, an Irish tenor and an operatic tenor. Accompanied by piano, violin and percussion, John Middleton-Cox, Damien Corcoran and Ray Bauwens perform a wide range of styles, including songs of inspiration, love songs, a West Side Story set, songs from The Secret Garden, and operatic favorites, such as Time to Say Goodbye and O Sole Mio.

Tenor John Middleton-Cox attended the Crane School of Music and The Boston Conservatory. John has performed various professional roles from Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus to the Duke in Patience. Also the Artistic Director of New England Tenors, he has composed an original musical, orchestrated for a professional symphony orchestra, accompanied professional singers, and conducted professional pit orchestras. He has collaborated with Broadway Actor/Director Russell Garrett and is in demand as a panelist and adjudicator. John is the head of the music department for Burlington Public Schools and is the Director of Music at the North Parish Church in North Andover.

Damien Corcoran received a BA in Music from Rutgers University. He was a member of Rutgers Opera Workshop for five years, performed with the Amato Opera Company in New York City for two seasons, sang with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus of Boston, and has performed acapella at several Italian restaurants in New Jersey and Massachusetts for the past 20 years. Damien is the lead man for the Irish-flavored rock band “Demijon Music Clan.” In his spare time he likes to perform with his wife and daughter in community theatre groups on the North Shore.

According to Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe, Ray Bauwens is “the closest thing to an Italian tenor New England has produced since Eugene Conley (1940’s NYC Opera, 1950’s Metropolitan Opera star)”. He has performed with the National Symphony of the Ukraine, the Mexico State Symphony Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Academy of Music, Connecticut Concert Opera, Opera Providence, Warren Symphony, Wellesley Symphony Orchestra, Boston Civic Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and even the Boston Ballet in Lila York’s staging of the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Accompanists for the Tenors include pianist Wayne Ward, long-time music director of Turtle Lane Playhouse productions and a faculty member at Berklee College of Music, and violinist Peter Stickel, best known as the co-founder and executive director of New England String Ensemble.

Other concerts in the third SRO season include Candlelight Christmas III, Classical Masterpieces and Holiday Favorites on December 18; Love and Chocolate, a Valentine Concert with New England Light  Opera on the evening of February 14; and New England Brass Plays Gershwin on April 7. Subscriptions are $85 and $75 (seniors 65+ and students) and are available online at www.sroconcerts.org or by sending a check made to “Wakefield UU  Church” to SRO/Wakefield UU Church, PO Box 529, Wakefield, MA 01880. Subscribers receive several benefits, including reserved seating and free passes to artist receptions. Approximately 20 subscription seats remain.

 Single tickets are $25 and $20 (seniors and students) and are available online at www.sroconcerts.org, by mail at the address above, and at two ticket outlets in Wakefield: Parker Florist at 9 Lincoln Street and The Queen’s Vault at 85 Albion Street. Information is online or available by calling 339.203.6693.