A third-year Butler Studio artist from Albany, Georgia, Demetrious Sampson, Jr. performs the roles of Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess, The Witch in the Family Day performance of Hansel and Gretel, and Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men in HGO’s 2025-26 season. Other roles for 2025 include Macduff in Macbeth at Atlanta Opera and Steuermann in The Flying Dutchman at Des Moines Metro Opera. For HGO’s 2024-25 season, he performed the roles of Ruiz in Il trovatore and Parpignol in La bohème. In HGO’s 2023-24 season, Sampson made his HGO debut as 3rd Esquire in Parsifal. He made his professional debut with Atlanta Opera at the age of 20 as Crab Man in Porgy and Bess, a role he reprised at Des Moines Metro Opera in 2022 as an apprentice artist. In 2023, Sampson joined the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, and in 2024, he made company and role debuts with Cincinnati Opera as Gastone in La traviata and with Wolf Trap Opera as the Kronprinz in Kevin Puts’s Silent Night. A previous Encouragement Award winner, he was named a National Finalist in the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. The second place and Audience Choice Winner in HGO’s 2023 Eleanor McCollum Competition Concert of Arias, Sampson is a 2022 alumnus of HGO’s Young Artists Vocal Academy. He received his bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University.