Slattery is a young tenor whose opera and concert career has developed major momentum since he received his master's degree from Juilliard in 2002; among other engagements, he has made numerous appearances this year in the title role of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo with Emmanuelle HaÇm and her ensemble Le Concert d'Astr_e. In 2007 he will sing the role at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York, appear as a soloist in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 under Ren_ Jacobs at the Berlin Staatsoper, sing the role of Zadok in Handel's Solomon with Nicholas McGegan at the International Handel Festival G‹ttingen, and participate in the Esa-Pekka Salonen/Peter Sellars Tristan Project at Disney Hall in Los Angeles and Lincoln Center in New York.

Secret and Divine Signs is a cycle Urquhart and Slattery developed together, in which pieces for solo piano alternate with songs to texts by Emily Dickinson, Ron Draddy, Hermann Hesse, D. H. Lawrence and Walt Whitman. Urquhart said that "It was Michael's idea to interweave my 'songs without words' and the songs with words,' creating a unified program that I believe creates a satisfying listening journey."