Soprano Andrea Carroll has won the 1st Place prize of $10,000 in Houston Grand Opera’s annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers. Carroll also was voted the Audience Choice Award with its $1,000 prize.

Carroll, 22, is a native of Bethesda, Md., now in her final year of undergraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music.

Soprano Natalya Romaniw, 24, won 2nd Place ($5,000.) Born in Swansea, South Wales, she recently completed her opera studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Chinese bass Peixin Chen, 30, won 3rd Place ($3,000.) He graduated from Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, where he made his operatic debut in 2006.

More than 600 singers applied for this year’s contest and about half of those applicants were chosen to audition in late fall in Houston, New York, Los Angeles and Cincinnati. The field narrowed to 15 singers who competed in the semi-finals that began here Jan. 28. Nine singers advanced to the final round, the annual Concert of Arias that was held Thursday at Wortham Theater Center.

The winners were selected by a panel of judges including HGO artistic and music director Patrick Summers, HGO managing director Perryn Leech and Anthony Dean Griffey, the famed tenor currently starring in HGO’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.