Another Connecticut-born artist rounds out my list: Tenor Nicholas Phan, whom I first encountered last summer at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, where he gave a gripping performance of Schumann's ''Dichterliebe'' with pianist Mitsuko Uchida. He has made a specialty of Benjamin Britten, and on a recent CD he sings the British composer's ''Winter Words'' cycle on poems of Thomas Hardy and the ''Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' along with some folk song arrangements, all with the sensitive pianist Myra Huang (Avie). Phan has a lithe, beautiful voice, but it's his masterful characterization of these songs - by turns desolate, humorous, and turbulent - that makes such a deep impression. That's something to be treasured, wherever it pops up.