Looking for a relaxing Sunday afternoon? Missed live, family-friendly music? Want to reconnect with your friends?
"Sunshine & Singing" is an outdoor, live music event and the last of our Summer on the Square series. Join us for an afternoon of fun and funny music from opera, operetta and musical theater. With interactive activities for younger audience members and beautiful music, this concert will be fun for the whole family. Your kids will also enjoy games and playing on the Oasis Playground.
Featured artists:
Mezzo soprano
Deborah Rosengaus is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a sought-after opera and musical theater performer, both locally and internationally. She has performed in East Asia and Australia, with recitals in Mexico, Europe and across the U.S. in halls such as Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, Beijing Center for the Performing Arts, Santori Hall in Tokyo and Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Locally, Deborah regularly performs with Lamplighters, Opera Cultura, Opera San Jose, Ars Minerva, Pocket Opera, Hillbarn, West Bay Opera, Solo Opera, Island City Opera and West Edge Opera. She has also established herself as a music history lecturer in the Bay Area. She lectures for the Santa Clara University Osher Program; the San Francisco Opera Guild; OLLI; the San Mateo Adult School; Road Scholars; JCCs in Marin, Foster City, Sonoma, San Francisco and Palo Alto; and several community groups and senior centers in the area. She holds a B.M. from USC and an M.M. from the Manhattan School of Music.
Efrat Levy holds a B.A. in Solo Piano Performance and an M.A. in Vocal Repertoire Instruction and Chamber Music from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music. During her military service in Israel, she was the pianist for the IDF orchestra. From a young age, Efrat performed and appeared with various chamber ensembles as well as in recitals all over the world. She participated in numerous master classes and festivals in Israel, Europe and the United States, including the Tel-Hai piano master classes, the Perlman Music Program, the Academie de Musique de Lausanne master classes with Pierre Amoyal and Bruno Canino (violin and piano), Sounding Jerusalem International Festival, Kfar-Blum, Abu-Gosh and Ein-Hod music festivals in Israel. She also participated in the ISAM International Music Festival in Germany as a pianist and musical director as well as the Jewish Festival in Berlin.
Efrat played on a first CD recording of Czech composer Jaromir Weinberer's pieces for violin and piano, a Deutschlandfunk Köln production. She regularly performs as a rehearsal and vocal coach in the IVAI Opera Program in Tel Aviv and in Chiari, Italy. She worked as the rehearsal pianist at the Israeli Opera House, taught at her private studio and has worked in a variety of studios and productions including the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, the Kibutzit Orchestra and the Tel Aviv Choir.
Liisa Dávila has gained recognition for her vocal clarity and dazzling coloratura, combined with a richness and depth allowing her to possess a highly desired level of versatility in her work. Heard recently as Kitty Hart in Fresno Grand Opera's critically acclaimed performance of
Dead Man Walking, Liisa was also recently seen as Liù in West Bay Opera's production of
Turandot, where "her simple, understated Liù made major contributions to the production" (
San Francisco Classical Voice).
LA Splash also complimented her performance, saying Liisa "charmed rather than dominated. Her lovely clear soprano was spell-binding in both her arias." She has also performed as Donna Elvira in
Don Giovanni, Pamina in
Die
Zauberflöte, Violetta in
La Traviata, Poppea in
L'incoronazione di Poppea, Hanna Glawari in
The Merry Widow, Micaëla in
Carmen, and the title role in Massenet's
Cendrillon. Other roles in her repertoire include Mimi in
La Bohème and Juliette
in
Romeo et Juliette. Of her performance as Erste Dame in
Die Zauberflöte with West Bay Opera, the
San Francisco Classical Voice claimed Liisa (along with fellow ladies Molly Mahoney and Michelle Rice) opened the opera "with the most sublime singing of the three-hour performance."
Liisa's concert work includes performances as a soprano soloist with organizations including MidAmerica Productions, Music in the Mountains Festival, Auburn Symphony, Gallo Center for the Arts, Bear Valley Music Festival, and the Academy of All Hallows. Her repertoire includes traditional and contemporary works, such as Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mendelssohn's Christmas Oratorio, the Mozart C Minor Mass and Vespers Solemnes, Handel's Messiah, the Vivaldi Gloria, and the Requiems by Rutter, Duruflé, Mozart and Fauré. An advocate of new music, Liisa premiered the concert role of Shamiram in Ninos and Shamiram by French composer Michel Bosc, performed in Assyrian for the The Assyrian Aid Society of
America's Fourth Annual Mesopotamian Night.
A winner of multiple competitions, Liisa was a San Francisco District winner and a Western Regional Finalist for the Metropolitan National Council Auditions and a winner of the prestigious Maria and Ben Holt Scholarship. In 2010 she won the First International Phyllis Osterhout Vocal Competition, placed third in the Washington International Vocal Competition in Washington, DC, and was a semi-finalist for the Loren L. Zachary Competition.
Liisa's training includes participation in internationally recognized programs such as OperaWorks' Advanced Artist Program, the Pacific Opera Institute, Sherill Milnes' V.O.I.C.Experience 'Opera as Drama' program, and the International Festival of the Aegean's Greek Opera Studio. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from California State University, Sacramento.
Admission is free. All are welcome. Kid-friendly. Bring a picnic if you like. Light refreshments will be available for sale.
Whether you want to dance or tap your toes, be there or be square!
Registration preferred but not required.
Questions? Email
[email protected]
Sunday, August 7
4:30–6:00 PM
Jessica Lynn Saal Town Square
Free
Contact: Michelle Shabtai |
[email protected]
Register