Sunshine & Singing: Summer on the Square

3921 Fabian Way,Palo Alto CA 94303

07 August, 2022

Description

Summer is here! Looking for a relaxing Sunday afternoon? Missed live family-friendly music? Want to reconnect with your friends? This is the last of our Summer on the Square series. "Sunshine & Singing" is an outdoor live music event. 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. Admission is free. All public welcome. Kid-friendly. Bring a picnic if you like. Light refreshments for sale. Whether you want to dance, tap your toes, sing along, or just listen, be there or be square! . Registration preferred but not required. Questions? Email: [email protected] 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, she 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. Ms. Rosengaus 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 BM from USC and an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. 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. Pianist and vocal coach Efrat Levy was born in Tel-Aviv. After spending a few years in Berlin, she is currently based out of the Bay Area, California. She performs regularly with opera singers and chamber ensembles in recitals all over the world. She has participated in numerous festivals in Israel, Europe and the United States: the Tel-Hai piano program, the "Perlman Music Program", the Academie de Musique de Lausanne master classes (violin and Piano), “Sounding Jerusalem” international festival, “Kfar-Blum”, “Abu-Gosh” and "Ein-Hod” music festivals (Israel) as well as the Jewish Music Festival in Berlin. In addition she participated in the ISAM International Music Festival as a pianist and musical director (Germany). In Israel she worked as a corepetitor at the Israeli Opera house, her own private studio and in a variety of studios and productions including the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, the “Kibutzit” Orchestra and the Tel-Aviv choir. Efrat regularly performs as a piano accompanist and vocal coach in the IVAI Opera Program in Tel-Aviv and in Chiari, Italy. Enthusiastic about the idea of exposing young children to the wonders of Opera, Efrat created the interactive musical program “Opera for Families” and performed in pre-schools and children centers throughout Berlin, Israel and the Bay Area. Last summer, Efrat created “Backyard Theater”, a musical theatre program for children, and produced the musicals Annie, Aladdin, Lion King, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Frozen and Peter Pan. Efrat played in a first CD recording of Czech composer Jaromir Weinberer’s pieces for violin & piano, a Deutschlandfunk Köln production. Efrat holds a B.A. (graduated with honors) in Solo Piano Performance and a M.A. (graduated with honors) in Vocal Repertoire Instruction and Chamber Music from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music.