Guest Announcement: San Diego Opera Listening Tour Series

San Diego Opera Announces Listening Tour Series

 

Tour will see San Diego Opera’s General Director, David Bennett, engaging the community to explore how the Company can best serve San Diegans

 

San Diego, CA – San Diego Opera is proud to announce a listening tour series that will bring the Company’s General Director, David Bennett, out into the community to explore how the Company can best serve its citizens as it looks towards its next 50 years. These interactive conversations will take place in four different regions of San Diego County – Central (at the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park), North County (at the Museum of Making Music), La Jolla (at The Scripps Institute Research Center) and South Bay (at the Chula Vista Masonic Temple). Using smartphone technology, these multi-media conversations will allow participants to respond to questions in real time and drive the conversation about the future of San Diego Opera.

 

“What is opera? What do you like about opera? What might you want to see different? Is opera too long? Too expensive?  If you were General Director of San Diego Opera, what would you do to ensure the Company was thriving fifty year from now? These are just some of the questions I will engage the community in during this listening tour,” shares David Bennett. “What made San Diego so attractive to me is that the community had taken an active role in the opera’s future, having saved it in 2014. The diversity of San Diego is what makes this city so wonderful, and it is my goal to make San Diego Opera an organization that serves the community. To do this, we are going to do something the Company has never done before: listen to you.”

 

The listening tours are free and open to the public but registration is required and can be made at: http://www.sdopera.org/engage/listen. Refreshments and wine will be served. Participants can also win opera tickets and other prizes. Participants should attend the listening tour with a fully charged smartphone, tablet, or laptop capable of internet access through a cellular network to interact with the questions and real time polls that will be part of the program. In order to better evaluate aggregated responses, participants will be sent a short, confidential questionnaire from our market research partner Q2 Insights to be completed before attending the event.

 

Dates and locations for the San Diego Opera Listening Tour are:

 

Central: Thursday, March 31, 2016 at 6 PM – The Nat (in the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater). 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101.

 

La Jolla: Thursday, April 28 at 6 PM – The Auditorium at The Scripps Research Institute.  10620 John J Hopkins Dr., San Diego, CA 92121.

 

North County: Thursday, May 19 at 6 PM - The Museum of Making Music. 5790 Armada Dr, Carlsbad, CA 92008

 

South Bay: Thursday, June 16, at 6 PM – The Chula Vista Masonic Lodge. 732 3rd Ave, Chula Vista, CA 91910

 

The San Diego Opera Listening Tour is made possible with support from Q2 Insights. For more information visit us online at: http://www.sdopera.org/engage/listen.

 

The 2015-2016 International Season

René Barbera in Recital                                                                    September 19, 2015

Patricia Racette “Diva on Detour”                                                   November 14, 2015

Tosca                                                   Giacomo Puccini                  February 13, 16, 19 and 21 (mat), 2016

Ferruccio Furlanetto in Concert                                                       March 5, 2016

Madama Butterfly                                Giacomo Puccini                  April 16, 19, 22 and 24 (mat), 2016

Great Scott                                          Jake Heggie                          May 7, 10, 15 and 15 (mat), 2016

Guest Announcement: San Diego Opera 2016 events

San Diego Opera Announces Opera Exposed 2016 Roster and Event

 

Audience Engagement Ensemble from the Company’s University Partnership Program to Present Free Community Concerts

 

San Diego, CA - San Diego Opera is pleased to announce the 2015-2016 Opera Exposed artists and events. Opera Exposed is a touring opera ensemble comprised of students from San Diego Opera’s University Partnership Program which currently includes vocal arts students from SDSU and Point Loma Nazarene University. All of the participants have auditioned into the program and represent San Diego Opera in recitals throughout the communities and neighborhoods of San Diego County, with a focus on underserved neighborhoods. In return, the students receive master classes with principal artists from San Diego Opera mainstage productions, meetings with senior staff, internships to bolster their resumés, in-and-out privileges for staging rehearsals and complimentary tickets to performances. This partnership offers young singers ample opportunities to hone their performance skills, while at the same time giving them a better idea of the processes of producing opera on a professional level.

 

“Last year, in the first season of Opera Exposed, we performed in neighborhoods and venues where San Diego Opera had not been before, like City Heights and Barrio Logan,” shares Dr. Nicolas Reveles, San Diego Opera’s Director of Education and Community Engagement. “This year will bring our first foray into the Diamond Neighborhood, the Malcolm X Library, as well as return visits to some of the venues where we performed last year. It’s tremendously exciting to bring opera to communities that haven’t yet experienced it, especially with these wonderful, enthusiastic young singers!”

 

All Opera Exposed recitals are free and are open to the public. Performance selections will vary from recital to recital but will include a selection of familiar opera arias, duets and ensembles from composers such as Puccini, Gounod, Mozart, Rossini, Leoncavallo, and Copland, among others.

 

The 2015-2016 Opera Exposed artists are:

 

San Diego State University

Alvin Almazan, tenor

Rachel Rothman, soprano

Lisa Parente, soprano

Ivan Ochoa, tenor

Amanda Olea, soprano

Nicholas Newton, baritone

Radames Gil, baritone

 

Point Loma Nazarene University

Kiana Bell, mezzo soprano

Carina Kazmierowicz, soprano

Jack French, baritone

Krista Wilford, soprano

Jonathan Lacayo, tenor

McKenna Slack, soprano

Kelsey Kammeraad, soprano

 

A list of currently scheduled Opera Exposed recitals is below. As recitals are added they can be found online at http://www.sdopera.com/Education/SDOU

 

August 15, 3:00pm                 Malcolm X Library

                                                5148 Market Street

                                                San Diego, CA 92114

                       

August 30, 3:30pm                 Carlsbad Music Festival

                                                Magee Park, 258 Beech Street

                                                Carlsbad, CA 92008

                                               

September 30, 6:00pm          Weingart/City Heights Performance Annex

                                                3795 Fairmount Avenue

                                                San Diego, CA 92105

 

October 10, 7:00pm               Hillcrest Wind Ensemble Concert    

                                                First Unitarian Universalist Church

                                                4190 Front Street

                                                San Diego, CA 92103

 

October 18, 2:00pm               Central Library Downtown

                                                330 Park Boulevard

                                                San Diego, CA 92101

 

October 25, 2:00pm               Hope United Methodist Church

                                                16550 Bernardo Heights Parkway

                                                Rancho Bernardo, CA 92128

 

November 22, 2:00pm           El Cajon Public Library

                                                201 E. Douglas

                                                El Cajon, CA 92020

 

January 20, 11:30am             LGBT Center

                                                3909 Centre Street

                                                San Diego, CA 92103

 

The 2015-2016 International Season

René Barbera in Recital                                                                    September 19, 2015

Patricia Racette “Diva on Detour”                                                   November 14, 2015

Tosca                                                   Giacomo Puccini                  February 13, 16, 19 and 21 (mat), 2016

Ferruccio Furlanetto in Concert                                                       March 5, 2016

Madama Butterfly                                Giacomo Puccini                  April 16, 19, 22 and 24 (mat), 2016

Great Scott                                          Jake Heggie                          May 7, 10, 15 and 15 (mat), 2016

Guest Announcement: SDSU Coast to Coast Concert (22 March 2015 at Montezuma Hall)

SDSU’s Coast to Coast Concert Showcases Premiere Work, Faculty Stars, and New Facilities

SDSU Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra set highlight concert in Montezuma Hall, new Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union

(San Diego) – The SDSU Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra present Coast to Coast, a concert featuring music inspired by two of America’s great cities, New York and San Diego, on Sunday, March 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the beautiful, new Montezuma Hall of the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union.   

Tickets for Coast to Coast are $10, general admission, and $5 students, and can be purchased online at music.sdsu.edu or at the box office one hour before performance.  Free admission for high school band and orchestra students.

Coast to Coast will highlight the talents of two of SDSU’s top ensembles, the SDSU Wind Symphony, conducted by Shannon Kitelinger, and the SDSU Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Gerdes, as well as faculty members from the School of Music and Dance, and San Diego Symphony members.  

Jazz faculty Richard Thompson will perform George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  Composition professor Joseph Waters’s newest piece Suite Noir, inspired by San Diego, will receive its world premiere with the SDSU Symphony and the new music ensemble SWARMIUS.  Other pieces will include Three Sketches, composed by Professor Emeritus Merle Hogg, and Quiet City by Aaron Copland, featuring solos by SDSU faculty and San Diego Symphony members John Wilds (trumpet), and Sarah Skuster (oboe).

This semester, the Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra are inviting students, alumni and community members to ‘come home’ to SDSU.  “We have a semester of concerts geared toward engaging our alumni by highlighting our students, faculty, and new facilities,” said Shannon Kitelinger, Director of Bands.  “The Coast to Coast concert will display what SDSU has to offer on several levels; our talented faculty, splendid student performers and the beautiful new facilities at the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union.”

Still To Come in the Arts at SDSU:

A Thousand Plates Through March 30, 2015, SDSU Downtown Gallery

SDSU Opera Theatre: Baroque To Britten April 10 – 12, 2015, Smith Recital Hall

SDSU Jazz Ensemble with Sunny Wilkinson April 16, 2015, Smith Recital Hall

Lux Boreal: Fit/Misfit April 19, 2015, Dance Studio Theatre

The Great American Trailer Park Musical April 24 – May 3, 2015, Don Powell Theatre 

To Be Certain of the Dawn April 25, 2015, College Avenue Baptist Church