We have just received an email from Professor Juliana Gondek about her activities during Spring Quarter and the early part of the summer. Here is what she shared with us:

“During my Spring Quarter sabbatical leave, I traveled to Italy to give a series of talks on Handel opera and teach master classes to voice students at the top music school in Tuscany, the “Luigi Cherubini” Conservatory in Florence. Here, I’m working with a young professional Italian soprano on German art song.”

“In June I was in residence at the Astoria Music Festival, located in a charming port town at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. While there, I taught master classes and private lessons to the singers of the Festival Young Artists program and performed as soloist with orchestra in performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, in a fully staged production of Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” (in the title role), with chamber ensemble singing Astor Piazzolla’s “Tango Songs”, and as The Old Lady in “Easily Assimilated” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide”. Below is the review of “The Fairy Queen” that appeared in the Portland “Oregonian”. Paragraphs #4 and #6 mention my work.

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Land of enchantment at the Astoria Music Festival
by David Stabler, The Oregonian
Sunday June 28, 2009, 12:46 PM

ASTORIA — Fantasy is alive and well in Astoria. Fairies dance, lovers kiss and a queen falls in love with an ass. Yes, we’re in a mid-summer night’s dream, but not Shakespeare’s. Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” is its musical equivalent, a lyrical semi-opera based on the familiar play, so we are once again in the land of nod, presided over by the sleep-induced Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

The Astoria Music Festival, going strong in its seventh season (it ended Sunday) drew a soldout crowd to the Liberty Theater, Saturday, for this rarely seen masterpiece of the 17th century. An obscure choice for a summer festival? Yes. But definitely an enchanted evening, as unstuffy as they come, filled with bright, inventive music, elegant dancing, bawdy humor, wonderful singing and a colorful mix of flowing period costumes and sleek modern dress. The only drawback is that it did not repeat.

For all its obscurity — artistic director Keith Clark claimed this was its West Coast premiere — “The Fairy Queen” made a certain amount of sense at the festival, where risk and reward go hand in hand. Clark’s tenure has seen other seriously creative productions, including the regional premiere of “The Stone Philosopher” with its recently discovered and much heralded contribution from Mozart.

Part of the pleasure came from the unexpected mix of elements: veteran singers such as Richard Zeller and soprano Juliana Gondek strutting about with young singers just starting their careers; a briskly paced hybrid orchestra of modern and Baroque instruments (theorbo, harpsichord); and an overall feel of professionalism supported by community enthusiasm (the performers stay in local homes).

Too many highlights to name, but the orchestra was one, catapulting Purcell’s endlessly inventive music into the auditorium with color, character and zest. From brassy fanfares to weeping laments, the players enlarged each of the many scenes with clarity nicely scaled to the room.

Another was Titania’s lament, “O let me weep,” which stopped the show when Gondek brought forth a voice of mahogany tone and aching musical depth in her halting phrases. Her voice was a reflection of full-bodied grief. Now there’s a singing actress.

Everywhere the eye looked, something was happening, thanks to New York director and choreographer Catherine Turocy. Two members of her New York Baroque Dance Company circled and bowed with stately grace. Fairies flirted, monkeys pranced, singers courted, laughed and wept and a poet got drunk.

It all sounds improbable, and it is. A cumbersome and episodic 17th-century masque that could have bumped along in fits and starts, but no. Clark’s production lifted our spirits, tickled our ribs and touched our hearts. That’s entertainment.
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“I rounded out my summer travel with my annual stint as Head of Voice Faculty at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival on the Big Island. Here I performed on several concerts and taught students ranging in age from 14 to 72. This year we had an outstanding collection of young professional artists from the U.S. and Canada, as well as two incoming UCLA MM Voice students. Snorkeling and swimming with the “honu” (the endangered giant green sea turtles that inhabit the shallow water) provided an almost daily thrill, not to mention a great suntan!

Here’s a YouTube clip of my Opening Gala performance posted by a fan of the festival. I’m singing a piece by Astor Piazzolla arranged by UCLA DMA composer Bruno Louchouarn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlKxxGNFx4c
Alguien le Dice al Tango