Diana Tash, Mezzo-Soprano
(Photo credit: Bradford Rogne) |
Armen Guzelimian, Pianist
(Photo credit: Philippe Morotti) |
Virginia Kron, Guest Cellist
Program
Vado, ma dove? (Concert Aria) - Mozart
Air Romantique, Voyage à Paris, Hôtel, Les Chemins de l’amour - Poulenc
How Many Little Children Sleep, A Lullaby, Sonnet - Pasatieri
Sabbath Prayer (from Fiddler on the Roof) - Bock
Daybreak (from Three Decembers) - Heggie
If I - Laitman
"The Heart's Reasons" - Three songs for medium voice & piano:
Green, To Be Sung on the Water, Heaven-Haven - Adams
Dream with Me - Bernstein
La mi sola Laureola, Al Amor, Del cabello más sutil, El Vito - Obradors
This performance is underwritten, in part, by the Monimos Foundation. |
Diana Tash, Mezzo-Soprano
"Diana Tash skillfully negotiated the combination of angular melody and Sprechstimme."
-The New York Times
(Long Beach Opera -L'Abandon d'Ariane)... "a radiant Ariane..."
- LA Times, Mark Swed
"Diana Tash made big impact as Mercedes in LA Opera’s 2004 Carmen."
- Lively Arts Magazine
"Stylish, well blended harmonies sung by Diana Tash."
- San Diego Union
"The role of Barbarina in the L. A. Opera production of Le nozze di Figaro was in the appreciative hands
and larynx of Diana Tash"
- L.A. Times
"Diana Tash of the L.A. Opera sings the National Anthem the way it should be sung."
- L.A. Times
American Mezzo-Soprano Diana Tash appears internationally in both operatic roles onstage and as a featured soloist. Her mezzo stage work has been hailed as “radiant” by the Los Angeles Times and “skillful” by the New York Times. On her latest album Bach Woman, produced by The Teshin Company, she appears with the Lyris Quartet, and other baroque string instruments. Home in Los Angeles, she is a sought after voice teacher and guest clinician, appearing in recital all over Southern California (and once at Carnegie Hall, too) with her longtime pianist Armen Guzelimian. Diana and world renowned counter-tenor Brian Asawa released an album of baroque duets “Spirits of the Air” in October 2014, and that year enjoyed critical acclaim with a mini tour that included dates in San Francisco, Los Angeles and in Mexico, at Guadalajara’s famed Teatro Degollado for the annual Festival de Mayo celebration.
Some of her recent work includes two staged performances of Jake Heggie’s CAMILLE CLAUDEL: INTO THE FIRE. Once at Boston Court w/California String Quartet, and once at Festival Opera in Northern California. Composer Jake Heggie maintained that her performances were “ferociously committed,” and that “Diana sang the buhjezzuz out of my score.” Other recent engagements include Music Marin w/NY Philharmonic Violist Cynthia Phelps, and Beethoven 9 as the mezzo soloist with the Korean-American Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Also: Handel’s Messiah as mezzo soloist w/Santa Barbara Choral Society. Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Grant Gershon and the LA Master Chorale at Disney Hall. Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony with the Akron Symphony. Annina in La Traviata with Pacific Symphony. Medoro in Sacramento Opera’s Orlando and Maiden in Long Beach Opera’s Medea. Mrs. Gleaton in Festival Opera’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah.
Early in her career as a soprano, she performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in England with Maestro Stuart Robinson, and at the Aspen Festival with Maestro Lawrence Foster. Shortly after winning the Western Regional Metropolitan Opera Finals, Diana was a Resident Artist with LA Opera from 1992 to 1996. Performances there included: L’elisir d’amore, Cosi Fan Tutte, L’italiana in Algeri, Carmen, Pelléas and Mélisande, Xerxes, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Rigolette, Albert Herring.) She returned in 2004, as Mercedes in Carmen conducted by Placido Domingo. That year, she also worked at San Diego Opera and Opera Pacific in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
She has toured with composer Maria Newman and her Viklarbo String quartet as well as with The Debussy Trio performing the music of Ian Krouse.
Some appearances with famed pianist Armen Guzelimian have included solo recitals for Santa Barbara Opera, at Carnegie Hall in 2008, as well as Los Angeles’s Zipper Hall in 2006, from which a live recording, Diana Tash, in Recital was released on LML records.
Other recordings include Sacred Transitions: A Song Cycle based on the meditations of Harold M. Schulweis, by composer and pianist Russell Steinberg.
Read more at http://www.dianatash.com.
Armen Guzelimian, Pianist
“Guzelimian was understated but superbly detailed and magisterially musical… he is a chamber music master who contributed just the kind of support that makes everyone sound better. His is the discipline and authority that makes freedom possible and responsible, that makes chamber music serve as a grand model for society.”
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Mark Swed, LA Times
“In the Liszt piece, Mr. Guzelimian gave conclusive evidence of a formidable technical competence. He was undaunted and undefeated by any one of the acrobatic hazards which the satanic composer put in his way. But for this pianist, technique is merely a servant. The real goals are musical, not gymnastic.”
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Santa Barbara News Press
“What’s more, Mehta had the estimable solo talents of Armen Guzelimian for the piano concerto of Aram Khachaturian…in a soul-wrenching performance. Beyond his technical command of this full-fisted score, with fleetness and clarity as its principal virtues, the pianist was able to curtail bombast in favor of refinement- without diminishing the full effect. He mined the Eastern motives for all their distantly sad ruminations and found a percussive urgency free of clangor, a forward compulsion infection with emotional heat.”
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Los Angeles Times
Armen Guzelimian is celebrated for his versatility as a top-notch collaborative artist, a brilliant soloist and first-rate chamber musician not only in Southern California, but all over the world. He has received national and international critical acclaim for his appearances in many of the major concert halls in the U.S.A and Europe.
He has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, California Chamber Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, American Youth Symphony, the Pasadena Symphony/Pops Orchestra among others, with such conductors as Neville Marriner, Stuart Challenger, Mehli Mehta, Bruce Ferden and Michael Feinstein.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Guzelimian's has appeared with the Rossetti String Quartet, the Los Angeles String Quartet, Camerata Pacifica, the Dilijan Chamber Music Series, Chamber Music in Historic Sites, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Aspen Festival. He made his Disney Hall debut in March of 2014 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society and returned to the delight of audiences in November 2016.
Mr. Guzelimian has partnered such artists as violinists Viktoria Mullova, Thomas Zehermair, Ani and Ida Kavafian, and violists Lars Tomter and Kim Kashkashian.
Piano vocal partnerships have included appearances and work with such stars as Kiri Te Kanawa, Placido Domingo, Thomas Hampson, Lucia Popp, Florence Quivar, Peter Schreier, Rod Gilfrey, and Marni Nixon.
As a proponent of contemporary music, Mr. Guzelimian has had the privilege of working closely with the great composers Aram Khachaturian, Alan Hovhaness, Tigran Mansurian, Witold Lutoslawski, and most recently with Artur Avanesov. Composers Thomas Pasatieri and Byron Adams have both dedicated works for the pianist: a piano sonata and "Illuminations" for piano, respectively.
A passionate and devoted educator, Mr. Guzelimian has been on the faculty of the USC School of Music, the Music Academy of the West, and as guest lecturer at the Eastman School of Music, Loyola University New Orleans, Aspen Music Festival and School among numerous others where he has imparted his deep knowledge of opera, chamber music and vocal literature.
He has been the principal coach for the young artist program at Paris Opera and has been a master coach at the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera among others. He is frequently invited to sit on the panel of adjudicators for high profile competitions. He is also sought after to give Master Classes and as a private coach for opera and song repertoire.
As a recording artist, Mr. Guzelimian's performances are represented on the EMI, Angel, Teldec, Nonesuch, Delos and Crystal labels. He appears on the documentary film "Shadows in Paradise", as well as on Classical Arts Showcase, PBS and throughout Europe on Arte.
Read more at https://www.armengpianist.com.
Virginia Kron, Cellist
(Photo Credit: Donna Granata)
“Accomplished cellist Virginia Kron ...a cellist of no small talent,
has done her best to keep alive the music of our time.”
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Los Angeles Times
“Kron was hypnotic in the long melodic lines.”
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Santa Barbara News-Press
"Accomplished cellist Virginia Kron ...a cellist of no small talent, has done her best to keep alive the music of our time," said the Los Angeles Times. Critics also praised her for her “warm and supple cello tone”, “great expression”, “intensity, subtlety and selfless musicianship” and “world class sound”. Kron was selected for in depth documentation and filmed interview by Ventura County’s Focus on the Masters.
As a chamber musician Ms. Kron has performed on many series and concerts throughout the southwest and California including the Sedona Chamber Music Festival, Music of the Spheres at the Lick Observatory, and a College Music Society Conference in San Diego. She was a regular contributor to the Current Sounds Consortium and Sundays at Four, a live Los Angeles radio broadcast. Since 1978 Kron has spent most of her summers at music festivals including Aspen, the Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood, Rome, Monterey, Bakersfield, the Ojai Music Festival, the Mozart Festival, Bear Valley and 27 years at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz under the direction of Marin Alsop.
The Cabrillo Festival inspired Virginia to work with living composers, and composers including John Biggs, Leslie Hogan, Linda Holland, David Henderson, Greg Haggard, Scott Hiltzick, Jimmy Calire and Emily Praetorius have written a concerto, three sonatas, piano trios and numerous short pieces and arrangements for her. Her concerto performances include the premier of John Biggs' Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra with New West Symphony. She recorded it in Prague with the Czech National Symphony. She has also recorded for Celtic harpist Kim Robertson, pianist David Henderson and recorded her well reviewed original children's fairy tale The Crystal Harp Kron received her Bachelor's degree in cello performance from the UW-Madison, and her Master's, with a prize in performance, from USC. She is a member of Singer Chamber Players with clarinetist David Singer.
Read more at VirginiaKron.com.
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