Artistic director/spinto soprano Vismaya Lhi – (Rosario La Gatita) was adopted into the U.S. from South Korea when she was a small child. Although she was having serious language problems when she first arrived, her mother says that she sang complete songs off the radio before speaking her first English words. She garnered top honors and her degrees from the University of California at Santa Cruz and continued her professional vocal studies with Lilyan Loran. She has sung in Italy, Mexico, Canada and across the U.S. in concert, opera and theatre. Venues and musical organizations have included Andanza Spanish Arts, Phénix Opera, Verismo Opera, The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Theatre Flamenco, The Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, The Cabrillo Music Festival and the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival. In addition, she has premiered new works by various composers including Five Songs on poems by Gabriela Mistral by Dusan Bogdanovic at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City; these songs were written and dedicated to her. During the last years of his life, she worked closely with the late Joaquin Nin-Culmell (who was the last living student of Manuel Falla) for whom she premiered and recorded several new songs. Production/Conducting credits include Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Leoncavallo’s – I Pagliacci and Puccini’s – Madama Butterfly. Onstage Opera roles include the title roles in Tosca and Carmen, Leonora – Il Trovatore, Santuzza – Cavalleria Rusticana and Amelia – Un Ballo in Maschera. As the founder/Artistic director of Teatro Mistral, she envisions an ongoing intersection and reconception of music, opera-theatre and dance.
Danica Sena – dancer/choreographer director (Antonia La Marchita) an internationally-acclaimed Master flamenco and Spanish dance teacher, choreographer and performer. Having resided in Spain for a decade (1990-2000), her intrinsic cultural understanding of the art she imparts combined with a unique methodology and passion for teaching has made her one of the most-solicited in her field. She has created, performed and produced over 200 original works for television, independent film and stage in Spain, Japan, Czech Republic, Mexico and the United States. While residing in Spain she was selected among 5000 national auditioners to perform alongside 120 artists in Japan. During this two-year contract Ms. Sena founded the “Ago Arena Festival” in Ugata, a free, 2-day performance which showcased the choreographic talents of emerging young Spanish artists. Her film “Continuum” was featured in San Francisco’s 2014 debut of the Tiny Dance Film Festival and the following “Light Interrupted” received widespread acclaim. Classical/Opera credits include “The Nutcracker”, “La Traviata”, “Carmen”, “Don Quijote”, ‘’La Vida Breve”, “El Amor Brujo”. Zarzuela credits include “La Rosa del Azafran”, “Agua, Azucar y Aguardiente”, “El Zapatero Prodigioso”. In February of 2017 she was awarded a 3-week residency in Dallas to choreograph and perform in Orchestra of New Spain’s “Misa Flamenca, From the Cathedral to the Streets”, a groundbreaking fusion of Baroque composition, contemporary ballet, live flamenco from Spain and digital projections of paintings by emerging Mexican artist Juan Carlos del Valle. In April of 2017 she was brought as guest artist to collaborate with Madison’s renowned Kanopy Dance in the groundbreaking fusion production of “Snapshots of Spain”. Ms. Sena is the founder and artistic director of performing company, Andanza Spanish Arts, resident choreographer for Her Rebel Highness, an original SF musical revue, and a proud faculty member since 2004 of ODC, a groundbreaking contemporary arts institution with longstanding roots in the San Francisco dance community. Ms. Sena has acted as adjunct faculty member of Dominican University, University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. She is the winner of the 2014 San Francisco Bay Area Dancer’s Choice Award. On June 8th, 2017 she performed as an exclusive guest artist for the Almería-based international design company Cosentino San Francisco Grand Opening ceremony. She is honored and proud to be considered a cultural ambassador to Spain via the bi-continental communities she has created and continues to foment as a result of a passionate and lifelong dedication to Flamenco and Spanish dance.
Tristan Robben, baritone – (Giacomo Fernández)
A heroic baritone, Mr. Robben specializes in the high flying tessitura of Verdi. He has sung with numerous companies in the Bay Area including North Bay Opera, Bay Shore Lyric, Verismo Opera, Goat Hall Productions and Teatro Mistral. He counts Escamillo (Carmen), The Count di Luna (Il Trovatore), Alfio (Cavalleria Rusticana) , Iago (Otello), Michele (Il Tabarro), Scarpia (Tosca), Renato (Un Ballo in Maschera), Fafner (Das Rheingold), Tonio (I Pagliacci) and Ford (Falstaff) in his onstage repertoire.
Lea Nayak – soprano (Lea/Bellota) is a young star on the rise currently in the classical vocal department at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. Studying under Rhoslyn Jones, she’s had many opportunities to participate in her school’s numerous choir ensembles and opera scenes performances. In December, she played Queen of the Night in an abridged production of the Magic Flute at SOTA, and she will be performing this May with the Bay Area Vocal Academy. Raised by a Spanish mother, she was eager to learn more about Spanish artistic traditions through studying flamenco dance under Danica Sena, and is ecstatic to partake in this opportunity to share this piece of Spain with the audience.
Zoltan DiBartolo comes from a long and diverse vocal background that spans 20 years and includes the genres of classical, jazz, pop, salsa, cabaret, and vaudeville, with his greatest loves being tango and opera. In addition to singing with the Bay Area’s acclaimed Tango Number Nine, DiBartolo has appeared on the stages of various local opera companies, playing Rigoletto’s Duke of Mantua, Carmen’s El Remendado, Cavalleria rusticana’s Turiddu, Tosca’s Cavaradossi, Madama Butterfly’s B.F. Pinkerton, and Un ballo in maschera’s Riccardo (all with Verismo Opera Co.), La Traviata’s Gastone and La Boheme’s Shaunard (both with Virago Theater Co.), and Enrico Caruso in The Last Night of The Barbary Coast (with Idora Park Theater Co.). Most recently, Zoltan is excited to announce his new gig as a singing gondolier on Oakland’s Lake Merritt. (gondolaservizio.com)
Osvaldo de Leon Davila – pianist (Dardo Aguirre) is the Artistic Director and founder of Phénix Opera Company. He was the recipient of the Mexican National Fund for Culture and Arts grant in 2011 to finish his graduate studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU); The Avalos Award in 2010 after his interpretation of Latin American Music; and the Concerto Competition at SFSU in 2010; the FINANCIARTE grant in 2006 to produce, direct the opera “La Voix Humaine” by Francis Poulenc; and the Mexican National Fund for Culture and Arts grant in 2003 to study a year at the University of Texas in Austin. In Mexico he was admired due to his capacity to approach solo repertoire as well as to perform chamber music, accompany singers and instrumentalists, coach opera, and direct choirs both amateur and professional. He has performed with the Russian Chamber Orchestra in Marin California, the Orquesta Filarmonica de Sonora, The San Francisco State University Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Nuevo Leon, the Orquesta Juvenil de Nuevo Leon. He has appeared at the Festival Ceiba in Tabasco, Mexico, Encuentro Internacional de Opera in Coahuila, the Vocal Cycle at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, the Festival Cultural Tamaulipas, Spring Festival of Radio Nuevo Leon, and the Festival Rio de Bravo in Coahuila. He has conducted with Verismo Opera in Vallejo, CA the productions of Madama Butterfly by G. Puccini, and Il Tabarro by G. Puccini. He conducted with Berkeley Chamber Opera the production of The Marriage of Figaro. He recently has been working at Spindrift School of Performing Arts as Musical Director for their musical theater productions such as A Chorus Line and Seussical the Musical. Osvaldo de Leon finished his Bachelor´s degree in Piano Performance at Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey, México and his Master’s degree in Piano Performance and Chamber Music at San Francisco State University. His teachers have been Gerardo Antonio González, Naoya Seino, Gregory Allen and Dr. Roger Woodward. He also has studies in composition under the guidance of Jorge Torres and Georgina Derbez.
David Páez, guitar – El Corbata. Born in a Flamenco family in Cordoba, Spain, where he started to learn guitar in the school of Merengue de Cordoba at the age of 13. David has been mostly dedicated to accompanying dancers, highlighting a tour with Paco Peña’s Company in Greece. He played also for Antonio Alcazar & Victoria Palacios (Premios Nacionales de Flamenco) and their company for many years, and Yolanda Osuna among others in Cordoba. He has also played for Alberto Ferrero (soloist of the Spanish National Ballet of Spain) and Lucia Guarnido (first dancer in Eva “la Yerbabuena” ‘s company) in Madrid. Outside Spain, David also played for the company of Viviana Medina in Chile and right now with the wonderful artist of the Bay Area such as Fanny Ara, Melissa Cruz, Yaelisa, Christina Hall, Carola Zertuche, Kerensa de Mars, la Tania, and others. He has also accompanied singers in different events including Pedro Obregon (Compañia de Rafael Amargo), El Almendro (“premio melón de oro de Lo Ferro”), Churumbaque hijo (“Premio Lámpara Minera de la Unión”), among others. Since 2010 David lives in the Bay Area playing with all the talented singers in the area (Kina Mendez, Felix de Lola, Jose Cortes …), the above-mentioned US-based dancers, and as a soloist.
Clara Hsu poet and director of Clarion Music Performing Arts Center – Clara/Buckeye Moon
Clara Hsu is a mother, piano teacher, traveler, translator and poet.
Her poetic activities include combining Chinese poetry with Asian traditional instruments. Her latest publication is Lao-Tzu’s Tao-te Ching, Translations and Infusions, taking the ancient texts for a
wild ride in the twenty-first century.