Arias, Arias and MORE Arias! Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano, and Tanya Stambuk, piano

TACOMA, Wash. – Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano, and Tanya Stambuk, piano, will present vocal works from across the ages, including favorite arias from some of the world’s masters of composition. The evening will feature various character types for the mezzo-soprano operatic voice through the performance of representative arias.

The Jacobsen Series concert, Arias, Arias, and MORE Arias!, will be held at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 6, in Schneebeck Concert Hall, at the University of Puget Sound. Everyone is welcome, and ticket information is below.

Joining Puget Sound School of Music faculty members Dawn Padula and Tanya Stambuk will be Gwynne Kuhner Brown ’95, associate professor of music history and music theory. Brown will provide lively commentary on the arias, background, and what audiences might listen for during the performance.

The evening will include A Dio, Roma, from L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea, by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi of the late Renaissance era; Presti Ormai from Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar), by German-born George Frideric Handel, of the Baroque period; and Che farò senza Euridice?, from Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice), by Christopher Willibald von Gluck, composer of Italian and French operas in the early classical period.

Also on the program will be The Principessa’s Aria, from Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), by Giacomo Puccini, probably the most famous of Italian opera composers; Perfect as we are, from Little Women, by contemporary American composer Mark Adamo; and Baba’s Aria, from The Medium, by Gian Carlo Menotti, the Italian-American who composed operas that appealed to popular taste.

What a Movie!, from Trouble in Tahiti, by Leonard Bernstein, worldwide-acclaimed American composer, conductor, and pianist will also be among the pieces presented, along with other well-known (and some lesser-known) mezzo-soprano arias.

Dawn Padula has performed many of the major mezzo-soprano operatic roles, including Carmen in Carmen, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Erika in Vanessa, and Isabella in L’Italiana Algeri. She has also performed extensively as a soloist in oratorios, such as Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, and orchestral pieces, including the requiems of Mozart and Duruflé. Padula has sung with the Houston Grand Opera, Tacoma Opera, Kitsap Opera, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Amarillo Opera, Alamo City Men’s Chorale, Opera in Houston's Heights, and Living Opera Company of Dallas, among others. She received her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music.

Tanya Stambuk, a piano professor, has enjoyed a concert career performing across the United States and Eastern and Western Europe. In addition to appearing on radio and television, she has performed with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, France; Virginia Symphony Orchestra; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra of Norway; Seattle Symphony Orchestra; and others. Stambuk recorded Norman Dello Joio and won the international piano competition at Auditório Nacional Carlos Alberto in Portugal. She is a member of Finisterra Piano Trio, which recorded the complete piano trios of Daron Hagen. National Public Radio named the recording one of the “5 Best American Contemporary Classical Albums of 2010.” Stambuk holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Rutgers University.

Gwynne Kuhner Brown ’95 is a musicologist, pianist, and mbira player special in American concert music of the 20th century. Her dissertation on George Gershwin's masterpiece, Porgy, and Bess, led her to investigate the African-American musicians who were Gershwin's inspiration. Brown is writing a book on the life and works of William Dawson, famed director of the Tuskegee Institute Choir, creator of arrangements of religious folk songs, and composer of the Negro Folk Symphony. Brown has presented her scholarship at national meetings of the American Musicological Society and Society for American Music. Her writing has been published in the Journal of the Society for American Music and the 2012 book Blackness in Opera.

The Jacobsen Series, named in honor of Leonard Jacobsen, former chair of the piano department at Puget Sound, has been running since 1984. The Jacobsen Series Scholarship Fund awards annual music scholarships to outstanding student performers and scholars. The fund is sustained entirely by season subscribers and ticket sales.

FOR TICKETS: Tickets are available online at tickets.pugetsound.edu or Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.3100. Admission is $15 for the general public; $10 for seniors (55+), students, military, and Puget Sound faculty and staff. The concert is free for current Puget Sound students. Group ticket rates are available for parties of 10 or more by calling 253.879.3555 in advance. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.

For directions and a map of the campus: pugetsound.edu/directions
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3236, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of Dawn Padula and Tanya Stambuk can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page: From top right: Coronation of Poppea opera (photo by Cammenina42); Dawn Padula, Tanya Stambuk; Gwynne Kuhner Brown (photo by Ross Mulhausen)

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