Artists/Production Staff
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Artists/Production Staff ROBERTA WAIN-BECKER, GENERAL DIRECTOR Founder of Golden Gate Opera in 1996, Roberta staged productions from 1998-2004 in San Francisco at the Palace of the Legion of Honor Florence Gould Theatre. Since 2005, GGO operas have been performed in Marin County, at the Marin Civic Center theatres. Under her leadership, GGO has presented Madama Butterfly, Carmen, The Telephone, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, and many other fully staged operas. Roberta helped Golden Gate Opera achieve Professional Company Membership in Opera America in 2011. Under her direction GGO produced a new work, Lincoln and Booth, in 2012. She has provided Community Outreach enrichment to school children at a time when funding for the arts in schools is scarce. In her continuing commitment to develop an audience, and to help the art form survive, she has held annual Aria Party Soirees in living rooms to bring more adults into direct contact with opera. Roberta received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern California School of Music. Her professional opera career includes 30 years of international and U.S. regional opera company engagements. Sponsored by the Marin Community Foundation, she attended the University of Indiana Fundraising School in 2006. Golden Gate Opera has won numerous awards for Marketing and Production, as well as the support of foundations, businesses and many generous individuals. In 2008 Roberta initiated GGO’s TV show, “Opera in Your Own Backyard.” She also originated “Opera Story Night at Habitat Books” in Sausalito to develop new fans. JOHN CEPELAK, COMPOSER John’s grandfather was a soloist in the Pilsen Opera in Czechoslovakia, and his mother encouraged John’s early love for classical music and singing. Living in London during the Blitz at 4 years of age, he was drawn to classical music’s peace and beauty and avidly listened to it on the radio. After immigrating to the U.S. at the age of 8, John continued to follow classical music as a youth in New York. He was admitted to the High School of Music and Art in New York where he studied vocal music and orchestration. He sang in the Senior Chorus and with that chorus, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, was given a small solo in a performance of The Second Hurricane by Aaron Copeland. He also sang with that group in Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts on CBS television. John went on to take music courses at NYU. He was in a large chorus, sang in the Glee Club, and toured the southern U.S. in the NYU Varsity Quartet. After a stint in Nepal with the Peace Corps, he settled in California and earned his Master’s degree at UC Berkeley. He continued singing as a member of the Oakland East Bay Symphony Chorus, The San Francisco Bach Choir, and briefly with Slavyanka, a Russian men’s choir. He currently sings in a church choir in Marin. John studied voice under Sharon Davis, formerly of the San Francisco Opera. John began composing seriously in 1991. He has steadily studied orchestration and produced original music compositions on his own for the last twenty-nine years. These include 3 symphonies, a piano concerto, parts of a Mass, numerous songs and song cycles, two operas and a full-length ballet with the story collaboration of his wife Christina Rose. CHRISTINA ROSE, LIBRETTIST Christina was born into a musical family. Her mother was an opera singer, concert soloist and oratorio soloist in New York City. Christina sang classical music and church music from an early age. She was admitted to the High School of Music and Art in New York, where she studied vocal music and orchestration. She sang in Senior Chorus and, with that chorus, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, was given a small solo in a performance of The Second Hurricane by Aaron Copeland. She also sang with that group in Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts on CBS television. She was also given the opportunity to sing an aria on the NYC student radio station. Christina completed a major in music at Queens College of the City University of New York. She was honored with an award her freshman year as best soloist of the year for a performance of the aria “Depuis Le Jour” from the opera Louise by Charpentier, accompanied by the full college symphony orchestra. Coming to California, Christina went on to earn her BA in music and ethnomusicology, with a double major in anthropology, at UCLA, where she performed in a traditional West African percussion band. She then earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in anthropology. Christina has been a piano and a voice teacher in Marin County for 20 years. Her first voice teacher was her opera singer mother, and much credit goes to her for the good tips on vocal technique that Christina passes on to her students. She has taught gospel singing technique and performed all over the Bay Area. She has also recorded three albums as a soloist with the Lighthouse Singers of Marin, with the Gospel Music Worship of America (the largest Black gospel music association in the world), and internationally in Japan. Christina has served as the Minister of Music at Miller Avenue Baptist Church of Mill Valley, CA for the last 30 years. Her original gospel Cantata, Deliverance, was performed and recorded there in 2001, for which she wrote the libretto and music, and also directed and sang. Over the last 15 years Christina has been working with her husband, John Cepelak as his librettist. Most recently her arrangements of spirituals and original music has been added to their opera, Emancipation. JOHN VAN DAAM, VIDEOGRAPHER John Van Daam, founder of California Video Productions, received a BA degree from the SUNY Buffalo and attended graduate school at UCLA and Cal Berkeley. He began as a professional videographer/producer after working for ten years as a community organizer involved with environmental and social justice issues and as an administrator/teacher at New College of California in San Francisco. After staging the first California convention for recycling with the Berkeley Ecology Center, Van Daam became aware of the power of video. He began making tapes about resource recycling. A video about yard waste recycling was shown at the Earth Summit in Brazil. One of his most recent projects involved the creation of a promotional video “business card” for the University of the Pacific’s Brubeck Institute. He also travelled to Italy to make a video slide show for Siena Sojourn, a semester abroad program. California Video Productions generates videos for corporations, schools, universities, organizations and individuals. CVP has worked for the World Health Organization, the Environmental Protection Agency, Digital Equipment, Kaiser Permanente, Prudential Life Insurance, American Express and Fireman's Fund. A series of recruitment tapes was created for the Berkeley Unified School District's Magnet School Program. A promotional tape for the Newport Pacific’s Tiger Fund helped generate $900 million in investment capital. Speeches by Presidents Carter, Reagan and Ford were recorded at their respective Presidential offices for a San Francisco Chamber of Commerce video. His productions include documentaries, signature videos, promotional videos, demonstration and training videos. He also creates special event and family history videotapes. PATRICK BLACKWELL, BASS-BARITONE—Frederick Douglass 2020 Patrick Blackwell continues to expand his impressive repertoire in opera, oratorio and musical theater. His career has seen him engaged by many of the leading opera companies and orchestras of the US and Europe, including appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Los Angeles Opera. Mr. Blackwell trained and studied with Enrico Di Guiseppe at the Juilliard School and began his career as a young artist with the Santa Fe Opera, Houston Opera Studio, the Merola Opera Program with San Francisco Opera, Opera Music Theatre International with Jerome Hines and the Aspen Opera Theatre Center. In Europe Mr. Blackwell has appeared in concert with the Munich Philharmonic in concert performances of Porgy & Bess, conducted by Lorin Maazel and in the Title role Porgy & Bess for New York Harlem Productions’ European tour. Mr Blackwell’s association with this piece is extensive, having appeared as Porgy and in other roles with Utah Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood (conducted by Sir Simon Rattle), Fresno Grand Opera, the Castleton Festival (conducted by Lorin Maazel), Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis and on tour throughout the United States. On the concert platform, Mr. Blackwell made his Carnegie Hall debut as the bass soloist in the world premiere of Earnestine Rodgers Robinson’s Crucifixion in addition to performing works by Mozart at the Arts Festival in North Korea, the Fauré Requiem with the Fresno Philharmonic and Osride in Rossini’s Mose In Egitto with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center in New York City. In the United States, Mr. Blackwell’s operatic engagements have included Leporello Don Giovanni, Colline La Boheme, Zuniga Carmen and Dr. Grenvil La Traviata for New York City Opera, Balthazar Amahl And The Night Visitors for Chamber Opera of Chicago, Utah Opera and Des Moines Metro Opera, 1st Nazarene Salome and Dr. Bartolo Le Nozze Di Figaro for Utah Opera, Joe Showboat and Sarastro Die Zauberfloete for Fresno Grand Opera, Ferrando Il Trovatore for Knoxville Opera, Monterone Rigoletto and Sarastro Die Zauberfloete for Union Avenue Opera, Il Re Aida and Melitone La Forza Del Destino for New Jersey State Opera and Tom Un Ballo In Maschera for New Orleans Opera. With Chicago Lyric Opera Mr.