Brava, Chicana Latina Foundation, & Quinteto Latino Present
¡Chicanísima!
Opera tribute celebrating the life of Olga Talamante
Thursday, May 16, 2024
at 7:30pm on Brava’s Main Stage
Doors at 7pm | Show at 7:30pm
Commissioned and performed by Quinteto Latino, composer Carla Lucero's opera chronicles the life and work of legendary Chicanx leader and LGBTQ+ activist, Olga Talamante. The opera explores her journey from working the garlic fields as a child in Gilroy, California, to her decades of activism in the US, Mexico, and in Argentina, where she became a political prisoner. Ultimately, Olga frees herself from the psychological hold of her captors and releases her heart from 40 years of suppressing the memories of violence perpetrated against her. She finally finds peace, and in the process of healing, the love of her life, Vola. Soprano Aléxa Anderson, tenor Eric Levintow, and mezzo-soprano Jessica Gonzalez-Rodriguez make up the cast for the premiere of this important work.
The ¡Chicanísima! Opera is part of Chicana Latina Foundation's Voices of Resistance series.
There will be a panel discussion after the Opera followed by a reception in the lobby with light refreshments and an opportunity to meet the musicians, singers, Carla, and Olga.
ARTists
Aléxa Anderson - soprano
Eric Levintow - tenor
Jessica Gonzalez-Rodriguez - mezzo-soprano
Quinteto Latino
Armando Castellano - french horn, hand drum
Diane Grubbe - flute, ocarina
Kyle Bruckmann - oboe
Leslie Tagorda - clarinet
Jamael Smith - bassoon
Carla Lucero - composer, librettist and director
Tickets
$25 - $100
fees not included
ABout
Aléxa Anderson is a soprano with a voice described by Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) as a "magical gift," and "glorious," based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has soloed with companies such as the San Francisco Symphony, Apollo Symphony, Gradus ad Parnassum, the San Francisco Opera Guild, West Edge Opera, Golden Gate Opera, Lamplighters Music Theatre, Pocket Opera, West Bay Opera, Lyric Theatre of San Jose, and Opera Cultura singing the roles of Mimi (La Bohéme), Musetta (La Bohéme), Nedda (I Pagliacci), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Die Königen der Nacht (Die Zauberflöte), Mariana (Das Liebesverbot), Melisande (Ariane et Barbe-Bleue), Phyllis (Iolanthe), Princess Ida (Princess Ida), Adina (L'Elisir d'amore), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Sara (La Llorona), among others. Upcoming engagements include covering the role of Rosalba (Florencia en el Amazonas) with Opera San José, and creating the role of Olga Talamante in ¡Chicanísima! with Quinteto Latino. Aléxa has an active teaching life, consistently training award winning singers and performers of high caliber. She lives in the tiny coastal town of El Granada, spends her free time on fiber arts (flatbed machine knitting), and has four opera-loving cats.
Eric Levintow is a tenor from the San Francisco Bay Area. He worked with Carla Lucero in the 2019 premiere of her opera Juana (Bishop of Puebla) at Opera UCLA. Recent roles include Borsa in Rigoletto (Opera San Jose), Spoletta in Tosca (Pocket Opera), Nemorino in The Elixir of Love (SF Opera Guild), Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (West Bay Opera), First Sailor in Dido and Aeneas (Opera San Jose), Rodolfo in La boheme (SF Opera Guild), Alfredo (cover) in La traviata (West Bay Opera). Eric is an AGMA member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus, and will appear this season in Un ballo in maschera, Tristan und Isolde, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Carmen.
Jessica Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Mexican-American Mezzo- Soprano, “Both strong of technique and elegant of presence” (New City Stage) “A particular highlight” (Operawire). Ms. Gonzalez -Rodriguez recently made her Carnegie Hall debut performing selections from Carmen and Madama Butterfly with the Vincerò Academy. She was a semi-finalist in the 2022 Loren L. Zachary competition and is a multiple Opera Buffs grant recipient. She made her Opera Santa Barbara mainstage debut in October of 2021 as Renata in Cruzar la cara de la Luna and reprised her role in October of 2023. Highlight engagements include Gr imgerde in Die Walküre with the Dramatic Voices Program in Berlin, Germany, Tina in La Muerte with Opera Cultura, Gertrude in Roméo et Juliette with the Lyric Opera of Orange County, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro with the 2021 International Summer Opera Festival of Morelia, where she studied with superstar Soprano, Jennifer Rowley, Eufemia in Bizet ’s Don Procopio with Pacific Opera Project , Frida Kahlo in Frida with the 2019 Opera Steamboat Summer Intensive.
Diane Grubbe freelances throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a regular performer with Pocket Opera and has also appeared with the Stockton Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley, Lamplighters, Festival Opera, and others. Drawn to the evolving tonal possibilities of the flute, Diane enjoys improvising as well as studying and performing new works. She often performs with the contemporary music ensemble sfSound, and has been a guest performer with Earplay, the Eco Ensemble, Santa Cruz New Music Works, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Diane holds Bachelor and Masters degrees in flute performance from San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Conservatory, respectively. Her instructors include Paul Renzi, Lloyd Gowen and Tim Day of the San Francisco Symphony; and Barbara Chaffe and Jim Walker of the San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestras. She has performed in masterclasses with Julius Baker, Heinz Holliger, Robert Dick and Robert Stallman.
Kyle Bruckmann's work as a composer/performer, educator, classical freelancer and new music specialist extends from conservatory-trained foundations into gray areas encompassing free jazz, post-punk rock, and the noise underground. Beyond Quinteto Latino, his current ensemble affiliations include Splinter Reeds, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, sfSound, Eco Ensemble, and the Stockton Symphony.
Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area from Chicago in 2003, he has performed as a substitute with the San Francisco Symphony and most of the area’s regional orchestras while remaining active within an international community of improvisers and sound artists, appearing on more than 100 recordings of various genres. He is now Assistant Professor of Practice in Oboe and Contemporary Performance and Program Director of Varied Ensembles at University of the Pacific.
Bruckmann earned undergraduate degrees in music and psychology at Rice University in Houston, studying oboe with Robert Atherholt and serving as music director of campus radio station KTRU. He completed his Master's degree in 1996 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied oboe performance with Harry Sargous and contemporary improvisation with Ed Sarath.
Leslie Tagorda was born and raised in Hawaii, received a B.M. in Clarinet Performance from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In her long career as musician, Leslie has worked as both educator and performer. In Hawaii, Leslie worked with the Royal Hawaiian Band, the Hawaii Opera Theater, and the Honolulu Symphony as a freelance clarinetist. In the Bay Area, Leslie has freelanced with regional orchestras including the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, Sacramento Opera, Modesto Symphony, Marin Symphony, Monterey Symphony, California Symphony, New Century Chamber Orchestra and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Currently Leslie concentrates her musical time to chamber music including Quinteto Latino. When not busy with music, Leslie runs a branding and design studio, New Moon Creative Co. where she weaves astrology and design into strategies for small businesses and nonprofits to lead with purpose and impact.
Armando Castellano is a professional French horn player, arts advocate and bilingual teaching artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a professional musician, he is active internationally as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestral performer. Armando is the founder and artistic director of Quinteto Latino, a national advocacy organization whose mission is to “disrupt racial and economic disparities within the classical music field”. He actively advocates on behalf of musicians of color in the U.S. through direct mentorship as well as leading QL’s fellows programming. His equity work is far reaching and tireless, speaking nationally on issues impacting BIPOC classical musicians, giving workshops on culturally relevant arts education and cultural expression in the arts, and consulting on organization diversity. He currently sits on several boards nationally, including as a founding board member and most recent past board chair of the Donors of Color Network. Armando recently sunsetted his family foundation after more than 2 decades of giving to Latino lead nonprofits in Santa Clara County and advocating nationally on Latino issues in Philanthropy.
Jamael Smith is a performer and educator based in San Francisco. They have played with various ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony, California Symphony as well as the San Francisco Contemporary Players. Jamael is a member of the conductorless chamber orchestra One Found Sound, as well as the woodwind quintet Avenue Winds. They have attended summer festivals such as the Kent Blossom Summer Festival and the Pierre Monteux Festival. They completed graduate studies with Stephen Paulson and have also studied with Seth Krimsky and Bill Buchman.
Carla Lucero Originally from Los Angeles, Carla Lucero studied composition at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) with composers Rand Steiger, Morton Subotnick, and Leonard Rosenman.
Lucero’s first opera, WUORNOS, about Aileen Wuornos, America’s first female serial killer, premiered in San Francisco in 2001, winning “10 Best of Stage” from The Advocate and OUT magazines. She also was awarded a Creative Work Fund grant from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund for the creation of the opera.
Her second opera, Juana, with co-librettist Alicia Gaspar de Alba, premiered in 2019 with Opera UCLA, winning a place in the “12 Best of Fall” by the LA Times. Juana, a Spanish language opera about 17th century Mexican feminist icon, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, had its New York premiere in 2022 with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. Lucero received OPERA America’s Discovery Grant for Juana.
Her third opera, Las Tres Mujeres de Jerusalén (The Three Women of Jerusalem), a Spanish language opera based on The Passion, was commissioned by LA Opera and premiered in 2022. Lucero’s fourth opera, t o u c h, is about DeafBlind American writer and human rights activist, Helen Keller. The libretto is co-written with Marianna Mott Newirth and premieres in 2024 with Opera Birmingham. Lucero received the 2022 Women Composers Commissioning Grant from OPERA America for the work.
She is currently commissioned to create four operas: ¡Chicanísima!, commissioned by Quinteto Latino, premiering 2024 in San Francisco; The Tower of Babel, a second commission by LA Opera, premiering 2025 in Los Angeles - (Lucero also received her second OPERA America Women Composers Commissioning Grant for The Tower of Babel); Hello, Star, (Jarrod Lee, librettist), commissioned by Opera Paralléle, premiering 2026 in San Francisco; and Tea, commissioned by Hawai’i Opera Theatre, (Velina Hasu Houston, librettist), to premiere 2027 in Honolulu.
In March 2024, The Wilshire Ebell Theatre of Los Angeles will remount The Everywhere of Her, a children’s musical drama created with Velina Hasu Houston, originally commissioned and produced by The Ebell in 2023. For three decades, Carla Lucero has also continued to compose music for dance and for music-driven films. She recently collaborated in Prague with Soprano, Michelle Allie Drever, to record “Sin Voz”, an aria from Juana. The recording will be released on Navona Records in 2024, along with a film of the same title, created by Carson Gilmore of Vox Visceralis.
about Quinteto Latino
Quinteto Latino is a regionally and nationally recognized classical wind ensemble based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2004 by philanthropist and musician, Armando Castellano, we exist to disrupt long-standing racial and cultural disparities within the classical music field and drive this change by championing past, present, and future musical contributions by Latino composers and musicians. Since our founding, we have grown into a hub for Activism, Education, and Performance.