'Carmen'-Themed CHIME Gala Is Almost Sold Out

By Shirley Rexrode

Please join CHIME (Citizens Highly Interested in Music Education) for a wonderful Spanish, Carmen-themed evening of instrumental and vocal music presented by Piedmont High School alumni and Piedmont musicians. Rub shoulders with the cast from PHS's recent production of Bye, Bye, Birdie while enjoying wine, champagne, appetizers and a light supper catered by Jing Piser at the historical Piedmont estate of Maria Canizales and VIcki and Robbie Diaz on March 31 from 5 to 8 pm.

Tickets can be purchased by clicking on the eventbrite link at our website, www.chimeofpiedmont.org. Please contact shirleyrexrode@mac.com at 510-482-4883 with any questions.

Among those performing this year is mezzo-soprano Sophia Chew, a 2005 alumna of Piedmont High School.

Chew recently appeared as a soloist for the East Bay Opera League’s annual holiday luncheon at the Bellevue Club of Oakland. She also performs with the national non-profit group “Opera on Tap” at monthly stage parties at Café Royale in San Francisco.

This summer, Chew will make her young artist debut with Opera Theatre Pittsburgh as 3rd Lady in The Magic Flute and will understudy the role of Mercedes in Carmen.

Her 2012 summer tour will continue to the Far East, where she will spend nearly two months as a young artist in China with the "I Sing Beijing" program. Once in Beijing, she will coach modern Chinese operatic repertoire, receive daily Mandarin and acting classes, and perform a concert with full orchestra at the National Performing Arts Center that will include Western-style work as well as modern Chinese opera, song and literature.

Chew holds a bachelor of music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as well as a master's degree in music, which she received in May 2011 under the tutelage of César Ulloa (whom Frederica Von Stade labeled “the guardian angel of singers” in the February issue of San Francisco Classical Voice.

During her time at the conservatory, Sophia showed incredible range and flexibility in addition to a brilliant voice to Ruggiero’s nine arias while successfully conveying the mixed personalities of the character in Handel’s Alcina. Other highlights include Nireno in Giulio Cesare, 2nd Lady in The Magic Flute, Charlotte in Werther, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni.

Previous operatic credits include master classes with the American Bach Soloists director Jeffrey Thomas and Lotfi Mansouri, former general director of the San Francisco Opera. She has studied with faculty members from the Cincinnati Conservatoy of Music, Northwestern University and the UCLA School of Music.

In addition to her traditional performances, Chew has performed jazz standards at fashion, cultural and popular music events and has performed at the Fox Theater, where she was a soloist at the grand reopening in 2009.

Other Piedmont musicians who will perform at this year's CHIME gala include Jonathan Ring, second horn with the San Francisco Symphony; Ian Swensen, violinist, a Julliard and Eastman alumnus who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; Nik Nackley, PHS 1997 alum, baritone; Jennifer S. Kay,  PHS 2000 alum, mezzo-soprano; and a string quartet consisting of current PHS students Emily Bang, Sophia El-Wakil, June Park and Spencer Kim.

CHIME has been supporting music and drama in Piedmont schools since 1968 when Alan Harvey taught at PUSD and Art Hecht became CHIME’s first president.

It is one of the city's oldest support organizations and past board members are still supporting CHIME because of their love of the performing arts and the fond memories of their childrens’ participation in school concerts, musicals, and plays. This year's gala poster was designed by a past (1980s) CHIME president, Cathy Dinnean, whose kids went through Piedmont schools and who still lives in Piedmont.

Most recently, CHIME underwrote part of the cost to perform Birdie at PHS, helped create and is underwriting the after-school band and orchestra clinics for minimum days at Piedmont Middle School, contributed towards the effort to take A Streetcar Named Desire to Edinburgh, invited CHIME members and the community to an educational evening of music with the Cypress String Quartet and helped save the endangered fourth grade instrument rotation from being cut last year.