Opera & Broadway Gala!

– Leading American opera stars will perform at St. John’s Church in Hillsdale, NJ for an Opera & Broadway Gala on Saturday, June 13, 2015 at 8pm at the 2015 St. John’s Arts Festival. Admission is free for this event.

The concert will feature favorite arias and songs from Carmen, Rigoletto, Lohengrin, Don Giovanni, Barber of Seville, Phantom of the Opera, Carousel, South Pacific, Dreamgirls, and Songs from a New World. Featured singers are mezzo-soprano Sara Louise Petrocelli, dramatic soprano Brittany Hines-Hill, tenor Cody Austin, and baritone Chad Armstrong. Other special guest singers will also be present.

Sara Louise Petrocelli, mezzo-soprano, was most recently seen on stage at the MET in Borodin’s Prince Igor. In the 2013-2014 season, she debuted in La clemenza di Tito with NYC’s dell’Arte Ensemble, and performed in Le nozze di Figaro with Western Plains Opera. In 2012 she was named a district winner in the MET Opera National Council Auditions. In the upcoming 2014-2015 Season, Sara debuts in the role of Beppe in Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz with Winter Opera St. Louis, and returns to Western Plains Opera in the title role in Carmen, and to the MET in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, conducted by Maestro James Levine.

Brittany Hines-Hill, dramatic soprano, received international acclaim as the winner of the 2008 Meistersinger (Wagnerian) Competition in Graz, Austria, and has since appeared with US regional opera companies with leading roles in Cavalleria rusticana, Don Giovanni, La Fille du Regiment and Verdi’s Luisa Miller. She was a 2011 National Semi-finalist with the Metropolitan Opera National Council. She spent the summer of 2013 with the Princeton Opera Festival. Seattle Opera’s David McDade described Ms. Hines-Hill’s voice in the Seattle Times, “wow — a big, vibrant, thrilling voice.”

Cody Austin, tenor, recently made his debuts in leading tenor roles in Eugene Onegin with Des Moines Metro Opera, La tragédie de Carmen with Shreveport Opera, La traviata and Roméo et Juliette with Lyric Opera of Virginia, The Abduction from the Seraglio with Opera Grand Rapids, La traviata with Utah Opera, and with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Mr. Austin’s voice is described as possessing “a warm, rich quality produced with an evenness that is rare.” He has been featured in concert engagements with the New Jersey Master Chorale, the Ambler Symphony, Jupiter Symphony of New York, Ocean City Pops, as well as Peter Nero and the Philly Pops in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven’s Irish Songs, Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass and Verdi’s Requiem.

Chad Armstrong, baritone, made his European debuts with Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Italy and the Teatro Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Italy in the title role of Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero. He triumphed in his 2013 debut in the title role of Rigoletto with Annapolis Opera, with reviews raving about his “powerful singing” and “warm resonance,”. In the 2014-2015 Season, Mr. Armstrong reprised the title role of Rigoletto with Northshore Music Festival, then to Western Plains Opera to sing in Carmen, and finally to Winter Opera St. Louis as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro. The MET Opera Guild recently presented him to sing excerpts from Guillaume Tell and Rigoletto.

The St. John’s Arts Festival on June 13 & 14 is the vision of present pastor Rev. John Korbelak. Music offerings this year inculde: Saturday, June 13 at 2:30pm, the renowned Glukh-Petrides Duo, trumpet-keyboards-soprano will perform jazz, Argentinean tangos, Torelli, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff; Saturday, June 13 at 6:30pm the very young concert pianist prodigy, Brielle Dulce Perez, will perform works of Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy and Scriabin; on Sun., June 14 at 2pm the flamenco-blues guitarist, Tony Rivera will perform traditional flamenco classics, contemporary sacred music, as well as music by Train, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Zeppelin. All of these performances are free of charge.

The Festival Art Gallery will be open Saturday, June 13 from 1pm until 8pm and Sunday, June 14, from 9am to 4pm. A combination of age groups, open themed, two- and three- dimensional work, and unrestricted medium will allow for an exciting and visually diverse show. Artist exhibition contracts are available at the doors of St John the Baptist RC Church for artists wishing to exhibit. St. John the Baptist Church is located at 69 Valley Street, Hillsdale NJ. For more information, please email stjohnhillsdale.events@gmail.com.