Friday, February 24th at 7:30pm, UNCG Auditorium, FREE ADMISSION Kevin M. Geraldi, conductor Jill Bowen Gardner, soprano Stephanie Foley Davis, mezzo-soprano Daniel Stein, tenor David Weigel, bass UNCG Symphony Orchestra and Choirs with original digital artwork provided by the UNCG School of Art
“I think particularly, in these times, why this piece is so good is because everyone, on some level, is suffering—even if it’s in the most private way. Somebody is going through something all of the time. And Blanche, for me, is always trying to find a way to overcome that suffering, and to hide that suffering, and to make beautiful that suffering. When she comes undone in that process, what I want people to leave the theater thinking about is really wanting to show empathy to people and really recognizing that you don’t know what anybody is going through. Many people are going to be bullies and take advantage of the…
Jill and Jake head to their old stomping grounds of Binghamton, NY to sing with Binghamton Philharmonic in the annual Home for the Holidays Concert. Read about this annual tradition in Chris Kocher’s article here…
TowniesWS blogger, Andrea Littel shares an insightful conversation of LOVE and PASSION with Jill and Jake Gardner. Both are singing title roles in TOSCA with Piedmont Opera this weekend. Read the full interview on the Townies blog…
Music fills their days. They rise up singing, and Jake and Jill Gardner, two of the stars in Piedmont Opera’s “Tosca” that opens Friday, spend most of their time making beautiful music, playing beautiful music or thinking about beautiful music. Jill, who has a bachelor’s degree in piano performance, often accompanies them when they are practicing for performances. Jake warms up his bass-baritone voice on songs like “The Rose of Tralee,” a 19th-century Irish ballad. Jill slides with apparent ease into a passage from “Tosca.” Read the full article by Lynn Felder of the Winston-Salem Journal here…
The opera powerhouse couple, Jill and Jake Gardner, who live in Kernersville, have performed the opera together all over the country. They will reprise their starring roles in an upcoming performance of TOSCA with Winston-Salem’s Piedmont Opera. “…Jill and Jake Gardner have graced the stages of opera houses throughout the world, including previous performances of “Tosca.” In a fortunate twist of fate, the husband and wife reside in Kernersville, just a stone’s throw from where they will reprise their roles as Tosca and Scarpia. “The Piedmont Opera is my home,” says Jill, adding that the first opera she ever saw was “Carmen” at Reynolds Auditorium. “Working here is the greatest delight, because we…
Team Gardner, perform in Indianapolis Opera’s premiere of HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE: “The cast knew what they had to do, and seemed fully invested in the show both dramatically and vocally. Jake Gardner maintained stunning bravado with the right hints of vulnerability as Harold Ryan.” “A crucial aspect of the action comes from the world beyond, a heaven that clearly was also beyond Vonnegut’s capacity for belief. It’s a paradise of bland pleasures flecked with the occasional harmless disaster, such as the tornado that the third Mrs. Ryan (given a fine tipsy lilt by Jill Gardner) tells us about.” Read the full review at Jay Harvey Upstage…
Wonderful and informative article on the upcoming Vonnegut premier, HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE, with Indianapolis Opera. “He (Vonnegut) constantly told me (Composer Richard Auldon Clark) “The words are important. The story is the most important.” Read the full article from the Indy Star here.
Happy Birthday Wanda June began life as a play by Kurt Vonnegut in October 1971 at New York’s Theater de Lys. The play was Vonnegut’s first attempt at a stage work. Written to protest the Vietnam War in 1970, the play blends the sacred and the profane to produce off-the-wall and strangely funny satires. Wanda’s plot is based loosely on the Greek legends of Odysseus and Penelope—it involves the unexpected return of a mercenary career solider/hunter named Harold Ryan and his wife, Penelope. When Harold left Penelope, she was a ditzy carhop; when he returns after eight years lost in the Amazon, he finds that she has gone to college, majored in…
Greensboro Opera and Eastern Music Festival present, Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. Greensboro Opera favorites Jill Bowen Gardner, Stephanie Foley Davis and Scott MacLeod, under the direction of Greensboro Opera Artistic Director David Holley, thrill and entertain with the music of Bizet, Verdi, Menotti, and more—followed by musical theater treats by Claude-Michel Schönberg (Les Misérables), Jule Styne (Gypsy) and others! The most famous operatic gypsy? Carmen, of course! Our audience will be treated to famous excerpts such as the Habañera and the “Toreador Song,” along with selections sung by other shady and suspicious operatic characters. After intermission, let us entertain you with musical theatre favorites from Gyspy, Babes in Arms, Les Miserables, and more!…