Act Too Studio Opera Workshop Presents: 24 Italian Songs & Arias
Live & livestreamed for #GivingTuesday, Act Too Studio Opera Workshop students perform the G. Schirmer anthology 24 Italian Songs and Arias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in its entirety, as a fundraiser for their 2016-2017 workshop season, including their adaptation of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, coming up in the summer of 2017.
The event features current workshop members (ages 13-18), singing this time-honored anthology in full, with bonus songs from its updated version, 28 Italian Songs and Arias, as special rewards to be performed throughout the evening as our fundraising benchmarks are reached!
Local Supporters: Please bring and USE your smartphones during the performance to encourage your friends and family to support our students’ efforts! Cake and other snacks will be provided! Act Too Studio merchandise will be for sale at the venue as well!
All Supporters: This event will be LIVE STREAMED via ConcertWindow for those who cannot attend in person! Join our Facebook Event for updates! THERE WILL BE SING-ALONGS (music provided).
Tuesday, November 29th, 7:00 PM
Gateway City Arts – Judd Paper Hall
92-114 Race St., Holyoke, MA
Directions & parking info
Admission is free, donations gratefully accepted!
Please consider us in your end of the year giving. CLICK HERE TO DONATE.
#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.
Giving Tuesday: Thank You!
What a whirlwind yesterday was for us! We began with pure elation, thanks to the kindness and generosity of the luminous Joyce DiDonato, whose Monday evening pep talk for our teens sent us to the moon and back, ready to launch our campaign with verve. That was followed up by a spectacular day of giving, in which we raised a total of $3160.00, the single biggest fundraising day in our tiny workshop’s history.
We would like to express our most sincere and humble gratitude to Joyce, and to everyone who supported us through the day by joining our Facebook event, sharing, liking, and retweeting our posts, leaving us words of encouragement, and of course to those who gave so generously to help keep our program going and our teens singing. We are in your debt, and we will do everything we can to deliver in the form of beautiful music and ecstatic teen faces. I have no doubt that our students will leave our program, go out into the world, and make it a better, more compassionate, and more beautiful place, through music or whatever they end up ultimately pursuing. Your investment in them will not be in vain.
On that note, I wanted to add that for me, personally, one of the most gratifying things about the day was watching and listening to my own teens talk about the program and what it’s meant to them. I’d be lying if I pretended that I didn’t know they are enjoying themselves in the opera workshop, but I spent much of the day with tears in my eyes, listening to my own students talk about the work we’ve come to think of as routine at our studio. I was also extremely moved by the 11th-hour video contribution from my friend, Emilie Renard, whose thoughtful (and thorough!) discussion of our work and why she has supported us so consistently over the past few years basically validated all the work I love most dearly in the span of seven minutes.
Thank you, all of you, for your generosity and your belief in what we’re doing at Act Too Studio Opera Workshop. It means the world to us, and we will work to give back in all the beauty we can muster.
Read more #GivingTuesday stories ~ View our Facebook Event ~ Donate to Act Too Studio Opera Workshop
Emilie Renard on Act Too Studio Opera Workshop
As #GivingTuesday races to a close, we’ve received this thoughtful video from British mezzo-soprano Emilie Renard, a long-time friend and supporter of the workshop. She’s always been very enthusiastic about what we’re doing, but it’s quite wonderful to hear her talk about it in such detail, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t gratifying.
Please give her a few minutes to make this pitch in favor of our program, and consider supporting us before #GivingTuesday is done, or really any time in the future. We’re hungry for your support. A million thanks to Emilie for taking the time to speak up for us in this way. And while you’re at it, start following her career very carefully, because she’s pretty spectacular.
Read more #GivingTuesday stories ~ Join our Facebook Event ~ Donate to Act Too Studio Opera Workshop
