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| OperaArts Board of Directors |
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Arlene Rosenthal - President Karen H. Hall - Treasurer Le McClellan - Secretary Eva Cohon - Director Kira K. Klatchko - Director Kimberly Nichols - Director Hugh Van Horn - Director Gayle Hodges - Advisory Board Knut Erik Jensen - Advisory Board Iby Laslo - Advisory Board Marie Shaw Wolpert - Advisory Board Geri Sorrentino Hoefer - Advisory Board |
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Arlene Rosenthal - President Arlene grew up in Southern California and graduated from U.C.L.A. She began her teaching career in Los Angeles and later moved to the Bay Area where she taught school for several years. Her first introduction to Opera was in elementary school when she attended a performance of Hansel & Gretel. This experience convinced her that the world of sports was far more preferable. It was later in San Francisco at a performance of La Boheme that she began to fall in love with Opera. She moved to the desert for the peace and quiet and settled on five acres where she could listen to Saturday performances of the MET, stereo cranked as loud as desired. She became involved with the Palm Springs Opera Guild and served on the Board and chaired the annual Vocal Competition for eighteen years. Opera in the Park was her love, which she produced annually for ten years. In 2008 Arlene decided it was time to leave the Guild. She was approached by others who wished to start an organization that would serve more Valley cities and OperaArts was brought to be. Arlene has owned her own custom-clothing company, Rosenthal of Palm Springs for twenty years. She has spent years raising money for non-profit organizations, either organizing fund-raisers or serving on their Boards. She currently serves on the Board of The Well in the Desert, as President, and is on the Museum Associates Council Board. |
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Karen H. Hall - Treasurer Karen Hall has held senior management positions with top level corporations and has successfully operated her own business. She has experience and a solid track record in sales and designing creative concepts in promotional and marketing programs for the domestic and international market place. Karen's experience in the consumer goods arena has spanned more than twenty-five years in both the buying area as the Corporate Buyer for the largest drug chain in the U.S.A., Walgreen Drug, based in Chicago, where she had buying responsibility for an $80 million department and in the consumer sales end of the business as the Senior Vice President - Sales/Marketing, Worldwide with Vidal Sassoon, Inc., based in Los Angeles. During her 7-year tenure with Vidal Sassoon, Karen created the sales and distribution system for the U.S.A. market and developed the marketing platform for system merchandising and promotions for the mass market retailer which is today the standard for all major retailers and consumer manufacturers. She successfully created and executed marketing programs for the international market which was executed in more than 50 countries. This resulted in strong world wide market penetration and a growth rate from $16 million in the first year to more than $250 million in the seventh year. She was President of an international marketing company, Sales Concepts, which identified potential business opportunities for both domestic and international clients. Her responsibility included formulating business and marketing blueprints for the company's clientele and negotiating all contractual relationships. The clientele roster included such international companies as Jardine Group, Hong Kong and Japan; Ripcosa, Ltd., Germany; International Buyers Group, U.S.A.; and the China National Cereal, Oil and Foodstuff Company (representing the Chinese Government). Karen Hall's successful track record and background have given her creative insight and knowledge in the marketing arena and an extensive management, administrative and P&L background. In each and every one of her endeavors, she has successfully produced an imaginative and solid business approach. |
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Le McClellan - Secretary Le McClellan grew up with a mother who loved opera and a father who preferred country western music. I grew in a city, New Orleans, that spoke jazz, and developed a passion for the intensity and art of Opera. Art and Food combined as I became a Master Chef training with many Masters in New Orleans, and Europe. My studies produced a doctorate in Literature and my passions have lead me to Opera and Social Services. I am pleased to be on the Board of this burgeoning organization and help develop more Opera and Art in the Coachella Valley. |
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Eva Cohon - Director |
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Kira K. Klatchko - Director Kira L. Klatchko is a Senior Associate in BB&K’s Indian Wells office. She is an appellate practitioner handling both state and federal appeals arising from all areas of civil practice, ranging from general civil procedure and municipal law to marital dissolution and probate. Ms. Klatchko has been named to the 2009 list of Super Lawyers Rising Stars for Southern California. She is a member of her State and local bar associations, and has served three terms as Chair of the Riverside County Bar Association Appellate Section. She is Vice-Chair of the Best Best & Krieger Appellate Group, and routinely lectures on topics in appellate law. She was recently appointed to a three year term on the State Bar of California's Standing Committee on Appellate Courts, and will begin serving in mid-September 2009. Ms. Klatchko received her B.A. in Political Science, with distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her J.D. at the University of California, Davis, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the UC Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy, and acted as a teaching assistant in both legal research and civil procedure courses. After graduating from law school Ms. Klatchko began practicing law in her family firm, Klatchko & Klatchko, Attorneys at Law, in Palm Springs, thereafter she accepted a position with Best, Best, & Krieger. Her practice centers on Civil Litigation and Appeals. Ms. Klatchko is a volunteer mediator at the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, and conducts private mediations as part of the Riverside County Court's Civil Mediation Panel (http://www.riverside.courts.ca.gov/adr/adr.htm). She is a member of the Council of Appellate Lawyers, the Ninth Circuit Pro Bono Panel, and the Warren E. Slaughter and Richard I. Roemer Chapter of the American Inns of Court. Ms. Klatchko is a proud member of numerous clubs and organizations in the Coachella Valley. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Desert Foundation of Academics, Indian Wells Athena Awards, Angel View Crippled Children’s Foundation, and several other community-based organizations. |
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Kimberly Nichols - Director |
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Hugh Van Horn - Director |
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Gayle Hodges - Advisory Board Gayle was born in Pampa, Texas and graduated from high school in Wink, Texas, also the home of Roy Orbison. She finished Draughon's Business College in Lubbock and than moved to Dallas to seek a career with the airline industry. She was accepted by Braniff International in 1963 and Northwest Airlines in 1990 where she enjoyed an exciting life for 32 years as a flight attendant. During those years she flew troops to Vietnam, the Mondale charters when he ran for President, Europe, South America, Mexico, and the Far East. She worked during the time period when uniforms were designed by famous designers, and Braniff's were designed by Pucci and Halston. The many years that she lived in Dallas she was very active with the Le Femme Du Monde, who raised the money for The Dallas Counsel of World Affairs, bringing international speakers to Dallas. She served as an officer for the Dallas Summer Musical Guild and on the Board of Directors for The Dallas Summer Musicals under the direction of Tom Hughes. She started the Braniff Blood Bank at Dallas Fort Worth Airport and headed the drive for several years before moving to Kansas City. During the year she lived in Kansas City she volunteered at a food kitchen prepping food. She left the airline industry to enjoy a new life with her husband, Chuck Hodges. They have been married for 12 years and enjoy their family of three sons, Chris, James, and Rollo, theirs wives, and their five grandchildren. They enjoy traveling to far away places, reading books, skiing, and socializing with friends and family. Gayle has continued to work as past president of Dusty Wings raising money for Guide Dogs, Gilda's Club, and Animal Samaritan. She has served on various 501c charities boards such as Dusty Wings, Palm Springs Youth Center, Palm Canyon Theatre, and Well in the Desert. She has been privileged to have served as a volunteer at the Youth Center helping children with their homework and for the last four years at the Well in the Desert serving food. Helping others gives joy to her life. |
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Knut Erik Jensen - Advisory Board Norwegian pianist Knut Erik Jensen has performed over 70 solo concerts featuring Norwegian music since 2007. He has performed in 17 states, including performances at Rice and St Thomas Universities in Houston, TX sponsored by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, at the Steinway Gallery in Reno, NV, at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, at the University of Texas at Dallas, at the Kerr Cultural Centre and Steinway of Phoenix in Scottsdale, AZ, at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, at the University of Walla Walla, WA, at the Rozsa Centre at the University of Calgary, Mostly Nordic chamber music series in Seattle, and at the Port Theatre in Nanaimo, BC, as well as at numerous Sons of Norway groups and churches throughout the US and Canada. Mr. Jensen was also the guest soloist in Edvard Grieg´s A-minor Concerto for the 2007-8 season opening of the Minot Symphony Orchestra in North Dakota. In May of 2009, he performed the same concerto with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of the Republic of Moldova. Two weeks later he completed his master's examination concert at the University of Trondheim, Norway playing Alexander Scriabin´s piano concerto with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded two CDs of Norwegian piano music: "Edvard Grieg - Anniversary Collection" and "Nordic Elegance." Mr. Jensen's unusually rich musical background has given him versatility in many different genres and instruments. He started learning how to play the organ by himself from a very young age. But his first main instrument was the classical accordion from the age of 7. He made a swich to the piano at the age of 17 after strong encouragments from the school´s piano teacher and a discovery of Grieg´s A-minor concerto. He ended his career on solo accordion by winning the Norwegian Championship in 1999. He also won a first price with the dance orcehstra “Jhohans” as well as a second place in the open solo class for entertainment music. In addition to the solo career, he has played in several rockbands, “Perished” being the most significant one with 3 CD releases. He has also worked with jazz -and kletzmer musicians in the project band “Kilombo.” They did concert tours and recorded the CD “Bordello Music.” During the years of studies, he conducted, arranged and composed music for two accordion orchestras. He is also a frequent guest artist in the Gypsy Orchestra “Trio Troika.” In the younger years he also played the saxophone in a marching band. During his time in Trondheim, he became one of the most popular and frequently used pianist working with singers. He worked regularly with the opera company (The Music Theatre) in Trondheim, and received wonderful critics in the Scandinavian press for his performance in Rossini´s “Petite Messe Solenelle” and in Verdi´s “La Traviata.” In the latter he did the entire orchestra part himself in a staged version on tour. Knut Erik was born in the small town of Hell in 1981, grew up in Selbu and had Trondheim as a home-base during his years of studies. Teachers include Tone Mjelva, Mona Spigseth Sagstad, Jørgen Larsen and Håvard Gimse. He was an artist in residence at the renowned Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada the fall and winter of 2009-10 and in February 2008. During this time he had lessons with Henk Guittart, Piers Lane, Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Ronan O´hora and Suzie LeBlanc. Since then he´s been doing concerts throughout the US with Palm Springs, California as a home base. He will be part of various opera projects in Norway during the summer of 2010 before returning to the US. |
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Iby Laslo - Advisory Board Iby Laslo, Hungarian-born dramatic soprano, began her serious musical education at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. While at the Academy she soon became a soloist in the Hungarain National Ensemble, and her interpretations of the Bartok and Kodály classics based upon Hungarian folk music, opened for her the gates to the Eastern and Western worlds, resulting in concert tours of Romania, Russia, China and North Africa. Her last semester at the Academy was interrupted by the Hungarian Revolution, and she immediately went to Western Europe and completed her studies in Munich and the conservatories in Paris and Salzburg. Then began her operatic career with engagements in Lûbeck and Bremen, and guest appearances throughout Germany, performing in major cities including Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Kassel, under the stage name of Violetta Vary. Because of the timbre and wide range of her voice, her repertoire extends from the heavy Wagnerian roles of Brûnnhilde, Isolde and Senta to dramatic roles such as Turandot, Santuzza, Ariadne, Leonora (La Forza del Destino), Aida and Tosca. Upon coming to the United States she landed in New York and soon was invited to perform in Los Angeles at a birthday celebration for her Professor, Zoltan Kodály. Upon seeing the beauty of Southern California she decided to establish her home here. Later she married Victor Laslo, an engineer and intellectual property lawyer. She was then engaged by the Bremen Opera, so they went back to Germany for a few years. Upon returning home to California she made concert appearances, under her married name, with the Long Beach Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, and operatic appearances as Brûnnhilde in the Seattle Opera production of Die Walkûre, and as Ortrud in Southern California productions of Lohengrin. She and her husband are now retired and living in Palm Desert, where she is actively participating in the public presentation of musical and operatic events. |
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Marie Shaw Wolpert - Advisory Board Marie Shaw Wolpert was born into a large Croatian family, all musically talented. She made her first debut as a singer at the age of six. At ten she began learning the bass fiddle, and two years later debuted her talents playing it with her family orchestra. Throughout her childhood music was always a part of her life, even having a go at pumping the organ in their neighborhood church. Mentors Phil Phillips and Dottie Dawn, contemporaries of Sophie Tucker, discovered Marie and helped launch her adult musical career as a singer. She began performing oratorio singing and eventually studied opera and performed in two John Carl Menotti operas. She sang the role of the Muse in “Tales of Hoffman” and sang the role of Rose in the Gypsy. Her coaches were the well-known John Wustman, who was also Pavarotti’s favorite piano accompanists and Horst Gunther, from Friedberg, Germany. Coaching her for the role in the card scene from “Carmen” was the worldfamous Boris Goldolfsky. During World War II Marie performed at most of the USO shows around the entire United States. She later took her talents to the better nightclubs in some of the major cities in New York and Los Angeles, and Illinois and had to stand in for Hildegard at the Raleigh Room of the Barbizon Playa Hotel with the same conductor who played with Jack Paar. Well known greats like Dorothy Dandrige and Bette Davis flanked her piano to hear her rich voice and piano versatility. Marie has composed her own musical pieces. |
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Geri Sorrentino Hoefer - Advisory Board Acclaimed for her interpretation of Spanish repertoire, Geraldina Sorrentino, is a gifted recitalist, concert artist and operatic performer. Formerly on the voice faculties of Seattle Pacific University and Pacific Lutheran University, she has performed in Portugal, Holland, Germany and France, and has been a featured artist with Northwest Symphony Orchestras, the Laguna Beach Music Festival and the Ojai Music Festival. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, she was a winner of the First Manuel Garcia International Competition. Some of her operatic roles were Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni”, Countess Almaviva in “Le Nozze di Figaro”, the Old Maid in “The Old Maid and the Thief”, Medea in “The Medead”, Concepcion in “L’heure Espagnole”, and Madame de Croissy in “The Dialogues of the Carmalites”. With Seattle Opera she debuted as Silver Dollar in “the Ballad of Baby Doe” and the Mayor’s Wife in “Jenufa” later in the season. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Geraldina began singing with dance bands at the age of 15 and has recently returned to performances of Broadway musicals. |
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