This Thursday I got notice there will be a fundraiser concert held. I figure to pass this on for all that may be in the Napa Area come Sunday.
Cheers to all!
As you may know by now, much change has happened in my life since 2005. One of the best parts of the changes was that, thanks to Eve-Anne Wilkes’ suggestion, I revived something from my past that had lain unattended for many years: my singing career.
As you see when you travel on campus, the Performing Arts Center for Education continues to rise on our north 40, to be opened in the Fall of 2010. The most basic piece of equipment for all of our students is a piano. For student practice and rehearsals in all the spaces in the facility, a fleet of pianos is required. Pianos do not exist that are inexpensive, but they will last 30-40 years in daily use.
I may remind everyone of the desperation with which we found ourselves struggling for funds to buy computers and software for our students, in the past. The state of California does not provide for funding of pianos; essential equipment. Of course, other such insanity occurs in our state. The new concert hall on the campus of Sonoma State is lacking 1,400 seats, due to lack of funds and lagging fund-raising.
It is to that end that I have decided to perform a benefit concert of songs from the American Songbook, to help raise some of the money for the pianos to be used by our students. I request that you come and share this special evening with our Division and the phenomenal musicians who will be making music with me.
Many thanks for your support. I have attached the formal press release below.
Roberto
Torch Songs in Concert
The Bay area community is invited as Napa Valley College presents Roberto-Juan González, crooner, and The Michael Parsons Jazz Trio performing “Torch Songs,” a benefit concert for the Piano Fund of the Performing Arts Center for Education, under construction on the campus at NVC. The evening’s performance, presenting songs from the American Songbook of the 1930′s through the 1950′s, featuring Michael Parsons, piano, Adam Guy, bass, and Ulf Bjorkbom, drums, will take place on Sunday, November 16, at 7 p.m. in the Napa Valley College Theater.
Roberto González, Napa College’s orchestra conductor for 21 years, began singing when he was 6. Raised a church musician, he owes a great measure of his musical career to the musical environment at the Union Church of San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was first made a professional conductor at the age of 15, having been nurtured as a pianist and vocalist in the comprehensive music ministry. While doing his undergraduate degree at InterAmerican University in Puerto Rico, San Germán, he wasasked to sit in as pianist with a Latino dance band, where he then became the crooner of slow ballads at dance jobs on weekends. On arriving at Indiana’s Ball State University for graduate studies in orchestra conducting, where he finished his doctorate in 1983, he was trained as an operatic lyric tenor, but never really wanted the commitment that an operatic career required. He did maintain a career as church musician, which provided an outlet for his singing. His real interest lay in the American Songbook, but no suitable opportunities presented themselves for exploration, at that time.
In 2006, he met Richard Nichol, director and vocal coach of the San Francisco Academy for Performing Arts, and began singing again. It was during one of the Academy’s evenings, at the now-defunct Octavia Lounge on Market Street, that he met Michael Parsons, a brilliant stride pianist and composer in the tradition of Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk. Invited to participate in a bebop party presented by Parsons and his trio at Octavia, González started exploring and crooning classics from the American Songbook in the company of Parsons. The combination was so stimulating and so much fun for the pianist and singer that they began talking about doing concert gigs to present their work, together. So, the search for an occasion began.
The fund-raising efforts to purchase a fleet of excellent pianos for the use of Napa Valley College’s students presented a prime opportunity to perform a concert and support the Performing Arts Center for Education Piano Fund, in advance of the Center’s opening in the Fall of 2010. All ticket monies from the evening’s performance will support music student equipment needed in the 45,000 sq/ft facility, now going up on the northmost corner of the college campus.
Admission: $12 General; $10 Students, Seniors and Napa Valley College Staff. Tickets will be available at the box office of the Napa Valley College Theater the night of the concert. Plenty of free parking. Doors open at 6:30pm.
Dr. Roberto-Juan González
[Complimentary Tickets Available to Media]
Napa Valley College [Call (707) 259-8077 ]
2277 Napa-Vallejo Highway, Napa, CA 94558
