The Chamber Singers from Lone Star College-Montgomery will perform the 3rd annual Opera Gala, as well as host a silent auction, on Friday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m., in the Recital Hall, located in the college’s Music Hall (Building H). All proceeds from ticket sales and the silent auction go toward the Music Department Scholarship Program, which provides financial assistance to talented students who successfully audition into the Chamber Singers or Symphonic Band ensembles.

Dr. Dominick DiOrio, assistant professor of music at LSC-Montgomery, will conduct the Chamber Singers in the production of Venus and Adonis, by composer Zachary Wadsworth. Wadsworth will give a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. and later perform on the piano in the opera.

According to DiOrio, this is the Houston premiere of this work, as well as the first performance of the work with full chorus instead of a solo vocal quartet.

"We are so delighted to have Wadsworth in residence again this year with the music department,” said DiOrio. “He is a brilliant and very talented composer who has won accolades across the globe.”

Throughout Venus and Adonis, Venus, the Roman goddess of love, attempts to seduce the beautiful Adonis, a young mortal who is far more interested in hunting with his friends than romancing her. Venus and Adonis is dedicated to the memory of Gretchen Snedeker, who adapted the huge Shakespeare text into a concise but still wonderfully coherent libretto.

The concert features Annamarie Zmolek, soprano, as Venus, and Joseph Mikolaj, tenor, as Adonis. Divisi Strings, who has collaborated with the LSC-Montgomery music department for the last three years, returns for this year's Opera Gala.
 
The opera and silent auction is a major fundraising event for the music department at LSC-Montgomery. . The talented singers performing in the opera are all scholarship recipients, and it is with the continued support of gracious individuals that the music department can offer these students this opportunity.  
 
Wadsworth is one of the leading composers of his generation, with recent performances by the choir of Westminster Abbey in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, the Washington National Opera Chorus, Boston Metro Opera, Long Leaf Opera, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra, his compositions have been heard in venues from Washington’s Kennedy Center to Tokyo’s Takinogawa Hall. As the 2012-2013 recipient of the Douglas Moore Fellowship for American Opera, Wadsworth is currently engaged in residencies with many leading North American opera companies.
 
Wadsworth earned graduate degrees from Cornell University and Yale University and is an honors graduate of the Eastman School of Music. Originally from Richmond, Va., Wadsworth now resides at the foot of the Canadian Rockies in Calgary, Alberta.

Sponsors for the silent auction include BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse; Chuy’s; Red Lobster; Los Cucos Mexican Cafe; Oasis Club & Spa for Women; Skyrokh Salon; SalonBR (Brian Rozell); Arthur Murray Dance Studio; local artists, and LSC-Montgomery instructors Robby Wood and Deborah Ellington.

For more information about the music department at LSC-Montgomery, contact Denise Meyers at (936) 273-7021 or visit www.LoneStar.edu/music-Montgomery.


LSC-Montgomery is located at 3200 College Park Drive, one-half mile west of Interstate 45, between Conroe and The Woodlands. For more information about the college, call (936) 273.7000, or visit www.LoneStar.edu/montgomery.

With 75,000 students in credit classes, and a total enrollment of more than 90,000, Lone Star College System is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area, and the fastest-growing community college system in Texas. Dr. Richard Carpenter is the chancellor of LSCS, which consists of six colleges including LSC-CyFair, LSC-Kingwood, LSC-Montgomery, LSC-North Harris, LSC-Tomball, and LSC-University Park, five centers, LSC-University Center at Montgomery, LSC-University Center at University Park, Lone Star Corporate College, and LSC-Online. To learn more visit www.LoneStar.edu.