Georgetta Psaros
Our special guest is amazing! Her career has spanned the globe, taking her to the opera houses of Europe, Asia and the USA. She has an astonishing voice that envelops and caresses you with a passion that touches your soul. She is the ultimate performer. We are privileged that she is our teacher and blessed that she is singing with us. She has a CD and is presently recording another.
Edgar Bonner
Our gospel singer has been singing with the Shadow Mountain Community Church Choir for many years and is also a soloist there. Originally from Alabama, the feel for spiritual music comes naturally for him. He sings gospel music for other churches and charitable events in San Diego. This man truly lives his life in the manner of the music he sings.
Ashlen Sepulveda
This girl has been singing since the age of 9 with Pandeli Lazaridi. She watched her brother work with Pandeli for a year, and then begged to join in the fun. She spends hours and hours trying out different sounds, all of them quite loudly, to her family’s delight. She sings Broadway and opera in English, Spanish, French and Italian. She has performed with the San Diego Opera, the Small Opera of San Diego and the San Diego Children’s Choir. She truly loves to sing and is working hard on developing her lovely voice.
Yuko Tanigami
Yuko Tanigami has been a Yamaha Music Education System certified teacher at Greene Music Education Center/Yamaha Music School since 1998. She has taught piano (both through private instruction and through Yamaha group courses), composition, theory and music history for all ages and levels for over 20 years in San Diego and Tokyo, Japan. She enjoys teaching children and adults music as a universal language. She also provides music instruction as a tool of expressing feelings of joy and pain, which can be shared with others. She holds a B.M. degree in piano performance from Tokyo College of Music in Japan and an M.M. in piano performance from San Diego State University.
Pandeli Lazaridi
Founder and director of the Academy of Sound and Music, Lazaridi was born in Greece in 1948. He began his musical education at the early age of 9, taking accordion and guitar lessons. Two years later, he auditioned for the National Conservatory of Athens, Greece, where he was immediately offered scholarships in piano and music theory education. At the age of13, he finished harmony and sight-reading and three years later, he received an additional scholarship in singing. Mr. Lazaridi has been teaching all types of singing, from opera to pop, for 38 years. After the singing competitions, he had the fortune to take on some very talented students with beautiful opera voices and that was it. With his background in classical music and opera training at the National Conservatory of Music of Athens, Greece, he knew that he was sent to San Diego to harness a powerful stream of talented opera singers, start opera workshops and have recitals to which professionals in the music business would be invited.
Kevin Wang
Kevin is 11 years old and is a fifth grade student at Solana Pacific Elementary School. He is in his sixth year of piano studies with Ms. Yuko Tanigami at Greene Music Education Center. He is a winner for the Southern California Junior Bach Festival and a Anna Magdelena Bach Winner 2002-04, for the Music Teacher’s Association of California’s Sonata Contest, for the Ninth District PTA Honors Award of Excellence Reflections in Music Composition 2002-2003 and for the State Award of Merit Reflections in Music Composition 2002-2003. Kevin likes to play soccer and basketball, to read, and also to play the piano and violin.
Andrew To
Andrew is 15 years old. He attends Mira Mesa High School. He has studied piano and composition with Ms. Tanigami for seven years at the Greene Music Education Center. Since 2001, he has participated and won awards in numerous piano recitals and competitions by MTAC and the California Association of Professional Music Teachers. His original composition, To Be or Not to Be a Pianist, was selected to be performed in the 2005 Yamaha Jamboree held in San Diego, California. He is interested in water sports and is a member of the Mira Mesa High School water polo team and swim team. Andrew plans to major in engineering and minor in piano performance in college.
Kevin Capacia
A freshman at Scripps Ranch High School, Kevin is in his seventh year of piano studies with Ms. Tanigami at the Greene Music Education Center. He has participated and won awards in numerous piano competitions, such as the CAPMT Sonata Festival in 2002, the MTAC Southern California Junior Bach Festival in 2004, and the MTNA Sonata Contest from 2001-04. Kevin also enjoyed composing Voyage through Space in the 2004 Yamaha Jamboree held in Phoenix, Arizona. Besides playing the piano, Kevin has performed in several musicals and the honor choir at Dingeman Elementary School, and he was a clarinet player with the Dingeman Elementary and Marshall Middle School bands. He is currently a member of the SRHS drum-line, is a percussionist for the SRHS concert band and is a marimba player for the San Diego Alternative Indoor Percussion Ensemble. Kevin plans to double major in music and engineering in college and hopes to one day compose music for film and television.
Ian Brininstool
Ian is an outgoing, dynamic 10-year-old who has natural talent for acting, singing, dancing and a variety of sports and academics. He has an inquisitive mind, an excellent memory, a good sense of humor and imagination and an innate confidence that has served him well in various lead roles. Ian has performed as Rodney on the UPN television series Veronica Mars, Luke in the film Billy vs. the Kidnappers, Oliver in the Starlight Theatre production of Oliver, Gordy in the Lamb’s Players Theatre production of The Festival of Christmas, Jojo for the la Jolla Stage Company’s production of Seussical the Musical, and Barry in the Actor’s Alliance Festival Show of All the Time in the World. He studies singing with Pandeli Lazaridi of San Diego Small Opera, and he also studies professional on-camera training with Terry Scott of Acting Professionally. He enjoys karate, soccer, basketball, reading and writing stories.
Stefan Wendel
Eleven year-old Stefan developed his love of music at an early age, right after birth. His Japanese grandmother would rock him and sing Japanese children’s songs to him every day. He began taking group piano lessons at Greene Music at age 3. At age 6, he began studying harp with Mrs. Sylvia Re (second harpist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Stefan is a member of the American Harp Society and has performed in various recitals and shows, including the Shakespeare Festival in Balboa Park. At age 9, he started voice lessons with Pandeli Lazaridi and has developed a strong operatic voice. He would like to dedicate his life to the arts.
Darien Sepulveda
Darien began singing opera at the age of 7, when he played Mozart in a small musical production called Of Mice and Mozart. Sadly, he stopped singing by third grade because his classmates teased him, telling him he sang like a goat, because he sang all the time and with vibrato. In fourth grade, Darien met Pandeli Lazaridi, who encouraged him and gave him the positive feedback he needed to sing again. He has been working with Pandeli ever since. He has performed at the San Diego Opera, the Small Opera of San Diego and Broadway San Diego. He has also performed on a cable television show called San Diego En Vivo and for the ABC Morning News and Bravo San Diego. He enjoys performing but says that he likes singing in class with his friends the most.
Nolyn Cabahug
Jaime Zobel de Ayala, noted patron of the arts and industrial tycoon, wrote, “Nolyn is a Filipino victor. He has conquered the hearts of our countrymen with his beautiful voice…”
The only opera singer ever given the “Classical Singer of the Year” award by the National Press Club’s Tinig Awards, Nolyn has been steeped in church music since boyhood. His mother, the former Lily Argamaso, involved him in choral music since he was 10 years old and presently, he is choral director of Makati Gospel Church and other corporate choirs.
He started as member and soloist of the Manila Metropolitan Theater Chorus and the University of the Philippines Concert Chorus and toured Europe, the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Australia and Asia. He sings lead roles in Filipino and Italian Operas, Broadway Musicals, Zarzuelas, Oratorios, Cantatas and has given solo concerts in major cities here and abroad. Nolyn’s professional activities include product launches, corporate events, fund-raising concerts, “Mall” concerts, television guestings and talent for advertising “jingles.” The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the Manila Symphony Orchestra, the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Philharmonic Society often feature him for their concert seasons. His other awards are Distinguished Alumnus of West Negros College (Bacolod City), Special Son Award given by Ilog (Negros Occidental) and Huwarang Pilipino Award (Philippines’ Who’s Who).
Nolyn has recordings with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the Manila Symphony Orchestra, DZFE’s Maestro Filipino, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Las Pinas Bamboo Organ and Victor Recordings.
Today, in the words of noted critic Leonor orosa Goquinco, “The sensational Cabahug confirms his place in the front rank of our tenors by his exquisite interpretations…”
John Danke
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theory and Composition from Chapman University (Orange, CA). The Canadian-born artist has performed extensively throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada as a solo recitalist and accompanist and has given recitals throughout Europe. He has been engaged as soloist and vocal accompanist for Community Concerts, Inc., Affiliate Artists, Inc. and various city-sponsored artist-in-residence programs and has been invited to give recitals in universities and music festivals throughout the country.
Marian Cabahug
Marian, soprano, is a senior student at the University of Santo Tomas
Conservatory of Music. She studied under the late Maestra Salvacion
Oppus-Yniguez, and is now training under Maestra Irma Ponce-Enrile Potenciano.
She started singing at the age of two, but formally joined the adult choir of
International Baptist Church at the age of four, where she was first trained
by her father, the Philippine premier tenor Nolyn Cabahug, and her
grandmother, Lily Argamaso Cabahug, who was also a former champion in local
singing competitions and choral contests. She then has started performing in
weddings, events of the US Embassy, private, social, and church functions,
radio and stage voice recordings, the Miss Asia-Pacific Pre-Pageant Quest in
1989, and DENR’s Kabit-Kabit and Buhay in 1987 with the country’s most popular
singers.
Marian was also a soloist for some of UST Conservatory of Music’s annual
concerts in CCP in February 2001 and other local events as soloist of the Coro
Tomasino. In January 2004, she was the featured artist of Paco Park Presents.
Marian has joined theater productions, playing the role of the Sandman in
Hansel and Gretel, a production of Repertory Philippines and Philippine Opera
Company (1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, and as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella,
also a production of Repertory Philippines, 2002). She was also a voice coach
at the Philippine Opera Company, and producer and scriptwriter for Operamania,
at 98.7, DZFE, The Master’s Touch. Currently, Marian is teaching at Ann Arbor
Montessori in Sucat, Paranaque and Binan, Laguna, and the choir director of
the Makati Gospel Church Children’s Choir.
