Mark your calendars!

The Alpert Studio Spring ’10 Recital will be held on Saturday, May 15th at 3:00 p.m. All voice and violin students are required to participate.

Recital Rehearsal (with piano) will be held on Friday, May 15, between 3:30 and 6:00 p.m. for voice students and between 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. for violinists. You will be assigned an approximate arrival time at your lesson prior to the event.

Let’s all prepare for a wonderful and enjoyable event, in a fun and supportive environment. So polish up your song and get ready to perform!

The Alpert Studio of Voice and Violin invites you to join us for a hysterically irreverent musical with one of the best musical theater scores ever written. With a wonderful professional cast and a live band, this will be a memorable theatrical experience. Seating is very limited, so order your tickets soon! Opens Friday, February 19th!

Featured studio students and alumni include: Brandon Alpert, Taylor Pearson, Kari Kennedy, Marissa Henkel, Tommy Tafoya, Hannah Meisser and Chris Small

Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes capitalism, socialism, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and petty small town politics. It also is a satire of the Broadway musical as a form. In reverse pantomime style, the unconventional plotline shatters audience expectations of a pleasant ending (from Wikipedia)

Event Flyer

For tickets and/or information call 909-982-5736

The Alpert Studio is proud to announce Brandon Alpert will be appearing in the rock musical Rent, at the Grove Theater in Upland. Brandon is appearing the role of Mark Cohen.

Please join us in supporting Brandon, and also supporting high quality theater in our own community. Performances run between January 15 – February 7. Ticket information here. Please note, the production contains very mature themes.

Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera La bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of AIDS.
The musical was first seen in a limited three-week Workshop production at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1994. This same New York City off-Broadway theatre was also the musical’s initial home following its official January 25, 1996, opening. The show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly the night before the off-Broadway premiere. The show won a Pulitzer Prize, and the production was a hit. The musical moved to Broadway’s larger Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996.[2]
On Broadway, Rent gained critical acclaim and won a Tony Award for Best Musical among other awards. The musical is largely responsible for helping to increase the popularity of musical theater amongst the younger generation.[3] The Broadway production closed on September 7, 2008, after a 12-year run and 5,124 performances, making it the eighth-longest-running Broadway show, nine years behind The Phantom of the Opera as of December 2009. The production grossed over $280 million.[4]
The success of the show led to several national tours and numerous foreign productions, and in 2005, it was also adapted into a motion picture that features most of the original cast members. (Courtesy Wikipedia)

Colds, flu and busy performance schedules notwithstanding, it was standing room only at the Alpert Studio Winter Recital, held on December 5.

Bill and Melanie wish to congratulate each and every performer on a job well done. Also, a heartfelt thanks our extended studio family for all the support and the incredible turnout. This recital witnessed tremendous musical and personal growth throughout the studio!

Best wishes to all for a wonderful and safe holiday season!

Studio Recital:
Saturday, December 5 • 4:00 p.m.
Studio Performance Facility

Rehearsal with pianist will be held at the same site on Friday, December 4 beginning at 4:30 p.m. Students will be assigned an individual rehearsal slot in advance.

All students are expected to participate in the recital, and support fellow students by remaining present during the entire event.

Amanda Workman performs in The Magic Flute

Studio alum Amanda Workman is performing in the role of Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Riverside Lyric Opera. Tickets and information here. Support Amanda and live opera close to home by attending this event.

Our dear friends John Walz, Edie Orloff and Roger Wilke write:

Greetings from Europe. We are having a wonderful tour with the Pacific Trio. We have done concerts in Poland and Germany so far, tomorrow we are in France, then back to Germany. We finish up in Munich, playing at the Gasteig, which is the release concert for our new CD of American works.

This, the latest of many European tours by The Pacific Trio, brings home to us the universal nature of music. A great performance of live music will capture the imagination of people across any culture, social class, political or religious belief. Our performing artists have done much to promote understanding and cooperation across the far corners of the Earth.

Frequently we see the world in a distorted view of controversy, conflict and turmoil on TV and in newspapers. Yet as a race, humans share much more that connects us than separates us. Follow our intrepid three friends across the planet and you’ll find living rooms and auditoriums full of diverse audiences that celebrate the universality of great music.

In what city, country or continent could Gershwin’s Second Piano Prelude (arranged for trio) not melt your heart?

Bye Bye Birdie opens July 24 – Design: Carlos Musquez

Bye Bye Birdie is a favorite of the Broadway musical theater stage with book by Michael Stewart, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse.

Originally titled Let’s Go Steady, this satire on American society is set in 1958. The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley and his draft notice into the army in 1957. The rock star character’s name, “Conrad Birdie,” is word play on the name of Conway Twitty, who is remembered today mainly as a country music star but was one of Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll rivals in the late 1950s. The original Broadway production was a Tony Award-winning success. The show also became a popular choice for high school and college productions. (courtesy Wikipedia)

Come support your Alpert Studio students and alums, many of whom are participating in this family friendly production of a true Broadway classic!

Performances are Friday, July 24th, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, July 25th, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, July 26th 2:30 p.m., Friday, July 31st, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, August 1st, 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, August 2nd at 2:30 p.m. at Los Osos High School, 6001 Milliken Avenue, Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Ticket Order form

Be it an opera of Mozart or a scene from any current Broadway hit, a great score, polished singing and thoughtful acting are all integral to a convincing performance. So found a contingent of young Alpert studio students and alumni who participated in a recent master class presented by Eden Espinosa in conjunction with Broadway Experience.

Kudos to all of our students who attended and/or performed at the event. It was a great opportunity to learn from a well known performer at the top of her game. Ms. Espinosa’s insights received rave reviews from all in attendance. We’re all indebted to her as well as Sergio Mejia who led a dance workshop.

Thanks to Broadway Experience for hosting the event and to Debbie Jackson for providing the photos in this slide show.

Just a few quick reminders for violin students of the Alpert Studio:

Summer Schedule:

Violin lessons are scheduled all summer long, with the exception of August 3 – August 14. Additionally, some lessons between August 17-19 may be impacted, however I plan to reschedule those lessons later that week, or during a mutually convenient time. As always, your regular monthly tuition will apply during the summer, as it is based on a total of 40-45 lessons during the year, payable in 12 installments.

If you plan to travel during summer months, please let me know at your earliest convenience, so that I can help you schedule make-up lesson time.

A Musical Summer

Summer often affords students more time to focus on musical activities. I’ll be talking to you about some possible summer projects, if you’d like to put some extra energy into your violin. Let’s talk!

Listening Challenge:

Can you name a famous violinist that performed in each of the following time periods?

1900-1935
1936-1950
1951-1979

Extra Credit: Share an audio/video link to a performance by each of these violinists. I’ll post your selections on the studio website!

Free Outdoor Concerts

Come see the fabulous fiddle group Barrage perform at the Redlands Bowl on Tuesday, July 14. Cody Bryant and the Riders of the Purple Sage perform on Friday, July 10. And I’ll be performing with the Redlands Symphony on Tuesday, July 28. Info: http://www.redlandsbowl.org/programs.htm

Have a wonderful, safe and musical summer!

Bill Alpert