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teaches classical guitar, piano and accordion. At the sametime he continues to work as chamber and studio musi-cian with his a-Quintet that concentrate on the music ofAstor Piazzolla and his Tango Nuevo.

Tyler Kimmel, contrabassKimmel was heavily involved in the arts from a veryyoung age, studying piano, voice, bass, and theater inSeattle, Washington. In 2007 he began his Bachelor's de-gree at Pepperdine University where he studied composi-tion with N. Lincoln Hanks, voice with Melanie Emelio,and bass with John Hester. He graduated in 2012 with adegree in Music Composition and Music Education and iscurrently searching for graduate schools for compositionand conducting. Kimmel works as a freelance composerand musical director and teaches private piano lessons.He recently conducted the new opera El Canguro by Cyn-thia Ferrell and German composer Peter Michael von derNahmer at its premier in Los Angeles in September 2011.He has been performing with Charles Castronovo for theItalian Songbook project since 2010.

Sunday, April 1, 2012, 7pmIrvine Barclay Theatre

“A NiGhT iN NAPOli” wiThChARlES CASTRONOvO, TENOR

Taso Comanescu, guitarAustin Grant, guitar/mandolinAlex lavruk, accordionTyler Kimmel, contrabassJake Jamieson, percussion

Guapparia Rodolfo FALVO

‘Na sera ‘e Maggio Giuseppi CIOFFI

Tammurriata near E.A. MARIO

Scetate Ferdinando RUSSO

Pecché Gaetano PENNINO

Anema e core Salvatore d’ESPOSITO

Una furtiva lagrima from Gaetano DONIZETTI

Elixir of Love

Catari Mario COSTA

Luna Rossa A. VIAN

- I N T E R M I S S I O N -

Com’e gentil from Gaetano DONIZETTI

Don Pasquale

Maria Mari Eduardo di CAPUA

Io, na chitarro e ‘a luna E.A. MARIO

Dicitincello vuie R. FALVO

Comme Facette Mammeta S. GAMBARDELLA

Malafemmena Antonio de CURTIS

Canzone appasionata E.A. MARIO

Core ‘ngrato Salvatore CARDILLO

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PROGRAM NOTES

When I think of my Italian heritage and my family’s his-tory, I see that there is never any separation between thesoul of Southern Italy and its music. They cannot beconsidered separately without losing the life force andthe essence of its culture. When I listen to a folk song ofNapoli or Sicily I feel that I have connected to a longline of tradition that started prior to the great EnricoCaruso and continues to this day, almost seeming tonever wish to end.

I asked myself how these simple folk songs of fisher-men, farmers, and street vendors can still stir emotionsand nostalgia in us, even in people who do not have Ital-ian heritage. Why do we immediately smile when wehear an accordion and mandolin? Why do we feel thesorrow and pain of these emotional love songs evenwhen we do not understand the words being sung? I be-lieve that this music relates to us all because it is musicof people in their most raw state. The focus is on every-day human emotions that we all experience at differentpoints in our lives.

Besides the desire for me to sing this music, it was thehunger to be in touch with the most basic and beautifulforms of singing and emoting that drove me to form thisgroup. I was fortunate to find a few wonderful musicianswho shared this identical desire to create something new,yet something traditional. So, off we went to collectivelyrealize these song arrangements. Within only a few re-hearsals we started to find our niche and began to getinto the real feeling of this folk music. The point for usis that it should be spontaneous, invented on the spot,natural, and of course heart felt.

I hope you will enjoy this little excursion into SouthernItalian folk song history. For us, it is a pleasure to per-form this wonderful music to an open hearted audience.

Enjoy,

Charles Castronovo

Jake Jamieson, percussionJake Jamieson is a freelance performer and educator inLos Angeles on drum set and percussion. As a performer,he has been called to play a variety of musical styles rang-ing from Jazz to Indian Classical to Hip Hop to Opera. Hehas had the privilege of teaching World Music Educationat his alma mater, UCLA, where he received his B.A. andM.A. in Ethnomusicology. During his stay at UCLA, Jakestudied drum set from Bruce Becker and tabla from Abhi-man Kausha, in addition to performing in a wide range ofworld music ensemblesl. Jake has toured nationally andinternationally and always seeks out new and diverse mu-sical opportunities.

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ChARlES CASTRONOvO, TENOR

Charles Castronovo is recognized internationally as animportant lyric tenor and has appeared with the Metropol-itan Opera, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Berlin StateOpera, Bavarian State Opera , Hamburg State Opera, Vi-enna State Opera, Opera National, Paris, Theatre du Capi-tole, Toulouse Opera, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova,Theatre Royale de la Monnaie,Brussels , Los AngelesOpera, San Francisco Opera, the Salzburg Festival, SantaFe Opera and many other theaters in both Europe and theUnited States.

In the fall of 2011 Castronovo will return to the ViennaState Opera for the new production of La Traviata. Afterperformances of Rigoletto in Budapest, Castronovo willmake his Chicago Lyric Opera debut as Tamino. He willreturn to Covent Garden as Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutteand makes his debut at the Tetaro Real in Madrid asNerone in Motneverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea. Hewill also sing Ernesto in Don Pasquale in San Diego.Other future projects Include The Rake’s Progress and ICapuleti et I Montecchi in Paris, Die Zauberfloete andMaria Stuarda at Covent Garden, Don Giovanni at theMetropolitan Opera and Rigoletto at Aix en Provence.Castronovo will sing his first Des Grieux in Manon inToulouse and returns to Brussels and Munich in LucreziaBorgia.

In September of 2010 Castronovo sang the title role in theworld premiere of Daniel Catan’s Il Postino oppositePlacido Domingo for the Los Angeles Opera. These per-formances were followed by appearances as Don Ottavioin Don Giovanni for his return to the Bavarian StateOpera, where he was heard later in the season in his debutas Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia. He performed on a con-cert tour with Dmitri Hvorostovsky appearing in Moscow,St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Perm before making hisdebut at Dallas Opera in his first Romeo in Romeo et Juli-ette. Also during the 2010-2011 season, he sang the roleNemorino for Opera de Nice as well as Belmonte in DieEntfuehrung aus dem Serail for his debut at the Teatrodell’Opera di Roma. In June of 2011 he sang Nemorinoin Vienna and debuted at the Chatelet in the French pre-miere of Il Postino. He then made his debut at the FestivalAix-en-Provence as Alfredo in La Traviata opposite Na-talie Dessay and performed in concert with the OrchestreNational de Lyon.

Castronovo opened the 2009/2010 season at the ParisOpera in the new production of Gounod’s rarely heardMireille, staged by the General Director of the theater,Nicolas Joel and conducted by Marc Minkowski. Cas-tronovo also appeared in Paris as Nemorino in L’ElisirD’Amore opposite Anna Netrebko and subsequently re-turned to Helsinki for Rigoletto. Castronovo sang tworoles for the Berlin State Opera this season: Rodolfo in LaBoheme and the title role in Faust. He was heard as Fer-

rando in Cosi Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House, CoventGarden, at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as Bel-monte in Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail and made hisdebut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia as Alfredoin La Traviata. In the summer of 2010 he partnered withhis wife, the internationally celebrated soprano, EkaterinaSiurina, in Die Zauberfloete at the Santa Fe Opera. Otherrecent engagements for Charles Castronovo include per-formances at the Washington Opera as Nadir in LesPêcheurs de Perles. He returned to the Hamburg StateOpera for L’Elisir d’Amore, and then made his debut inHelsinki as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto for FinnishOpera. In February of 2009 Castronovo starred in theBerlin State Opera’s new production of Faust, followed byin April by his first Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor forthe Theatre Royale de La Monnaie in Brussels. He re-turned to the San Francisco Opera in La Traviata oppositeAnna Netrebko and also made his Budapest debut in thesame role.

Born in New York, Castronovo completed his musicalstudies at California State University and began his careeras resident artist with the Los Angeles Opera. He was in-vited to join the Metropolitan Opera's Lindermann YoungArtists Development Program and in the autumn of 1999made his debut at the Metropolitan as Beppe in the open-ing night performance of I Pagliacci. He subsequentlymade his New York Philharmonic debut as Sam in concertperformances of Kurt Weill's Street Scene. Castronovoappeared at the Santa Fe Opera in 2000 as Pilade inRossini's Ermione. He made his debut with the BostonLyric Opera in the spring of 2000 singing his first per-formances of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and subse-quently added Fenton in Falstaff and Tamino in DieZauberflöte to his repertoire in Boston and Pittsburgh re-spectively. Castronovo has also been heard as Don Ot-tavio at the Savonlinna Festival. During the 2001/2002season Castronovo added several roles to his growingrepertoire, appearing as Camille in Die Lustige Witwe inLos Angeles, as Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte in Portlandand as Ernesto in Don Pasquale in Boston. The artistmade his German operatic debut at the Berlin State Opera

as Ottavio under Daniel Barenboim, his French stagedebut followed in Toulouse in Falstaff and his Londondebut at the Proms of 2002 in Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole.In the 2002/2003 season Castronovo returned to theBerlin State Opera as Don Ottavio, debuted with theChicago Symphony under Pierre Boulez in Berlioz's Re-quiem and made his debut with the Opera-Bastille as Fen-ton. He added two new roles to his repertoire during thecourse of that season; appearing as Nemorino in L’Elisird'Amore for Portland Opera and in Berlin, and as Alfredoin La Traviata with the Minnesota Opera. Castronovoconcluded his season in a new production of Cosi FanTutte at Santa Fe. Charles Castronovo debuted at the SanFrancisco Opera in the fall of 2003 as Tamino in Die Za-uberflöte and at the Vienna State Opera in December of2003 as Tamino, a role he also sang in Paris in the springof 2004. He debuted with L'Opera de Monte Carlo inCosi Fan Tutte and returned to the Berlin State Opera forL’Elisir d'Amore. The artist also appeared in Athens,Greece opposite Ruth Ann Swenson in a new productionof La Traviata.

Charles Castronovo made his debut at the Royal Opera,Covent Garden in September of 2004 as Ferrando in CosiFan Tutte, He made his Italian Stage debut at the TeatroCarlo Felice in Genoa and at the Berlin State Opera underDaniel Barenboim as Alfredo in La Traviata. In the sum-mer of 2005 Castronovo sang his first Nadir in LesPêcheurs de Perles at the San Francisco Opera. Cas-tronovo returned to Covent Garden in the 2005/2006 sea-son as Alfredo in La Traviata, to the Vienna State opera asNemorino in L’Elisir d'Amore and to the Berlin StateOpera as Don Ottavio under Daniel Barenboim. He madehis debut at the Theatre Royale de La Monnaie in Falstaffand at the Hamburg State Opera in La Traviata. Threenew roles entered the artist’s repertoire during the courseof the season; Rodolfo in La Bohème for the MichiganOpera Theater, and Belmonte in Die Entführung aus demSerail for Opera Colorado and the title role in LaClemenza di Tito for the Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich.The artist also made his debut with the Orchestra of theAge of Enlightenment in Rossini’s Stabat Mater underMark Elder.

In August of 2006 Charles Castronovo made his debut atthe Salzburg Festival as Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Ent-führung aus dem Serail. He subsequently returned to theBerlin State Opera for Cosi Fan Tutte, and to the ViennaState Opera as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, as well as tothe Opéra National de Paris as Nemorino in L’Elisird’Amore. In February 2007 Charles Castronovo sang hisfirst Duke in Rigoletto in Bordeaux, and subsequently re-turned to San Francisco Opera for Don Ottavio in DonGiovanni.

Castronovo began his 2007/2008 season in a revival ofLalo’s Le Roi D’Ys in Toulouse. After his concert debutin Japan, he returned to the Los Angeles Opera as DonOttavio and to the Vienna State Opera as Tamino. In Janu-ary 2008, Castronovo appeared at the Royal Opera Housein Covent Garden for his third revival there of La Traviataand returned later in the season in his first performances

of Tom Rakewell in the new production of Stravinsky’sThe Rake’s Progress. Among his other projects were Mer-cadante’s Virginia for Opera Rara, Nemorino in L’Elisird’Amore at the Berlin State Opera followed by his firstElvino in La Sonnambula for Michigan Opera Theaterand his debut in San Diego in Les Pecheurs de Perles. Healso made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera in the2008 Festival as Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte followed byhis debut in China in concerts commemorating the 2008Summer Olympic Games.

Anastasios Comanescu, guitarA musician of diverse background, Comanescu first stud-ied the piano before switching to guitar. In 2010, heearned his bachelor’s degree in music at Pepperdine Uni-versity under the world-renowned guitarist ChristopherParkening. He has collaborated and toured with guitaristAustin Grant (Gi-táhr Duo) and more recently withSlovenian virtuoso Mak Grgíc. In 2011, his debut solorecording Epitaphios was released. Currently, Comanescuis pursuing a master’s degree at USC under Scott Tennant.He also serves on the music faculty at Pepperdine Univer-sity. Comanescu has been performing with the criticallyacclaimed tenor, Charles Castronovo, since 2010.

Austin Grant, guitar/mandolinA self-taught mandolin player, Grant began playing in hisearly teens on an old family guitar. His formal trainingbegan at age 18 through a state-paid program at his localjunior college. After two years of study, Grant receivedthe college's Most Outstanding Musician award and wenton to study with world-renowned guitarist ChristopherParkening at Pepperdine University, where he also begancollaborating with fellow guitarist Taso Comanescu,forming the Gi-táhr Duo, giving many concerts through-out California. In 2010, he received his Bachelor's degreein music from Pepperdine.

Alex lavruk, accordionAlexander Lavruk was born in former Soviet Union. Byhis 7th birthday he started to beg parents to buy an accor-dion and started his music studies. By the time he was 10years old, he was performing in local and state competi-tion as well as talent shows.

In 1975 he received his B.M. in Accordion Performance& Conducting, at Music College, Leninobad and later hisM.M. in Conducting from California Baptist University(2009), Riverside, CA. In all that years Mr. Lavruk hassuccessfully performed as a soloist and chamber musicianwith City Folk Orcgestra "Jiguli's Zori" through out theformer Soviet Union and Europe.

His teaching experience started at Togliatti Music Acad-emy, Russia since 1977 through 1994 to the time when heimmigrated to United States of America. At that time heearned & achieved a professional recognition & fame as ateacher and a performer.

Mr. Lavruk successfully continues to teach and perform inthis country that becomes his home. Currently he is an ad-junct faculty at San Bernardino Valley College, where he

ABOUT ThE ARTiSTS

Charles Castronovo

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