Musical Delights
Week of October 22, 2022
Candlelight Restorative Yoga with Live Music
Mindfulness Staff, Monique Mead, Lisa Bergman
Surrender into relaxation at the end of the day as you are guided through restorative lying postures in an atmosphere infused with candlelight and the soothing sounds of violin and piano.
Great Composers Get a Makeover
Lisa Bergman, piano
Great Composers Get a Makeover is a lively concoction of hilarity, anecdotes, demonstrations and guessing games by pianist-raconteur Lisa Bergman. She will be your guide exploring uncharted territory on the inner workings of classical music and its composers, challenging your ears with laughs and winks every note of the way.
Vocal Splendor
Geeta Novotny and Lisa Bergman join forces for an enchanting evening of famous opera arias, Broadway hits, and a special combination of voice and singing bowls.
Tangos & Spanish Flair
Aloysia Friedmann, Monique Mead, Geeta Novotny, Lisa Bergman
With rhythms from Spain and Argentina, this program is both fiery and seductive with Piazzolla Tangos, songs from the opera,“Carmen”, and music from the film, “Scent of a Woman.”
Monique Mead A passionate ambassador of classical music, violinist Monique Mead enjoys a rich career as a performer, educator, and innovator. Working internationally with ensembles such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Cologne Philharmonic, Munich Radio Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony, Berlin Radio Orchestra, and the RIAS Chamber Choir, her innovative programs have raised new audiences for classical music and deepened the experience for seasoned concertgoers. In addition to her performing career, Monique currently serves as currently serves as Director of Music Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University and Artistic Director of the Rancho La Puerta Chamber Music Festival. As an advocate for the healing power of music, Monique has spearheaded initiatives surrounding music for mental health, such as “Beethoven in the Face of Adversity,” in which she performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto 50 times in 250 days for people suffering from various adversities. In response to the current mental health crisis, Monique now partners with Pittsburgh’s Awareness & Wellness Center, where she offers trauma-informed sound healing classes.
A passionate promoter of classical music, Lisa Bergman is a national Gracie Award-winning radio announcer on Classical KING-FM streaming worldwide. A concert pianist specializing in collaborative piano and chamber music she is a graduate of the Juilliard School, Stony Brook University and the University of Washington, cum laude. A former member of the University of Washington Music Faculty, her discography includes six CDs (chamber music and solo piano). As an American Artistic Ambassador she represented the U.S. on a concert tour of New Zealand, Nepal, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia and China. She made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1983. Bergman is founder of the Mostly Nordic Chamber Music Series; Co-Founder of Northwest Opera in Schools, Etcetera and Adult Piano Retreat Director at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts where she served for seven years as the Executive Director. In high demand as a pre-concert lecturer, she has appeared throughout the Pacific Northwest as featured speaker and emcee.
Geeta Novotny is an international award-winning artist who has established herself as a leading and innovative singer, healing arts practitioner, teacher, sound bath artist, and performer. As a profound believer in the power of holistic mind/body health and wellness, Geeta is the creator of Revolution Voice® which is a method and practice that uses the voice and sound as a bridge between music and wellness, while delving extensively into the art, science, and meta-physics behind these modalities. Her method creates a distillation into the healing modality of sonic medicine. Built on her philosophy that voice and sound are our greatest sources of therapeutic healing; Geeta has taken her 25+ years as a classical singer, her extensive teaching experience, and her knowledge and practice of the healing arts thus healing her own life-long chronic illness, to provide a transformative and highly-effective, multi-dimensional approach to vocal training, vocal coaching, singing workshops, sound therapy and performances which affords deep healing, self-discovery, and empowerment from the inside out.
As a classical singer, Geeta has performed in a wide range of principal roles from the hallowed stages of New York City’s Carnegie Hall and The Metropolitan Opera House with the American Ballet Theater to the stages of the Los Angeles Opera and the Aspen Music Festival and many more. Recently, Geeta was honored to compose and perform the vocals on the opening and title song- “Home” for Deepak Chopra’s recent book and album, “Home, Where Everyone is Wel-come: Poems and Songs inspired by American Immigrants”.
From her Grammy and Academy Award-winning clients aiming to refine their talents, to her non-musicians seeking to build confidence and develop their singing voices; Geeta works with clients of all ages and circumstances to provide remedy and healing of their emotional and physical states, as well as clients in pursuit of spiritual awakening and metaphysical release all to help her clients find their voice and purpose in this world.
Geeta has provided her Vocal Immersion Sound Bath, voice and sound healing classes, and led wellness retreats in collaboration with other healing arts practitioners and wellness companies at venues such as The Integratron in Joshua Tree, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, and for conferences at UCLA (Interpersonal Neurobiology Conference, The Healing Power of Sound Conference, and the Psychedelic Science Symposium); along with performing her Vocal Immersion Sound Bath and her singing workshop at Camp Mars (Malibu) and Mars Island (Croatia) for music festivals with the band Thirty Seconds to Mars. She was also featured on Awestruck TV’s show GloListic giving comedienne and international television and internet personality Glozell her very first sound bath.
Geeta’s work has been featured in several podcasts, most recently she was a guest on actress Beth Behr’s (Two Broke Girls, The Neighborhood) Harmonics Podcast. She has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, ABC News, The Hollywood Reporter, and others.
Geeta has also lent her voice to film soundtracks and TV, including lending her voice to actor Channing Tatum in the TV show Lip Sync Battle. She has also enjoyed a career as a principal stage and film actor.
Geeta is a published writer who has contributed to the New York City-based magazine The Indi-an American as a music columnist.
Geeta has taught at numerous performing arts schools around the country, from preschool through high school level to university and professional level. She is also currently on faculty at the Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York City teaching classes in meditation and mindfulness.
Geeta holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University where she was a two-time recipient of the Harry G. Archer Award Scholarship and the Charlotte Black Memorial Scholarship. She pursued her Masters of Music at the University of North Texas where she was awarded a full-time teaching fellowship.
Geeta and Revolution Voice® also contribute to philanthropic and humanitarian organizations such as partnering with Sing For Hope and The Harmony Project through educational outreach and the healing arts. Geeta has performed extensively through educational outreach with Fort Worth Opera, Amarillo Opera, Utah Opera, 92nd Street Y in New York City, and Los Angeles Opera bringing opera into schools around the country.
Geeta stays true to her namesake, as “Geeta” means “Song” in Hindi. She is a progeny of an industrious South Asian Indian father and an exuberant Irish mother and was raised in rural Pennsylvania. Her eclectic cultural background has given her an understanding of many worlds that has sustained her in her variety of creative endeavors.
Founder and Artistic Director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (www.oicmf.org) in the Pacific Northwest, Aloysia Friedmann is firmly established as a major influence in the American chamber music scene. In recognition of this fact, Chamber Music America invited Ms. Friedmann to their national Board in 2016. In December 2018, she was named a Musical America Top Professional of the Year.
Ms. Friedmann’s broad ranging career has included national and international tours, performances with New York’s most prestigious musical ensembles including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and a special onstage role on Broadway alongside Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice. While in New York, Ms. Friedmann worked with artists including Astor Piazzolla, Mirella Freni, Jessye Norman, Frederica von Stade, John Adams, Charles Mackerras, André Previn and Mikhail Baryshnikov, as well as Elton John and Metallica. The New York Times praised her “fiery spirit” after her Carnegie Recital Hall debut.
Aloysia Friedman has performed as guest artist in the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, Florida’s Amelia Island Festival, Colorado’s Strings in the Mountains Music Festival, Napa Valley’s Music in the Vineyards, the Cactus Pear Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Her chamber music colleagues have included Abbey Simon, Gervase de Peyer, Peter Schickele, Chee-Yun, Gary Hoffman, Jeffrey Kahane, William Preucil, Lucy Shelton, the Miró Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin and Lynn Harrell.
This past summer included performances at the Maui Chamber Music Festival, San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival, and ChamberFest 2016 at the Green Music Center in Sonoma, CA.
Chamber Music America recognized Aloysia Friedmann’s artistic leadership with its 2008 CMAcclaim. She also serves on the Advisory Council for Chamber Music Houston. Ms. Friedmann is featured as both performer and producer on several festival recordings, and has produced recordings for violinist Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio and pianist Jon Kimura Parker.
In Houston, Ms. Friedmann is Associate Concertmaster for the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and performs with the Houston Grand Opera. Highlights of concerts in Houston include her solo viola performance of Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel in the Rothko Chapel in addition to performances with Da Camera, Context, and many chamber concerts at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. She has taught as an Affiliate Artist of Viola and Violin at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston.
Aloysia Friedmann plays on a Grancino violin and the ex-Rebecca Clarke Grancino viola. Ms. Friedmann graduated from The Juilliard School and also studied at the University of Washington with Emanuel Zetlin. Aloysia is the proud daughter of violinist Martin Friedmann and oboist Laila Storch. She is married to concert pianist Jon Kimura Parker and they have a daughter, Sophie.