My culturally saturated life has been enriched by attending a number of very special events and performances which showcased brilliant women in the world of arts: Eun Sun Kim, Yang Yang Lyon, Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Anita Yavich, Mary Andrade, Tzvia Shalev and Emily Michiko Jensen. Thanks to these incredibly talented women, my life is a fabulous cultural journey around the Bay Area.
Eun Sun Kim, music director, San Francisco Opera. Season’s highlights: “Parsifal”; Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Falla concert
Eun Sun Kim and Richard Wagner are a winning combination. Only one week after she conducted the amazing new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal,” the gifted conductor led the San Francisco Symphony and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack in a one-night concert of music by Manuel de Falla and Beethoven at the War Memorial Opera House. From the Manuel de Falla set of songs, inspired by his home country of Spain, with Mack as the soloist, and with the orchestra performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Ta.. ta.. ta.. ta…), Kim took us on a mesmerizing musical journey. “When I took this job, I read about the history of this Opera House and all the artists and conductors from the early days,” she said. “… I asked when was ‘Parcifal’ last done and learned it was in 2000, so this year marks 25 years.” Kim particularly enjoys “getting to dust off these great pieces with the orchestra.”
Yang Yang Lyon, prima ballerina; executive artistic director, International Performing Arts of America. Season’s highlight “Enchantment”: 8th International Performing Arts Festival
Yang Yang Lyon began her distinguished career at the Beijing Dance Academy, where she was granted a full scholarship at the age of 12. With two decades of leading roles in major productions including numerous gold medal championship wins, she performed extensively in China and internationally, including in a film by renowned director Zhang Yimou. Since 2018, Lyon has been instrumental in leading and guiding the International Performing Arts of America dance troupe to high-quality productions while embracing with passion and dedication the multiple cultures through dance and choreography.
Lina Gonzalez-Granados, conductor. Season’s highlight: Dia de Los Muertos concert with San Francisco Symphony
Born and raised in Cali, Colombia, Lina Gonzalez-Granadoshas firmly established herself locally and abroad as a talented conductor of opera, classical and contemporary music. This upcoming season will include her appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Stamford Symphony, San Francisco Conservatory and the Orchestra Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias. Gonzalez-Granadosis a staunch proponent of Latin American composers’ work, which earned her recognition as one of the “Latino 30 Under 30” by El Mundo Newspaper in 2016.
Anita Yavich, costume designer. Season’s highlight: San Francisco Opera’s “The Monkey King”
Costume designer Anita Yavich looked back to China’s Bronze Age for design inspiration. “The visual vocabulary is so rich because there’s a lot of motifs that are derived from animals,” Yavich said of the era. Her main inspiration for Sun Wukong was that he felt like a “modern underdog.” “He’s an underdog, his methods are shrewd,” she noted, and his armor and crown needed to reflect that. Yavich said the flawed nature of the title character was part of the attraction to the material for her. The costumes’ cosmic neon colors felt pulled from the future, with iridescent fabrics catching the light.Yavich was given plenty of room for flights of fantasy dressing an undersea kingdom and an army of primates, among other scenes.
Mary Andrade, award-winning photographer, publisher, writer. Season’s highlight: Dia de Los Muertos Festival in Roseville
Mary J. Andrade, cultural advisor for the Pixar Oscar-winning movie “Coco,” began researching Day of the Dead in 1987 in Janitzio, Michoacán. Since then, Andrade has covered a different state of the Mexican Republic each year, gathering information and taking photographs of the celebration of the pre-Hispanic tradition known as Day of the Dead, which has evolved through the centuries and has become an integral part of the Mexican spirit and culture. She learned the subtle differences in the way this tradition is celebrated among the different states in Mexico. A journalist and photographer by trade, Andrade received the “Ohtli” Award in 1991 from Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs for her journalistic labor serving the Mexican communities in Santa Clara County, and the Mexican “Silver Quill” award in 2000 from the Mexico’s secretary of tourism for her first bilingual book of the series “Through the Eyes of the Soul, Day of the Dead in Mexico.”
Tzvia Shelef, executive director, Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival. Season’s highlights: “Tatami,” co-directed by an Israeli director and an Iranian filmmaker, and “Midas Man,” a musical biopic following Brian Epstein, mastermind of the rise of The Beatles.
As the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival’s executive director for over a decade now, Shelef has had an impressive career in television and movie production. She has produced over 600 television commercials for Saatchi & Saatchi in Israel, and prior to her agency work, she served as an assistant director for numerous Israeli film productions, as well as Hollywood movies shot in Israel. The most famous of these American films was Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List.” Once in the U.S., she was an executive producer for KQED public television in San Francisco, involved in fundraising and sponsorships to pay for the production of shows. Aside from her professional accomplishments, Shelef is passionate and enthusiastic about film, and as she told the audience at the festival’s opening night, she now has her “dream job.”
Emily Michiko Jensen, soprano. Season’s highlight: Opera San José’s “Madama Butterfly”
As a Japanese American artist taking on one of opera’s most iconic and complex roles, Emily Michiko Jensen brings a deeply personal and culturally resonant perspective to her portrayal. It’s a timely and powerful story – both artistically and socially – as she reflects on identity, representation and empathy in a work that has long sparked important conversations in the opera world. Puccini’s world-famous opera “Madama Butterfly” took center stage this past November.
A dashing American officer marries a young geisha, and she gives up everything for love. Puccini’s soaring music follows her as she waits, dreaming of the day he’ll meet their child, but his return brings a devastating twist in this story of passion, betrayal and heartbreak. Jensen made her role debut as the young Cio-Cio-San.
