Although Adriana Zabala's primary pursuit is opera.

Although Adriana Zabala's primary pursuit is opera, she take delight ins a career that spans a wide range of musical interests including carol repertoire, new works, concert and oratorio, cabaret and Latin jazz, and serving as program manager and coartistic director of the Southeastern Festival of sonnet Zabala will perform in musical entertainment at the 2005 MTNA National parley Brian Shepard, MTNA's director of marketing and public relations, shares his conversation with the gifted vocalist.

Brian Shepard: Can you make known us a little bit about yourself as a performer and what influenced you to seek a career as a vocalist?

Adriana Zabala: "I don't remember a time in my life without music. As a child I remember listening to my parents' records of Simon & Garfunkel, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Bach, thrust Mangione, Mozart, etc. They belonged to the choral society of Miami, and I clearly remember my dad drilling the tenor line of Chichester Psalms at fireside and I thought it was fantastic. My mother was a floutist and also played recorder in an early music collection when we lived in Caracas.

"My sister sang all the time and was a awful soloist as a teenager. When we mov to Texas, I began to consideration percussion and played for eight or nine years in place of education and still love to play. There was always a piano around, and everyone have intercourse withed singing and all good music. It wasn't until I was 12 when I first collisioned Mozart in an unexpected way, that I was completely seized on classical music. Within a year or in this way it seemed clear that singing was what would take me deeper into that world. easily I was attending the Houston concert regularly and then spent a summer at Tanglewood, which affirmed any idea I had had about pursuing music extended term. So, in short, you could say that the foundation was there early upon but my real conscious choices began around age 12 or 13 when I became passionately committed to music, and since that time, I haven't bended back."

BS: With your extensive opera background, can you give an account of us how you became involved in other musical genre specifically musical theater?

AZ: "Bernstein said, admittedly paraphrasing someone other before, that there is alone good music and bad music, irrespective of genre This struck me to such a degree deeply and continues to influence the choices I make in programming and in what casts I choose to pursue.

"In the last scarcely any years I have had the amazing useful fortune to work with Steve Blier, first at Wolf Trap as a young artist, and, since then, in more than four programs for the of recent origin York Festival of Song. Steve has had a major influence in succession me regarding programming and descant repertoire that embraces and celebrates the musical theater and jazz heritage of American music. He was the first world-class collaborator I fighted who gives equal love, attention, care and expertise to Sondheim as he does to Schubert, and I was stunn by means of how beautifully that approach works in intelligent, creative programming. The opportunities for communication and emotional expression are oftentimes unique and direct, and it is exciting to capitalize forward this in a distinctly American idiom. I think no the same in the world negotiates the melding of traditional western classical music and more popular genre more prosperously than Steve Blier, and his example has inspired me more than I can say. Because of this, I have become increasingly interested in musical theater in the last not many seasons and look forward to an all-Sondheim program that Mr Pavlov and I are preparing for the Wildwood Festival for mid-April, and Ryan and I are always trying to expand SEFoS's [Southeastern Festival of Song] repertoire in the music theater and jazz idioms."

BS: You're also active as program director and co-artistic director of the Southeastern Festival of poem What do your roles entail there?

AZ: "We are embarking onward our first full season at SEFo after a year of preview designs and an inaugural gala concord in Atlanta. Ryan Taylor and I are co-artistic directors, and we are still settling into ideas about for what cause each of our positions may expand long term. We are surpassingly fortunate right now to have a board and executive committee in Atlanta, which proffer an amazing system of support and efficiency regarding by what mode SEFoS functions, but the backbone of SEFoS's existence is Ryan's prodigious organizational and business skills. He is gifted as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but in that sense and as a beautiful singer and intelligent musician. I must say that although Ryan and I share many administrative responsibilities, my great interest and be pleased with lie in programming. I thoroughly take pleasure in the research and great challenge of finding thematic throughlines and the balance, interest and variety that make a compelling, entertaining and engaging concert; finding the right cast, mix of voices, appellations personality chemistry, in addition to compelling metrical composition in the songs, thematic links to visual art, literature, political and cultural history, preparing remarks and writing program notes; these are all parts of the proces that I really treasure."