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Saturday, September 24, 2022, 7:30 PMLocation: Church NarthexTori Trahan | Mezzo-Soprano
Mezzo-soprano and native Texan, recently returned home after two years of pursuing a Master’s degree at Indiana University with voice teacher Wolfgang Brendel, which followed her Bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University where she studied with Deborah Popham. Full roles performed include Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel in Hansel & Gretel, and Second Woman in both domestic and international performances of Dido & Aeneas. She has also performed various partial roles and choruses in operas such as Mozart’s Così fan tutté and Le Nozze di Figaro, Puccini’s La Bohème and Suor Angelica, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Bernstein’s Candide. Her recent work in Houston includes teaching private piano and voice lessons and singing at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
Olena Blahulyak | Piano
Ukrainian pianist Olena Blahulyak enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, collaborative performer, and an educator. Her love for music was fostered by her mother and a guild of influential teachers and mentors. At the age of twelve, she was admitted to the M. Lysenko Special Music Boarding School in Kyiv, and later to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Kyiv where she studied with Sergei Ryabov. As a part of the Vladimir Horowitz Summer Festival (2001), she made her orchestral debut performing Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 under the baton of Mykola Suk. She is a winner of multiple national and international piano competitions, including the 2003 International Chamber Music Competition in St. Petersburg, 2004 II Zatin International Competition in Ukraine, and Ella Phillip Competition in Romania (2007), and the Sam Houston State Concerto Competition in 2018, where she performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. Olena has also been a featured guest artist in several music festivals, including the “Ciudad Jamilena” 2008 and 2009 and “Málaga Classica” in Spain, 2016. Olena has also performed in recital across the United States, in Europe, and throughout South America, including joining a diplomatic mission organized by the Norwegian Embassy in Guatemala in 2016, where she gave a series of masterclasses and charity concerts. While living in Spain in 2010-2016, Olena was an active performing artist, collaborating with notable violinists Jesus Reina and Anna Margrethe Haugland Nilsen, and working as a collaborative pianist at the Ivan Galamian Academy in Málaga. In 2016-2018, Olena proceeded to study with distinguished Spanish pianist Josu de Solaun at Sam Houston State University, and soon joined the piano faculty there as an instructor. She was also the musical director and pianist for Sam Houston State’s Opera projects “Leonard Bernstein” (2017) and “Hansel and Gretel” (2018). She is a co-founder of the classical and jazz piano duet with Romanian pianist Eduard Gavril, whose unique and captivating performances have taken them across the United States. She is currently completing her Doctoral degree in Piano Performance at the University of Houston, under the guidance of Professor Timothy Hester. When not focusing on her musical endeavors, she enjoys traveling, yoga, and spending time with her beloved pug Daria.
