Well known to patrons of the Music Academy of the West and the Santa Barbara Symphony, De Andre Simmons, bass-baritone, will acquaint the Lompoc Music Association audience with, to quote Santa Barbara reviewer Mary Dan Eades, “his velvet voice” at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12, 2015, at the Valley of the Flowers Church at 3346 Vandenberg Village.
Although Simmons often performs art songs by black composers as well as German lieder, his Nov. 12 program will include selections from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha and Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, and Anyone Can Whistle.
Simmons has sung with musical companies and symphony orchestras throughout the hemisphere, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Columbia Pro Cantare of Maryland, Opera Panama, the Pacific Opera Victoria of Canada, Curtis Opera Theatre of Philadelphia, the Collegiate Chorale of New York and The Kansas City Symphony.
His operatic performances include roles in Tosca, Aida, Carmen, Porgy and Bess, Showboat, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Wiz.
In addition to his vocal training, Simmons has studied dance and has had leading roles in Guys and Dolls and Hello, Dolly, performed with Donald McKayle and Carmen de Lavallade, and he brought the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference, 2001 Dance Odyssey, to San Diego.
During the summer of 2001, Simmons studied in Graz, Austria at the American Institute of Musical Studies.
Accompanying Simmons will be Juilliard graduate Brian Farrell, who studied piano with Jerome Lowenthal and has worked with distinguished artists cellist James Kreger, violinists Fred Sherry and Chao Lang Lin and tenor Robert White.
Farrell is the recipient of the Vladimir Horowitz Scholarship and First Prize at the Yamaha Keyboard Competition and has held the position as assistant conductor with the Los Angeles Opera.
Tickets at the door are $18 for adults and $6 for students. Season tickets will be admitted.
— Allie Kay Spaulding is the president of the Lompoc Music Association.