LAHS News:
A group of Los Alamos High School choir students are preparing to leave for Eastern Europe in late November to perform in cathedrals and venues in several cities including Berlin, Prague and Vienna.
Tenor Doug Spurlin is a staff singer at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, where he has been soloist in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Haskell’s Dixieland Mass and Bach’s Magnificat. He has sung extensive Lieder and Oratorio repertoire, including Schubert’s Die Winterreise, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah.
Spurlin also sang with Tucson Chamber Artists for five seasons, where he was tenor soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and Ariel Ramirez’s Misa Criolla. He has sung the roles of Rodolfo in La Bohéme, Calaf in Tosca, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, and Siegmund in Die Walküre with the Arizona Opera, Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Chorale, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Northwest Arkansas Symphony, Northwest Arkansas Opera Theater and many other organizations. He has worked with Sarah Caldwell, Glynn Ross, Charles Bruffy, and Bill McLaughlin. Spurlin made his international debut in the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre with the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Poland.
Spurlin also works at Western National Parks Association, a non-profit company based in Tucson that operates stores in National Parks across the Western United States, including Bandelier National Monument.
Lyric mezzo-soprano Olivia Hakel has been Alto and Soprano II soloist for many oratorio works, including Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah and J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Magnificat. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Vocal Performance from the University of California, Irvine and studied acting at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California.
Her roles in live opera performance include “Buttercup” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, “Cherubino” Mozart’s Il Nozze di Figaro, “Annina” in Verdi’s La Traviata, the “Sandman” in Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel, and “Dido” in Henry Purcell’s Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas.
Hakel is equally comfortable performing in musical theater. She performed the role of “Mama Rose Brice” in a production of Funnygirl at John Ascuagua’s Nugget in Reno, Nevada. She has also portrayed the roles of “Adriana” in Rogers and Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse and the “Baroness Elsa von Schraeder” in The Sound of Music. She performed the role of “Julie” in a revue of Showboat with the Nevada Civic Light Opera during the Saturday dinner cruise aboard the MS Dixie River Boat on Lake Tahoe, and “Anna” from The King and I in a Broadway revue at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nev. Hakel made her European solo concert debut as part of the Annual Summer Music Festival at the castle in Bojnice, Slovakia in July of 2010.
Originally from a military family, Soprano Christina Martos spent the majority of her time in Southern California and New Jersey before pursuing her higher education degrees. A graduate of Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University, Martos is also a former member of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program with the Washington National Opera, where she was under the direction of Maestro Placido Domingo.
Martos’s concert performances include Beethoven’s concerto for voice “Ah!, Perfido” with the Yale Philharmonic, Beethoven’s 9th with the American Youth Symphony at Royce Hall in Los Angeles, and appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony in Miami, and at the 2004 Marilyn Horne Foundation Festival at Carnegie Hall.
Christina performed for several seasons with Central City Opera in Colorado, including a production of Menotti’s The Saint of Bleeker Street, as Annina. While with the Domingo-Cafritz Young artist program, productions included Die Zauberflöte and Hansel and Gretel. With the Washington National Opera she sang the roles of Giannetta in L’elisir D’amore, Nella in Gianni Schicchi, and Barena in Jenufa. Other operatic performances include Suor Angelica, The Marriage of Figaro, Carlysle Floyd’s Susannah, and Dialogues of the Carmelites.
Martos moved to New Mexico in 2008 and resides in Los Alamos. Her most recent concert appearance was as the soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Santa Fe Community Orchestra.