Five emerging opera singers will take the stage at the Piedmont Center for the Arts on Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m., marking the first public showcase of Festival Opera's brand-new Resident Artist Program. The performance, set in the venue's main room at 801 Magnolia Ave., will feature soprano Marielle Leiboff, mezzo-soprano Phoebe Dinga, soprano Rachel Nelson, tenor Spencer Greene and baritone Liam Daley, each performing one or two arias alongside duets and group numbers.
Walnut Creek-based Festival Opera will present its annual Salon Series at the Piedmont venue this fall, a run of three Sunday concerts, according to the East Bay Times. The company officially launched its Resident Artist Program in May 2026 as a season-long professional development initiative offering paid performance roles, individualized vocal coaching, and business skills education, according to OperaWire. Since May, the resident artists have performed and understudied roles in Festival Opera productions and taken part in coachings and workshops, per the East Bay Times report.
A Showcase Years in the Making
General Director Zachary Gordin described the showcase as a culmination of the singers' work since May, saying the artists are emerging performers transitioning from school to professional careers. Gordin, who joined Festival Opera as an artistic advisor in 2018 before becoming artistic director in 2019 and general director in 2020, said the program helps artists explore unfamiliar repertoire and develop technique and stage presence, per the same account. Before moving into leadership, Gordin performed across the Bay Area as a baritone, notably premiering the role of Joseph De Rocher in Jake Heggie's opera Dead Man Walking at Dayton Opera in 2015.
San Francisco-based soprano Marielle Leiboff will make her first official performance at the Piedmont Center for the Arts on Sept. 27. She previously understudied a role in Festival Opera's production of Alcina and performed a full role in the company's Opera in the Park production of Elixir of Love, staged in Walnut Creek and Orinda. Leiboff said the showcase is a chance to present the dramatic aspects of the artists' learning and to explore new repertoire, the East Bay Times reports.
An Evening Spanning Three Centuries of Song
The program opens with Giuseppe Verdi's Libiamo from La Traviata, which dates to 1853, and closes with Leonard Bernstein's Make Our Garden Grow from Candide, composed in 1956. In between, audiences will hear music by George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Strauss, Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet. A reception following the performance will give attendees a chance to meet the artists directly.
The venue itself carries its own history. The building at 801 Magnolia Ave. was built in the 1880s as a farmhouse and later became a Christian Science church, according to Patch. The City of Piedmont entered into a lease agreement in May 2011 for use of city-owned property, per the City of Piedmont. The center, which seats 100 or more people and also houses a gallery with exhibitions rotating every few months, offers Festival Opera a community benefit rate as its recurring Salon Series venue, according to the East Bay Times.
What's Ahead in the Fall Series
The Salon Series continues Oct. 25 at 4 p.m. with a program of Operatic Mad Scenes, featuring sopranos Aura Veruni and Lila Khazoum performing dramatic excerpts from Idomeneo, Macbeth, The Magic Flute, Anna Bolena, Hamlet and Lucia di Lammermoor, according to BroadwayWorld. The series concludes Nov. 22 at 4 p.m. with the world premiere of Borders of Dreaming, a song cycle composed by Juan Sebastián Cardona Ospina with a libretto by Michael Colbruno, performed by baritone Efraín Solís and pianist Marika Yasuda.
That commissioned piece was inspired by the true story of a gay makeup artist who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison, according to BroadwayWorld. It's a striking contrast to the season's opening showcase of arias and duets, and it reflects the company's willingness to pair classical training with contemporary, socially conscious storytelling within the same intimate Piedmont setting Festival Opera also uses for full mainstage productions at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. More information and tickets for the Salon Series are available through festivalopera.org/salon-series.
