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Special Guests
Saturday, December 28, 2002
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Renée Fleming
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Born to voice teacher parents in Pennsylvania, RENÉE
FLEMING says she came by singing "very honestly and easily."
As a toddler, she was exposed to singing before she could even talk by
sitting ext to her mother as she gave voice lessons. While growing up
in Rochester, New York, her mother was a "typical stage mother,"
forcing her to perform whenever an opportunity presented itself. At the
time she disliked having singing made into a task, but she now admits
that the discipline it instilled in her has been useful as a professional.
From 1983 to 1987, she was enrolled in the American Opera Center at Juilliard,
where she met Beverley Johnson, the voice teacher with whom she would
continue to study throughout her career. In 1986, Fleming made her professional
opera debut in Die Entüfhrung aus dem Serail in Salzburg.
In 1988, she was invited to sing the Countess at the Houston Grand Opera;
the following year she made her first appearances with the New York City
Opera and Covent Garden. In 1998, The Beautiful Voice (Polygram
Records), a collection of Renée Fleming's favorite songs and arias,
was released and received that year's prize from L'Academie du Disque
Lyrique as well as the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance.
A self-titled CD, Renée Fleming (Polygram Records) was released
in 2000 and features Fleming performing familiar and lesser-known arias
from Italian and French operas accompanied by the London Philharmonic
Orchestra.
With a creative writing degree from the University of Minnesota, MARIA
BAMFORD started her stand up career performing at comedy clubs in
Minneapolis. She made her way to Hollywood where she was recognized in
the industry rag VARIETY as one of the "Top Ten Comics to
Watch." Her unique character-based, edgy stand-up excited Hollywood
television and film executives at the festival and led to a number of
memorable roles. Maria has performed her stand-up comedy on The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno, the Conan O'Brien Show and has had her
own half-hour Comedy Central Special. She has also appeared on Comedy
Central's Premium Blend, Make Me Laugh, Louis Anderson's
NBC series Comedy Showcase and on NBC's Late Friday.
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Paul Geremia
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Not your typical bluesman, PAUL GEREMIA
is a third-generation Italian-American who grew up in Rhode Island. As
a child, he bought blues records at the Salvation Army, and heard R&B
and jazz from musicians who had moved up from the southeast coast. His
first instrument was a harmonica, and in his teens, he started fooling
around with a friend's electric guitar. His father had a plywood acoustic
guitar that he never played, so Geremia took it with him when he left
for college. It was there that he started to focus on learning to play
the instrument. During the early part of the '60s folk revival, Geremia
got a taste for acoustic blues. At various folk festivals, he heard young
white guys like Tim Hardin and Tom Rush playing blues, and later had the
opportunity to hear the great black blues players who had recorded in
the '20s and '30s. He learned something from every musician he met, including
Fred McDowell, Skip James, Son House, and Howlin' Wolf. Since abandoning
all other means of support in 1966, he has worked as a musician, performing
in every capacity from street singing to club and concert bookings in
the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He has also released nine solo albums, and
has been featured on two anthologies. His 1997 release, Live from Uncle
Sam's Backyard (Red House Records), was recorded live at a small club
in Minneapolis, and his latest CD, Hard Life Rockin' Chair (Genes
Records), was released in February of 2000.
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