Holiday Pops Program Notes

With over one hundred roles to his credit, baritone Roberto Perlas Gomez has performed extensively throughout the United States with a special emphasis on California. He has performed multiple leading roles with most of the regional companies in the state and numerous supporting roles with Michigan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, and San Francisco Opera. He has also appeared regularly as soloist with the Verdi Chorus.

Mr. Gomez made his international debut as Marcello in La bohème with the Shanghai Opera. He also created the title role of Jose Rizal in Rizal: Mga huling araw, an opera honoring the final days of the Philippine national hero, performed at the Philippine Cultural Center in Manila during the centennial of his death. He also performed the role of Elias in the Philippine national opera Noli me tangere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He made his European debut for the Arena di Verona as Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in the Italian premiere of John Adams’s Nixon in China, a role he reprised with Long Beach Opera to great press.

In 2009 Mr. Gomez debuted several leading roles with Long Beach Opera to universally critical praise: the Koenig in Orff’s Die Kluge as well as the title roles in Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis and Antonio Vivaldi’s Motezuma, the opera’s American premiere. He continues to perform multiple leading roles with Long Beach Opera, such as the Theater Director and the Gendarme in Poulen’s The Breasts of Tiresias, the baritone in King Gesar and in Philip Glass’s Hydrogen Jukebox, Horemhab in Glass’s Akhnaten, the First Officer and Rambo in Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer, and Shakes in Purcell’s re-imagined Fairy Queen.

Mr. Gomez has performed numerous mainstage roles with San Diego Opera and was also their artist-in-residence for four seasons, performing a series of solo outreach recitals throughout the county. As an Opera San Jose resident artist, Mr. Gomez performed lead roles in Carmen, La traviata, and Il barbiere di Siviglia, and created the role of Drosselmeyer in The Tale of the Nutcracker. He alsoappeared as Germont in La traviata with the Mendocino Music Festival. He has further performed what has become his signature role of Figaro with Nevada Opera, Santa Barbara Opera, Accorde in Mexico, Sacramento Opera, Opera Idaho, Stockton Opera, and Opera San Luis Obispo.

The Stockton Youth Chorale is open to young singers who are in third through eighth grade.  Students learn vocal production, music reading, and performance etiquette, and have fun in the process. Children from throughout San Joaquin County participate in the Youth Chorale, and it is open to all children by a simple audition. A scholarship program is available.

Joan Calonico, director, graduated from the University of Pacific Conservatory of Music with a bachelor’s degree in music education. She was a general music and choral specialist in Lincoln Unified School District for twenty years. During that time, she served as Mentor Teacher and Music Teacher Specialist, coordinating the K–8 music program district-wide. After earning a master’s degree in educational administration, Mrs. Calonico became principal of Lincoln Elementary School and later, Don Riggio School, where visual and performing arts are an integral part of every student’s education.

Active in many music organizations, Joan has served as representative on the board of the California Music Educators Association and as clinician and panelist for the American Choral Directors Association and the California Music Educators Association. She has worked for the University of the Pacific as a guest lecturer in music education and supervisor of student teachers. She has consulted in school districts throughout the region and was a writer in the development of the new California Arts Standards. She has conducted the San Joaquin County Middle School Honor Choir and the CMEA Capitol Section Middle School Honor Choir. The Stockton Arts Commission awarded her the Arts Education Award in 2018.She has been directing the Stockton Youth Chorale since 2002 and is the founding conductor of Valley Youth A Cappella. She sings with the Stockton Chorale, Stockton Master Chorale, and in the opera chorus for the Stockton Opera Association. She has also been musical director for many musical theater productions, most recently Legally Blonde at Lincoln High School. Making music with kids is her favorite thing to do.