Biography
The youngest in a very musical family, Ava received her theater training and experience performing musical theater during her high school and junior college years before making the leap to opera. She has performed leading roles with several of California's regional opera companies, including Townsend Opera Players (now Modesto Opera), North Bay Opera and the San Francisco Children's Opera. In 2015, she performed the lead role of Sylvia in Mascagni's Zanetto, for the opening of Capitol Opera, Sacramento. Other leading roles she has performed include Violetta (La Traviata, Verdi), Cio-cio-san (Madama Butterfly, Puccini), Aida (Aida, Verdi), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos, Strauss), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte, Mozart), Georgetta (Il Tabarro, Puccini), Esmeralda (The Bartered Bride, Smetana), Cinderella (Cinderella, Gingold), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan), Phillia (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sondheim) and Polly Peachum (The Beggar's Opera, both J. Gay and Britten versions) which garnered her a nomination for a Sacramento regional theater Elly Award.
As a guest soloist with many Regional California orchestras, Ava's performances include Das himmlische Leben from Mahler's Symphony No. 4, Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer, Ravel’s Kaddisch, the Pie Jesu by both L. Boulanger and Andrew Lloyd Weber, Händel’s Gloria in exelsis Deo and Salve Regina, Fern Hill by John Corigliano, and much more. She has appeared with the Solano Symphony, Camellia Symphony, Auburn Symphony, Gold Country Chamber Orchestra, Camerata California Chamber Orchestra, the Sacramento Choral Society Festival Symphony, and the Valley Choral Society Orchestra.
Ava has also had the pleasure and honor to sing the music of some of the world's leading living contemporary composers: Magnificat by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal (U.S. Premiere), In the Arms of Music by Matthew Harris, An American Requiem by James DeMars, The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins, and most recently the world premiere of the Concerto Da Requiem by Carlos McMillan-Fuentes. She also had the opportunity to sing Gounod's Gallia for the Centennial of the Panama Pacific Exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 2015.
