The month-long Cariboo Festival 2012 continues this week with the choir and vocal entries performing Monday to Wednesday, April 16 to 18 at St. John Lutheran Church at 377 Hodgson Rd.
Festival programs are available at the Open Book.
An evening concert by participating choirs is part of the festival activities taking place tonight, April 17 starting at 7 p.m. at St. John Lutheran Church.
Alexandra Kosachukova Babbel of Kelowna is the vocal adjudicator this year.
Being the only American-born member of her family, Babbel has approached her music with a great sense of privilege, states her biography.
Her German mother and Ukrainian father met and married in a displaced persons’ refugee camp after fleeing the Stalinist terror in Ukraine and later immigrated to the United States where Babbel was born.
Babbel’s opera career in Chicago included the title role in the World Premiere production of Philip Hagamman’s opera, The Aspern Papers, together with soprano roles with the Lincoln Opera and the Milwaukee Opera Company in Puccini’s La Boheme, performing both the roles of Mimi and Mussetta.
Performances in Canada, Germany, England, Switzerland and solo-concert tours in Russia and Ukraine included guest appearances with members of the Kiev Conservatory of Music, Moscow’s conductor Evgeny Vechenko, and recital performances in association with the Britten-Pears School.
Alexandra Babbel holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of Alberta and Northwestern University.
Her accomplished background as a soprano soloist and her voice teaching has produced several successful young singers who have gone on to enjoy voice scholarships and careers in music.
She held the faculty position of Voice Department Head at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois before relocating to Canada.