SINGER  Carrie Hennessey.
Photos courtesy VSO

❒ Duo to give Vallejo recital Sunday with emphasis on popular song

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Carrie Hennessey has performed in opera, theater and with symphonies worldwide, enjoying her European debut recently at the International Mahler Festival in the Czech Republic. Locally, she’s worked with the Oakland-East Bay Symphony, Berkeley Symphony and both the opera and philharmonic in her hometown, Sacramento.

This weekend the soprano will perform for southern Solano County when Vallejo Symphony Orchestra presents Hennessey and pianist Greg Mason in a recital of opera and popular music at Vallejo’s First Presbyterian Church.

Mason, with whom Hennessey has worked for about six years, is himself a well-traveled musician and teacher, having performed in Carnegie Hall, the United Nations and at festivals in 14 countries.

PIANIST Greg Mason.

He has coached in New York, worked in the Julliard School and appeared with many opera companies, and was a pianist for Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on NBC, PBS and NPR. Recently he was named Best Music Director by the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle for a 2012 performance of “My Fair Lady” at the San Francisco Playhouse. “It’s sort of a Tony Awards for the Bay Area,” he said.

Mason and Hennessey met when he was a coach at the Sacramento Opera. Their collaborations — “We’ve done quite a bit together,” he says — have run the gamut of classical, opera and popular music.

Sunday in Vallejo they will so “some opera,” Mason said, “then switch immediately to popular song.” Included in their performance will be pieces by Kurt Weill and a “fairly large chunk of French pop that you don’t hear very much any more, but was really popular in the ’70s,” he said.

Mason arranged the performance. “I anticipate that people will really like them,” he said. “They’re pretty romantic.”

And then they may take the show on the road: Hennessey and Mason plan to expand on the popular music side of Sunday’s performance and take it to a club in Sacramento. “They say it’s a night club, but it’s more of a dinner club, where you can get dinner and see the show,” he said. “I’d like to do it in San Francisco, too.”

If You Go
The recital will begin at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Presbyterian Church, 1360 Amador St., Vallejo. For tickets and information visit vallejosymphony.org.

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