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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OPERA PARALLÈLE WELCOMES ENTREPRENEUR, OPERA EDUCATOR AND ARTS LEADER JANE HARTLEY TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
San Francisco, CA, June 21, 2018 –Opera Parallèle, the Bay Area’s innovative contemporary chamber opera company, has announced that opera education specialist, entrepreneur and arts leader Jane Hartley has joined its board of directors. Hartley, a real estate investor, has been involved in opera and arts education for more than three decades having served as President of the board of the San Francisco Opera Guild and currently serving on the board of San Francisco Opera. For more information about Opera Parallèle, visit www.operaparallele.org .
“As we build our board to expand opportunities for Opera Parallèle’s future, we are so honored to welcome Jane Hartley to the Board of Directors,” says OP board President Susan McConkey. “Jane adds strong community connections and relationship-building experience that will strengthen our board as we head into our 10th anniversary year in 2020.”
Real estate investor Jane Hartley has served on the boards of directors of the San Francisco Opera Guild, Opera America, Opera Volunteers of America and currently sits on the board of San Francisco Opera. During her tenure as President of the San Francisco Opera Guild, she founded an endowment for opera education. She credits an early childhood experience with the San Francisco Opera Guild for her life-long passion for opera and education. As a fourth grader, she attended an Opera Guild matinee at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. As a result, she joined the Opera Guild Board in 1983 to be involved in its opera education programs, including introducing opera to school children.
Jane Hartley was raised in the East Bay. She moved to San Francisco after college and had a brief career teaching before she became interested in apartment renovation and has bought, renovated, and managed properties in San Francisco ever since. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, David, former Travel Editor for Sunset Magazine.
About Opera Parallèle
Award-winning Opera Parallèle develops and performs contemporary operas in a dynamic balance of known and new works, in new productions that shed light on their subject matter and engage audiences’ senses and sensibilities. Opera Parallèle is the only organization in the Bay Area presenting fully-cast and staged contemporary operas exclusively. Opera Parallèle also commissions new orchestrations of contemporary grand operas, to give a sense of intimacy to its productions and to give a new life to works which might not otherwise be performed. Opera Parallèle’s interactive community engagement programs are dedicated to reaching increasingly diverse communities.
Opera Parallèle’s 2018-2019 season features the world premiere of Today It Rains—an opera inspired by a pivotal event in the life of artist Georgia O’Keeffe—a continuing relationship with composer Philip Glass, the return of Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, a new production of Christopher Pratorius Gomez’ Xochitl and the Flowers, and the annual Up Close and Parallèle gala. The season marks major national partnerships with Brooklyn’s American Opera Projects for the premiere of Today It Rains and with the Days and Nights Festival in Carmel, CA, where OP will perform a new production of Philip Glass’ In the Penal Colony. The creative team for the season will be headed by founding Artistic Director/Conductor Nicole Paiement and Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, and the season runs from October 5, 2018, through May 18, 2019, with performances in San Francisco at the Marines’ Memorial Theater, Z Space, and the Community Music Center, and in Carmel at the Golden Bough Playhouse.
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