By Daily Press staff
The Emmy Award-winning Santa Monica College Opera Theatre will present “Patti Gallagher & Donald Fredrickson in Concert,” featuring the acclaimed soprano who has performed at the White House, and her accompanist.
The special concert will be held at 7 p.m. on March 21 in the SMC Concert Hall, 1900 Pico Blvd. Tickets are $16. Call (310) 434-3000. The program will feature favorite selections from opera, musicals and art songs. Gallagher — a retired voice, acting and speech professor at SMC and Los Angeles City College — has had a long and distinguished career in opera, musical theatre, acting and television. She started her career with a tour of Menotti’s opera, “The Telephone,” and continued to tour in operas, plays and musicals throughout the Midwest and in Los Angeles, where she also had a starring role in the television series, “Someone Is Out There.”
Gallagher has been a soloist with several orchestras, most recently the Coachella Valley Symphony Orchestra.
Since retiring in 1998 and moving to Palm Springs, she has been active as a performer in the Palm Springs area. In October 2000, she won the Miss Senior America crown and in December 2000 she was a soloist in the East Room of the White House.
Gallagher has a bachelor’s degree in opera performance from Indiana University, and a master’s degree in voice, as well as a doctorate in speech and theater from the University of Missouri.
Fredrickson is a pianist who accompanies musical theatre, opera workshops, choral activities and applied music programs at SMC and El Camino College in Torrance. He has accompanied performances and master classes with Roberta Peters, Sherrill Milnes, Eddie Daniels, Richard Stolzman, John Raitt, Marni Nixon, John Aler, Carol Neblett, and International Pavarotti Competition winner Timothy Blevins.
Recently he was honored with an Emmy for his contribution to the video of the SMC Opera Theatre's production of Gounod's Faust.
A graduate of Dartmouth College, he holds two degrees in piano accompaniment from the USC School of Music, where he studied with the legendary Heifitz accompanist Brooks Smith.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 15, 2004. Read the original PDF.