Singing trio for Feilding

Civic Centre directors Pat Snoxell and Frank Dew have scored a coup by signing up a trio of international artists to sing at a concert in Feilding in April.

The trio, soprano Marla Kavanaugh, violinist Ben Baker and tenor Daniel Rodriguez are giving only one other concert in New Zealand, at Old St Paul's in Wellington. All three are based overseas.

Kavanaugh will be familiar to Manawatu audiences from her Three Divas concerts with her mother Kathi Craig and twin sister Marissa.

She is based in San Francisco, and has sung at the America's Cup 2003, for the 9/11 commemorations in Central Park, New York, and was chosen by the New Zealand government to sing at the Academy Award celebrations when Peter Jackson won an Oscar for Lord of the Rings.

Rodriguez rose to international fame as "the singing policeman" when he sang at the funerals of the former colleagues who died during the terrorist attack of 9/11 and a week later performed at the Yankee stadium with Placido Domingo.

The third member of the trio is Wellingtonian Ben Baker, who is in his final year of study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England, where he won a scholarship in 1998 when he was just 8-years- old.

His violin solo CD Arcadian Strings was voted the Classic FM Next Big Thing in 2006. Tickets are available from the Feilding Information Centre.

- © Fairfax NZ News