Soprano and Cal State San Bernardino music professor Stacey Fraser will perform Thursday and Friday, Dec. 1 and 2, in the premiere of “Trauma, Loss, and Transcendence,” an event dedicated to the victims and survivors of the tragic San Bernardino mass shooting on Dec. 2, 2015.
The free concert will be held at the Culver Center of the Arts at the University of California, Riverside at 7 p.m. An opportunity for the audience to meet with the artists will follow each performance. Tickets should be reserved online at the “Trauma, Loss and Transcendence” web page.
On the day of the attack, which killed 14 people — five of them CSUSB alumni — and wounded 22, Fraser said she was in her campus office getting ready to take her CSUSB Opera Theatre students to perform for the theatre students at San Bernardino High School.
“I was in shock and it took me a few minutes to really comprehend what was occurring,” she said. “Of course, we did not end up going to SB High that day but I made a point of rescheduling the visit for after the holiday break.”
“I believe we must be sensitive to their loss and continued grieving,” Fraser said. “It is a terrible tragedy that all of us will remember happening in our city of San Bernardino. It is my hope that we as a society and community can find some healing through art and music.”
The concert premieres two pieces for soprano, percussion and live-electronics by Paulo C. Chagas, professor of music at UC Riverside, and Martin Jaroszewicz, a UCR scholar in residence. Fraser will be singing with Grammy-nominated percussionist Justin DeHart of the LA Percussion Quartet.
Fraser has performed nationally and internationally, including as a soloist for the Tony Award winning La Jolla Playhouse, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan.
At CSUSB, she has directed innovative, modern and zany adaptations of several standard operatic shows, including Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti,” Humperdinck’s “Hänsel und Gretel” and Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte.”