March 2002
  Artist of the Month:

Aida Gamboa
Aida Gamboa graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance.  She was the Chairman of the Voice Department of St. Scholastica's College in Manila, and a voice instructor at the University of the Philippines until 1992 when her family decided to move to the United States.

She has performed lead parts in operas and solo concerts which include oratorios, art songs, Filipino and Broadway songs.  These were compositions such as Puccini's "La Boheme," Verdi's "La Traviata," F.P. de Leon's "Noli Me Tangere," Mozart's"The Marriage of Figaro," Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" and "The Human Voice," Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel," Handel's "Messiah," Mozart's "Coronation Mass" and "Requiem," Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" and "Ninth Symphony," Zimmerman's

"Prince of Peace," Bach's "St. John's Passion," Vivaldi's "Requiem Mass," Kasilag's "St. John of the Cross," Brahms and Mahler Lieder Recital and Rodgers & Hammerstein's "The King and I."

Aida has performed at the Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, St. Peter's Church in New York, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Cultural Center of the Philippines, International Bamboo Organ Festival in Las Pinas in the Philippines, Manila Metropolitan Theatre, Philamlife Auditorium and other concert halls in USA, Taipeh, and China as a soloist and cultural ambassador and all over the world as a member and soloist of the Philippine Madrigal Singers.

She has sung under the baton of renowned conductors such as Karl Hochreitter, Yaakov Bergman, Miles Morgan, Piero Gamba, Francisco Feliciano, Oscar Yatco and Lucrecia Kasilag.

Aida has trained with Andrea Veneracion of the University of the Philippines, Raquel Adonaylo of Curtis Institute, Hannah Ludwig, Julius Severin of Mozarteum, Austria, and John Lester of the University of Montana, among others.  She presently coaches with Evelyn Mandac, the first Filipina to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.

In July, 2001, she had a solo concert in Corpus Christi, Texas under the sponsorship of the Philippine Performing Arts Society.  She performed with the Edison Symphony Orchestra last October 13, 2001, singing "God Bless America", a concert which was dedicated to the Edison-Metuchen victims of the September 11 New York Tragedy.  She also performed at a benefit concert by Filipino-American artists in November, 2001 for the Filipino-American victims of the September 11 New York tragedy at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, and at a holiday concert with the Edison Symphony Orchestra last December, 2001. On May 24, 2002, she will be performing with her daughter, Marian, at the Philippine Consulate in New York at a concert series commemorating Philippine Independence Day.

Aida directed the St. Helena Family Choir in 1999-2001 and has coordinated summer workshops on Philippine culture for children sponsored by the Filipino Families and Friends of North Edison for the past seven years.  Aida works as a music teacher and choral conductor at Woodbrook School and James Madison Primary School of the Edison Public School system.

Aida is an active member of the Edison Arts Society and the New Jersey Music Educators Association. Seven of her students from Woodbrook School and St. Helena Family Choir got accepted to the NJMEA Elementary Honor Choir with flying colors. One of her sopranos, Robert Zhang, ranked # 1 in the Soprano section and one of the altos, Anna Bansil, ranked # 2.