Mission statement
unSUNg is committed to using music as a platform to improve the world. We showcase new classical vocal compositions and forgotten works, and support the people who create and perform them.
***This series does not discriminate based on gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliations or sexual orientation.
What's unSUNg?
Founded in 2013, this grassroots concerts series presents and promotes new and neglected vocal chamber music and the creators of those works, online and through live concerts, social media and a monthly newsletters. unSUNg collects “Songs Uncommon and New” into unique, collaborative concert experiences.
Our diverse programs have included art songs, voice with various instruments, choral music, opera excerpts, and highly unusual repertoire performed by an array of professional performers, mostly based on Southern California. Led by artistic director Ariel Pisturino, unSUNg is currently growing to build a new business model, increased monetary support and coverage of our participants, and ambitious outreach and service goals to support the future of new classical vocal music.
Read more about the unSUNg team below, and check out our current goals by clicking the link above. we look forward to growing with you!
Who are we?
Ariel Pisturino
Artistic Director
The Los Angeles Times hailed soprano Ariel Pisturino as “an impressive young discovery,”after seeing her professional debut performance as Nancy T’ang in Long Beach Opera’s production of Nixon in China. An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary works and collaborations with composers, Ariel performed the role of Lover in The Industry’s nationally-acclaimed production of HOPSCOTCH and created the role of Laurie in Mark Abel’s premiere opera Home is a Harbor, released on Delos Records. She collaborated with Abel once before on his song cycle Five Rilke Songs on the album Terrain of the Heart, also for Delos Records. Ariel created the role of Rosina Brandram in a newly written Gilbert and Sullivan review, Hail Poetry, with Opera a la Carte. She premiered a new song cycle, Dewdrops, for soprano and electric guitar, by long time friend, Alex Miller. Most recently, she made her Kennedy Center debut in Three Paderewski’s by Jenni Brandon.
Propelled by her interest in promoting new works, Ariel co-founded the performance troupe Chamber Opera Players of LA and the new music summer concert series unSUNg, focusing on new and unknown vocal music. Highlights of her work with Chamber Opera Singers of LA include her commission and premiere of the opera The Last Silent Voice by George N. Gianopoulos, and a performance of Ned Rorem’s Three Sisters who are not Sisters. Other contemporary performance highlights include her performances with Long Beach Opera as Witch 1 in Bloch’s Macbeth, the premiere of an electronic opera, The Master and Margarita by Russian composer, Gamma Skupinsky and the premiere of the oratorio Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides by Neely Bruce in remembrance of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who saved thousands during the Holocaust.
Ms. Pisturino not only performs new works but also lends her creamy legato to traditional roles such as Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi, Leonora, Micaëla, and Second Lady. She has also been heard as the soprano soloist in the Brahms Requiem, Cohen’s Alzheimer’s Stories, Fauré Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Requiem, and Rutter Gloria. She will sing Cohen's Alzheimer's Stories in March 2021 and Beethoven’s Mass in C in May 2021,
An avid language student, Ariel is a dedicated Italian student and attended the Russian Opera Workshop to study the Russian language and perform the role of Tamara in Rubenstein’s opera,The Demon.
Ariel holds a Masters degree from the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music, a Bachelors degree in Music from Northern Arizona University, and is an OperaWorks alumna. Born in San Francisco but a native of Kingman, Arizona, she now resides with her bass-baritone partner and two kitties in sunny Los Angeles. www.arielpisturino.com
Lauri D Goldenhersh
Marketing Director
Lauri D Goldenhersh has spent more than three decades performing, presenting and teaching in the classical vocal world. This mezzo-soprano and arts marketing maven founded Lauri's List in 2002, building a strong, multi-faceted community for "classical vocal pros" in Southern California. Lauri’s performance career has included Grammy-nominated work with the Los Angeles Master Chorale as well as concerts and recordings with the LA Chamber Singers and a bevy of highly-respected composers and organizations, and she has performed concert, service and solo work with more than three dozen churches and temples around Southern California and beyond. Lauri has also programmed and sung dozens of art song recitals, particularly those focused on 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. As an organic extension of that passion, Lauri and Ariel Pisturino co-founded unSUNg concerts in 2013, producing five summer seasons of "Songs Uncommon and New" for enthusiastic local audiences, and continuing online as unSUNg finds its new path in the post-COVID world.
As a boundary-crossing educator, Lauri has designed and taught workshops and classes across Southern California, crafting business- and marketing-related seminars for Lauri's List as well as California Institute of the Arts, University of Southern California, Azusa Pacific University and LA Vocal Lab, and a variety of other local hosts who cater to performers and artists, and five years training realtors and their support team at Dilbeck Real Estate, based in Pasadena. In addition to her ongoing work with “the List”, Lauri continues to offer private and group coaching and support services for performers, small orgs, and more. To learn more, please visit laurislist.com and singerpreneur.com