By Lina Broydo
My culturally saturated weeks this fall were enriched by attending a number of very special events and magnificently stunning performances which showcased the brilliant women in the world of arts: Eun Sun Kim, Yang Yang, Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Anita Yavich, Mary Andrade, Tzvia Shelef and Emily Michiko Jensen.
Eun Sun Kim, Music Director; San Francisco Opera
Season’s Highlights: Parsifal; Beethoven 5th & Falla Concert
Eun Sun Kim and Richard Wagner are a winning combination! Only one week after she conducted the amazing new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal” the gifted conductor has led the SF Symphony and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack in a one-night-only concert of music by Manuel de Falla and Beethoven at the War Memorial Opera House. From the Manuel de Falla set of songs inspired by his home country of Spain with Mack as the soloist and with the orchestra performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Ta.. ta.. ta.. ta… ) Eun Sun Kim took us on a mesmerizing musical journey.
“When I took this job, I read about the history of this Opera House and all the artists and conductors from the early days, ‘ she said. “I saw there was a great tradition. I asked when was Parcifal last done and learned it was in 2000, so this year marks 25 years. Kim says that she particularly enjoys “getting to dust off these great pieces with the Orchestra.”
Yang Yang, Prima Ballerina and Executive Artistic Director
Season’s Highlight: The spectacular production of “Enchantment” – the 8th International Performing Arts Festival (IPAF) with the brilliant Director Dennis Nahat and the Creative Production and Lighting by Kenneth Keith.
Yang Yang began her distinguished career at the Beijing Dance Academy where she was granted a full scholarship at the age of 12. With two decades of leading roles in major productions including numerous Gold Medal championship wins she performed extensively in China and Internationally, including a featured role in the film by the renowned director Shang Yi Mou.
Since 2018 Yang Yang has been instrumental in leading and guiding the dance troupe to the high quality productions while embracing with passion and dedication the multiple cultures through dance and choreography.
Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Conductor
Season’s Highlight: The Festive Dia De Los Muertos El Concerto with SF Symphony
Born and raised in Cali, Colombia, Lina Gonzalez-Granados has firmly established herself locally and abroad as a talented conductor of opera, classical and contemporary music. From 2017-19, Lina served as the Taki Concordia Fellow, a position created by Maestro Marin Alsop to foster entrepreneurship and talent of female conductors. Starting in the fall of 2019, she has begun her new appointments as Conducting Fellow of the Seattle Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
This upcoming season will include her appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Stamford Symphony, San Francisco Conservatory and the Orchestra Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias. She has been the assistant conductor for Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra, Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Colombia, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, and has worked as cover conductor of the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, Nashville Symphony and the London Philharmonic, working with artists such as Yefim Bronfman, Pinchas Zukerman, Marin Alsop and Giancarlo Guerrero, among others.
This season she will be working as a cover artist for “Zubin Mehta at the Los Angeles Philharmonic”, Yannick Nezet Seguin, and Thomas Daausgard among other artists. Lina Gonzalez-Granados is a staunch proponent of Latin American composers work which earned her recognition as one of the “Latino 30 Under 30” by El Mundo Newspaper in 2016.
Anita Yavich, Costume Designer
Season’s highlight: Razzle, Dazzle and Extarordianiere “The Monkey King”
Anita Yavich, the costume designer, looked back to China’s bronze age for design inspiration, particularly the silhouettes. “The visual vocabulary is so rich because there’s a lot of motifs that are derived from animals,” Yavich said of the era. Her main inspiration for Sun Wukong was that he felt “modern” “underdog”.
“He’s an underdog, his methods are shrewd,” she noted, and his armour and crown needed to reflect that. Yavich said the flawed nature of the title character was part of the attraction to the material for her. The costumes’ cosmic neon colors feel pulled from the future, with iridescent fabrics catching the light. Yavich is given plenty of room for flights of fantasy dressing an undersea kingdom and an army of primates, among other scenes. A scene set in heaven with a royal court felt somewhere between aristocrats at the Ascot racetrack scene in the musical “My Fair Lady” and the hedonists in Capital City in “The Hunger Games” franchise.
The Buddha and the goddess Guanyin are also characters in the opera, and Yavich’s looks for them contrast as more traditional and restrained.
Mary Andrade, Award Winning Photographer, Publisher, Writer
Season’s Highlight: Dia de Los Muertos Festival in Roseville, CA
Mary J. Andrade, Cultural Advisor for the Disney Pixar Oscar Winning Movie “Coco,” began researching Day of the Dead in 1987 in Janitzio, Michoacan. Since then, Mary has covered a different state of the Mexican Republic each year, gathering information and taking photographs of the celebration of this pre-Hispanic tradition known as Day of the Dead, a tradition that has evolved through the centuries and has become an integral part of the Mexican spirit and culture. Mary has traveled throughout Mexico every October and November to interview local inhabitants, anthropologists, and anyone with knowledge of how this tradition is celebrated in their communities.
Through study and observations, she learned the subtle differences in the way this tradition is celebrated among the different states in Mexico. Above all, she discovered a deep respect for this age-old tradition. Mary J. Andrade, a Journalist and Photographer by trade, received the “Ohtli” Award in 1991 by Rosario Green, the Mexican Foreign Relation Secretary, for her journalistic labor serving the Mexican communities in Santa Clara County in California.
“The Mexican Silver Quil” award was presented to her in 2000 from the Secretary of Tourism of the Mexican Government for her first bilingual book of the series “Through the Eyes of the Soul, Day of the Dead in Mexico,” which she published covering the way the tradition is celebrated in Lake Patzcuaro and in the P’urhepecha Regions in the state of Michoacan. Additionally, she has published four more books of this series focusing on Oaxaca, Mexico City, Mixquic, Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Yucatan. Her latest book for children “Remembering a Beautiful Angel,” was published in 2010 in electronic book format and is similarly distributed by Amazon.com.
All her books have received The Latino Literary Hall of Fame award in different categories.
Tzvia Shelef, Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival, Executive Director
Season’s Highlight: “Tatami” – the first film ever co-directed by an Israeli director and an Iranian filmmaker, and the “Midas Man” set in the world of 1960, this musical biopic follows Brian Epstein, who masterminded the rise of The Beatles
As the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival’s Executive Director for over a decade now, Tzvia Shelef has had an impressive career in television and movie production. She has produced over 600 television commercials for Saatchi & Saatchi in Israel, and prior to her agency work, she served as an assistant director for numerous Israeli film productions, as well as Hollywood movies shot in Israel.
The most famous of these American films was the Steven Spielberg film, “Schindler’s List” in which she was responsible for all coordination and logistics to help bring in the “Schindler survivors” from around the world for the final scene of the movie. She also worked on American “action” films whose stars included Chuck Norris and Ron Silver. Following her work in film, Tzvia joined Channel 2 in Israel, coordinating and producing drama and comedy television shows. Once in the U.S., she was an executive producer for KQED public television in San Francisco, where she was involved in fundraising and sponsorships to pay for the production of shows.
Aside from her professional accomplishments, Tzvia is passionate and enthusiastic about film, and as she told the audience at the 2025th Annual Opening Night, she now has her “dream job”. She continues to have excitement for each and every new Festival season with many wonderful volunteers and passionate film enthusiasts.
On a personal note, Tzvia was born in Canada before making aliyah with her family when she was six-years-old. She and her husband Reuven live in Sunnyvale with their two children, Ron and Shir.
Emily Michiko Jensen, Soprano
Season’s Highlight: Opera San Jose beautiful production of “Madama Butterfly”
As a Japanese American artist taking on one of opera’s most iconic and complex roles, Emily Michiko Jensen brings a deeply personal and culturally resonant perspective to her portrayal. It’s a timely and powerful story—both artistically and socially—as she reflects on identity, representation, and empathy in a work that has long sparked important conversations in the opera world.
Puccini’s world-famous opera Madama Butterfly took center stage this November. A dashing American officer marries a young geisha, and she gives up everything for love. Puccini’s soaring music follows her as she waits, dreaming of the day he’ll meet their child. But his return brings a devastating twist in this story of passion, betrayal, and heartbreak.
Christopher Oglesby makes his Opera San José debut as the dashing, yet unfaithful Pinkerton, with Emily Jensen making her role debut as the young Cio-Cio San. Former Director in Residence Michelle Cuizon returns to Opera SJ to direct with Music Director Maestro Joseph Marcheso conducting.
Yes, thanks to these incredibly talented women my month of November was a fabulous time in my cultural journey around the Bay Area. – Lina Broydo
