Teen Opera Singer to Aid School Project

The opera singer who also is a Calabasas High School junior will sing before a hometown crowd today in a concert to raise funds to upgrade the campus theater.

Jessica Tivens, who won acclaim this year with her singing debut in Iceland and who sings regularly with the Burbank Chamber Orchestra, will perform operatic pieces beginning at 8 p.m. at the school’s auditorium, 22855 Mulholland Highway.

The concert is being sponsored by the Calabasas High School Theater Boosters, a parent organization that is trying to raise money to complete the campus facility.

Anne Herrington, co-president of the boosters, said the organization asked Jessica, the daughter of one of its members, to be the first performer in the school’s “Music in Support of Theater” concert series.

Since she agreed to do it nine months ago, her career is “going to the sky,” Herrington said.

The 16-year-old has sung a duet with “Phantom of the Opera” star Michael Crawford, received the 1997 Microsoft Discovery Artist Award and plans to audition next year at Italy’s Monte Carlo Opera.

Jessica will be accompanied in her performance by a friend, Andrew von Oeyen, an award-winning pianist.

Boosters said they hope to continue to attract top performers to their concerts, which they hope will help pay for needed upgrades to the theater.

Like many public schools hit financially by the passage of Proposition 13, Calabasas High opened in the late ‘70s with an unfinished auditorium that had no dressing rooms, permanent lighting fixtures or sound system.

School plays and other performances are produced on a shoestring budget with rented equipment each year, Herrington said.

“We have a wish list of what we think we can have eventually,” Herrington said. “But it takes money.”

Tickets for the benefit concert are available at the door for $20 general and $10 students and seniors.

For more information, call (818) 591-7811 or (818) 591-9574.