Christina Holms: Articles/Reviews

Article written by Jean Dunn which apeared in "Voices" on August 20, 2008

SOPRANO SLATED FOR SEPTEMBER CONCERT AT SOUTH BRITAIN CHURCH


SOUTHBURY - "Music is food for the soul, and tonight you provided us with a feast."

Those were the words of a Rhode Island fan, one of a growing number of music lovers who have discovered lyric coloratura soprano Christina Holms.

Christina Holms will perform in concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, September 27, at South Britain Congregational Church on Route 172.

Douglas Dickson, a faculty member at the Yale School of Music, will accompany Ms. Holms on piano. A guest artist to be announced will also appear.

The one-and-a-half hour concert will feature popular arias, Broadway favorites and more, including works of Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Harnick and Boch, among others, as well as some traditional American folk songs.

Christina Holms studied at Hartt School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. She is currently a student of vocal instructor Arthur Levy in New York City.

Enthusiastically received by audiences in the U.S. and in Europe, she sang before First Lady Laura Bush in 2005 and has performed for such celebrities as Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Dr. Maya Angelou, Maria Bartiromo and Yogi Berra.

In 2007, she performed with the renowned tenor Roberto Iarussi before 800 people at New York's Gracie Mansion at a gala event hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

She has appeared as soloist with the Mendelssohn Choir of Connecticut and has been featured at a number of benefit concerts and private functions.

Ms. Holms has released two CDs, "Love and Lamentation," featuring arias in recital form accompanied by piano, and "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord," a collection of sacred music.

She is currently working on a third CD.

Singing since before she could read, Christina Holms commands a three-and-a-half octave range that reaches to F sharp over High C.

"To put that in perspective," said Anthony Marchese, who produces Ms. Holms' concerts and CDs, "Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion both have a one-and-a-half octave range."

"Christina has a perfect instrument," said June Bennett, a member of SBCC's Music Committee, which is sponsoring the concert. "She has such a passion, such a desire to connect with people. She has a real ability to inspire people."

"This church has wonderful acoustics," said Ms. Holms of the historic meeting house in South Britain. "It has a nice, homey feeling, too. It reminds me of the church I went to when I was a little girl."

Ms. Holms began singing in her church's cherub choir at age 3. Since then, she has progressed through the children's and teen choirs and has been a featured soloist at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Norwalk. Her inspiration, she said, comes from God.

"The Lord blesses every one of his creatures with a gift," she told Voices. "The stars have their purpose; the trees have their purpose. Everyone has their own special gift.

"My gift is the gift of song," she said, "and it gives me a gift in return that's so beautiful."

Music is an art form that exists in the moment, she explained, one that brings as much joy to the person performing as it does to the audience.

Ms. Holms recently sang two versions of the Ave Maria at a Mass at St. Joseph's Manor, a skilled nursing facility in Trumbull.

At the end of the service, the Mother Superior took Christina by the hand and said 'Now I know what the angels sound like.'

Her performance at a memorial event for the Norwalk Police Department brought the chief and the mayor to tears, said Mr. Marchese.

"I feel so peaceful and free when I'm singing," the soprano said. "Music is a gift your soul receives. I carry that with me. It's what propels me forward."

A Trumbull resident, Christina is married to Christopher Holms, a Norwalk police officer and chaplain. The couple have two young sons, Alexander, 4, and Andrew, 2-1/2.

She feels fortunate, she said, that she is able to combine a concert career with being a wife and mother.

"I believe that when you follow your passion," she said, "everything else falls into place."

Tickets for the September 27 concert are $25 per person. A meet-the-artist reception with refreshments will follow, hosted by the church's music committee.

Seating is limited and organizers expect a sell-out. Reservations may be had by calling June Bennett, 203-264-8448.

Remaining tickets, if any, will be sold at the door.

South Britain Congregational Church is located on Route 172, South Britain Road, and East Flat Hill Road, north of Exit 14 of I-84. The church is handicapped accessible; ample parking is available in the lot across the street.

Those seeking additional information may call the church office, 203-264-5890.

Article written by Joel Thompson which appeared on the front page of the "Connecticut Post" on December 29, 2007

SUPER SINGING MOM, OPERA PERFORMER KEEPS IT SIMPLE

The audience in the Stratford Theatre quieted as Christina Holms took the stage. Some were in suspense; others, familiar with Holms' operatic talents, had driven miles to see the Trumbull homemaker and former paralegal perform.
And when Holms, wearing an orange-brown gown, began to sing, her exceptional soprano voice was obvious to the uninitiated.

"I didn't know what to expect. She's unbelievable — fabulous," says Max Rosenberg, of Stratford, who sang in theaters in the Catskill Mountains before becoming a lawyer. "She must have trained and trained for this concert."

In fact, Holms has been "training" since she was 3, starting out in a church choir in Westport before performing her first concert, as a high school senior, in 1993. And since, she's found the time to work for a Fairfield law firm, marry, raise a family and cultivate a voice described as filled with "brilliant high tones."

For Holms, the Stratford performance marked yet another milestone in her burgeoning career as a singer and concert artist.

"I had felt fulfilled singing in the church choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fairfield, but I wanted more," she says of her teenaged years.

It was some time after that that she met Tony Marchese. "My daughter, Andrea, was working with me in my finance company in Fairfield in 1999 when she told me about Christina, who was working as a paralegal in a law firm," says Marchese, of Fairfield, who has become her promoter and friend. "Our offices were in the same building. After hearing one of Christina's recordings, I said, 'It can't be you.' Then she sang the aria 'Piangero' from the opera 'Julius Caesar' by Handel for me that night."

That was all it took for Marchese to recognize her talents, "and years later here I am," Holms says.

Marchese, who gained an appreciation for opera from his mother, says Holms has made steady progress in developing her talent over the last five or six years.

"She went through a series of teachers until she found Arthur Levy, a world famous vocal instructor in New York City," he says.

Holms described Levy as an "elite teacher in the opera world who really knows how to get the most out of your voice."

She is proud of having developed a nearly four-octave range, reaching F sharp over high C.

The operatic concerts, like the recent one at the Stratford Theatre, are an outgrowth of a friendship that developed between Marchese and Holms after he discovered her vocal talent.

Just before intermission at the Stratford concert, Holms performed the "Jewel Song," from the opera "Faust" by Charles-Francois Gounod, described by Marchese, the master of ceremonies, as "one of the most beautiful arias in the soprano repertoire."

Tony Longo, a fan, drove with his wife to the concert from Lincoln, R.I. "My mother said music is food for the soul," Longo says. "Beautiful music also puts us in touch with our feelings. Christina provided a feast and a pipeline from her heart to ours."

The concert, a fundraiser for the Scottish Rite Masons of Stratford and the Masons' Ashlar-Aspetuck Lodge 142 of Easton, was divided into operatic pieces, and show tunes and popular music.

To enrich the program, Holms was accompanied by Edward Parks, a noted baritone studying for a master's degree in music at Yale University. He and Holms sang alternate numbers. They also performed a duet, "All I Ask of You," from the "Phantom of the Opera" by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

They were accompanied on piano by Douglas Dickson, who has conducted Yale Opera, and on violin by Artemis Simerson, assistant concertmaster for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.

Holms recently sang for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a Columbus Day event at Gracie Mansion. She also performed for first lady Laura Bush during a party at the White House in 2005. In addition, Yogi Berra and husband-wife singer-songwriters Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson have heard her sing.

Holms has appeared in several concerts with tenor Roberto Iarussi, whose power and range have been compared by his fans to Luciano Pavarotti.

"Christina has a lovely coloratura soprano voice, with brilliant high tones," says Iarussi, a New Haven native. "My concerts in Connecticut usually include her. She is a pleasure to work with."

"It was a wonderful night of music," says Nancy Baloglu, Holms' mother, at a reception following the Stratford concert. "Christina is absorbing the coaching and progressing so fast."

"Our daughter was the greatest thing that happened to us when she was born 32 years ago," her father, Savas Baloglu, says. "She began singing when she was 3 years old in the Cherub Choir at Greens Farms Congregational Church in Westport. She went on to sing in the church's junior and regular choirs."

Holms performed her first concert, featuring pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giacomo Puccini, J.S. Bach and Claude Debussy, at the church in 1993, the year she graduated from Fairfield High School.

Her father is Greek and her mother is German, Irish and English, and she's been imbued with the passion required to sing opera.

Proud of Christina's singing ability, her husband, Christopher Holms, a Norwalk police officer and a Mason affiliated with the Easton lodge, helped host the Stratford concert. The couple have two sons, Andrew, 3, and Alexander, 1.

"The kids gave me a great excuse to take care of myself," she said, adding they are already interested in music.

She and her husband are also active in church activities at St. Paul's on the Green in Norwalk, where he was recently ordained as a deacon and is involved with prayer healing.

"I thought at one point I had to choose between being a housewife and mother, and now I'm doing it all," Holms says.

She explains the feeling she imparts to the audience through her singing is derived from the full life she chose to live, compared with other singers who sacrifice family for their careers.

One of the pieces she most enjoys singing is "Exsultate, jubilate" by Mozart, which she described as a "15-minute piece of madness that is absolutely glorious."

While singing, she says she experiences "a mystical exchange, a moment in time" that feeds her soul and heart.

"It takes a lot of energy to create a character on stage, but you feed off the audience," she says. "It's a bigger challenge to record in a studio."

She has released two self-produced albums, "Love and Lamentation" and "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord," and is working on a third.

"I'd much rather be a concert artist than an opera star," she says. "I can choose what I want to sing and what best fits my voice. More people will come to a concert because they don't have to sit through a whole opera to hear an aria." For more information on Christina Holms and how to purchase her CDs, visit www.christinaholms.com.