Bio

American Mezzo-Soprano Diana Tash

appears internationally in both operatic roles onstage and as a featured soloist.  Her mezzo stage work has been hailed as “radiant” by the Los Angeles Times and “skillful” by the New York Times.  On her latest album Bach Woman, produced by The Teshin Company, she appears with the Lyris Quartet, and other baroque string instruments.    Home in Los Angeles, she is a sought after voice teacher and guest clinician, appearing in recital all over Southern California (and once at Carnegie Hall, too) with her longtime pianist Armen Guzelimian.  Diana and world renowned counter-tenor Brian Asawa released an album of baroque duets “Spirits of the Air” in October 2014, and that year enjoyed critical acclaim with a mini tour that included dates in San Francisco, Los Angeles and in Mexico, at Guadalajara’s famed Teatro Degollado for the annual Festival de Mayo celebration.

Some of her recent work includes two staged performances of Jake Heggie’s CAMILLE CLAUDEL: INTO THE FIRE.  Once at Boston Court w/California String Quartet, and once at Festival Opera in Northern California.   Composer Jake Heggie maintained that her performances were “ferociously committed,” and that “Diana sang the buhjezzuz out of my score.”  Other recent engagements include Music Marin w/NYPhilharmonicViolist Cynthia Phelps, and Beethoven 9 as the mezzo soloist with the Korean-American Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.  Also: Handel’s Messiah  as mezzo soloist w/Santa Barbara Choral Society.   Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Grant Gershon and the LA Master Chorale at Disney Hall.  Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony with the Akron Symphony.  Annina in La Traviata with Pacific Symphony.     Medoro in Sacramento Opera’s Orlando and Maiden in Long Beach Opera’s Medea.  Mrs. Gleaton in Festival Opera’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah.    

Early in her career as a soprano, she performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in England with Maestro Stuart Robinson, and at the Aspen Festival with Maestro Lawrence Foster.  Shortly after winning the Western Regional Metropolitan Opera Finals, Diana was a Resident Artist with LA Opera from 1992 to 1996.  Performances there included: L’elisir d’amore, Cosi Fan Tutte, L’italiana in Algeri, Carmen, Pelléas and Mélisande, Xerxes, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Rigolette, Albert Herring.) She returned in 2004, as Mercedes in Carmen conducted by Placido Domingo.  That year, she also worked at San Diego Opera and Opera Pacific in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

She has toured with composer Maria Newman and her Viklarbo String quartet as well as with The Debussy Trio performing the music of Ian Krouse.

Some appearances with famed pianist Armen Guzelimian have included solo recitals for Santa Barbara Opera, at Carnegie Hall in 2008, as well as Los Angeles’s Zipper Hall in 2006, from which a live recording, Diana Tash, in Recital was released on LML records.

Other recordings include Sacred Transitions: A Song Cycle based on the meditations of Harold M. Schulweis, by composer and pianist Russell Steinberg.