nonprofit beaver county

Pittsburgh’s llegendary chanteuse Etta Cox headlines an evening of powerful female voices in a first-ever benefit concert for the Women’s Center of Beaver County. 

“Divas Live!” will be “an electric and empowering evening,” said Broadway veteran Carla Bianco, one of four women who will share Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center’s 750-seat main stage theater with Etta Cox on Saturday, Oct. 17.  

Daphne Alderson, Carla Bianco, Nanette Corradi and Alexandra Cherico each will perform a selection of three favorite songs in the first half of the concert, with Etta Cox taking over after intermission. The five divas come together for a finale that promises to lift the roof off the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. The divas will sing to music by the Al Dowes Quartet. Eric DeFade will be on woodwinds. 

“Women performing to benefit the Women’s Center, I love it!” said Jill Marsilio-Colonna, director of the center. The Women’s Center of Beaver County provides temporary shelter for hundreds of women and children, along with long-term transitional housing, a 24-hour crisis helpline, education to prevent domestic abuse, legal and medical advocacy for victims of abuse, and a program for children who are victims or witnesses of abuse. 

A VIP reception in the Lincoln Park Atrium is to begin at 6:30 PM with the concert to follow at 7:30. Tickets are $25 for the concert, or $50 for the concert and VIP reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres. For tickets, people may contact the Lincoln Park box office at 724.643.9004. 

This event is being presented by ESB Bank. 

Please note: October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

DIVA BIOGRAPHIES

Originally from St. Joseph, Mo., Etta Cox trained as a music educator. Over a long career she has achieved iconic status in Pittsburgh as a woman of talent, character and influence. 

Her many musical credits include being the opening act for such performers as Ray Charles, Doc Severinson, and Ahmad-Jammal. She has appeared on Broadway, on television and in films (Silent Witness, The Cemetery Club), co-hosted a television talk show. and performed in many local theater productions at the City Theater and Pittsburgh Public Theater. 

Cox was selected as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Pittsburgh by Pittsburgh Magazine for 1995, was awarded Woman of the Year in Arts and Music for 1995 by the Pittsburgh Vectors Society and received the Harry Schwalb Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1998. She was featured on the cover of Pittsburgh Magazine in September 1998 along with Al Dowe for receiving the magazine’s annual Arts Award for Jazz. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette awarded her Performer of the Year for 1999. 

Daphne Alderson is a cabaret, concert and operatic singer with a warm contralto voice. 

As a concert artist, she has performed in New York at Avery Fisher Hall and Merkin Hall, at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and for audiences throughout the United States, Canada, and Italy. 

She tours with her international cabaret program, An American Girl in Paris, World War II, with shows from Atlantic City to the southern states. Her latest release, “Songs from the Heart,” a collection of love songs through the centuries, is a project conceived and recorded live at Heinz Memorial Chapel in Pittsburgh. 

Her debut recording “A Matinee at the Love Café” has been called, “An enchanting and mesmerizing” collection of American, French, and Latin song standards. In the 2007-08 season, Alderson debuted her new show Songs of the Little Sparrow celebrating the music and life of Edith Piaf. 

Alderson was a featured artist at the Center for American Music and the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh. She has recorded American and French song standards for public broadcast on WQED-FM Pittsburgh, and performed at the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. 

Carla Bianco is best known for her portrayal of Maureen in the Tony Award-winning musical “Rent” on Broadway and in the original West Coast premiere at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. 

She’s be performing the signature song from that play, “Take Me or Leave Me” at Divas Live!, along with two of her original songs. 

Locally, Bianco serves as director of arts education outreach for the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center in Midland. 

She has worked as an actor, singer, composer, instructor and director in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Pittsburgh. Her credits include off-Broadway and regional productions of “Bright Lights, Big City,” “tick .. . tick . . BOOM!,” “The Third Army,” “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” “Anything Goes” and “Summertree.’ 

Her songwriting credits include “The Lover that You Are” (No. 1 Billboard dance song/ASCAP Award), “Music Takes You” (Top 10 single) and “Not this Time” (Atlantic Records). As a singer, Carla has worked with musicians and producers including Sting, Duncan Sheik, Jellybean Benitez, and Narada Michael Walden. Carla received her bachelor of music with high honors from New York University. Her first televised appearance was as a contestant on “Star Search.” 

Nanette Corradi, a native of Midland and well-known regional singer, has been singing professionally since the age of 16. She has performed with various local bands and trios, and for the past nine years has been lead vocalist for the popular and local band “The Ivory Coach.” 

Her song selections for the concert will include “More” and “I Wish You Love.” 

Alexandra Cherico is a junior at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. She has been on stage since age 7. Even at her young age, Alexandra’s impressive vocals and stage presence has won her fans as she displayed her talents in Lincoln Park shows including ”Leader of the Pack: the Ellie Greenwich Story” and ”Mozart to Motown.” She sings frequently with the local band Casanova, of which her father Mickey Cherico is a member. 

She’ll open the concert with “Queen of the Night” and follow with “The Voice Within” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” 

Tagged as: nonprofit beaver county, Performing arts

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