This concert is the culminating process of four months of work with voice students. They will be presenting songs from the jazz standards & South American repertoire from Brazil and Argentina in the genres of Samba, Bossa Nova and Zamba, as well as Fado music from Portugal. 

Vocals: Nineth Pinzón and Gina Rae Foster
Voice Teacher: Sabrina Lastman
Guitarist: Pedro Rodriguez

Sabrina Lastman is a vocalist, composer and educator born in Montevideo, Uruguay. Drawing from jazz, Latin American and contemporary music, often integrating extended vocal techniques, Sabrina concentrates her work on jazz projects, and the creation of interdisciplinary performances combining voice, sound, electronics, movement, and visuals. Sabrina has performed at Carnegie Hall, Blue Note, Joe's Pub, Juilliard, and Yale University among others. Her album Her latest album "The Candombe Jazz Sessions" was released in March 2012 with ZOHO Music. www.sabrina-lastman.com

Pedro Rodriguez is a talented guitarist whose stylistic versatility expands into the areas of performing, arranging and composing. During his years as a student at William Paterson University, he had the opportunity to learn from and perform with master musicians in the field of jazz, such as Gene Bertoncini, Cecil Bridgewater, David Demsey, Armen Donelian, Steve LaSpina, Jim McNeely, Paul Meyers, Rich de Rosa, Rufus Reid, Mulgrew Miller, and Stanley Turrentine. 

Nineth Pinzón studied music education in her native Guatemala and and recently earned her Master's Degree in Arts, Spanish Language and Literature from St. John's University. She has also performed in several choirs singing different music periods and Latin-American folk music. She currently participates and leads the choir at her church, and participated in the Archdiocesan Mass dedicated to "El Cristo de Esquipulas de Guatemala" at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, led by Guatemalan violinist Sergio Reyes. 

A poet, theorist, and vocalist, Gina Rae Foster holds a doctorate from the European Graduate School (EGS), Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She is currently the EGS Poet-in-Residence for Media and Communications, the EGS Marina Tsvetaeva Fellow in Poetics, and the 2011-2012 Scholar-in-Residence at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Dr. Foster directs the Lehman Teaching & Learning Commons for Lehman College/CUNY. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, heart speech this and Beautiful Laceration, both published by Atropos Press.