Janet Villas

Current Stuff:

Janet will be back at City Opera in Esther this fall. After an appearance at The Fairbanks Inn in Provincetown for the Holly Folly December 5th, she will also appear at Cabaret nights at Pianos in Bloomfield in December.

Looking back, check Janet out at two outdoors summer events. She appeared with the Somerset Jazz Consortium in Highland Park at "Random Acts of Fun", and also appeared in Bloomfield in Venner Park, sponsored by the Bloomfield Center Alliance. Here's a picture in Bloomfield with Jim Jasion, Bob Baylough and Andrew Lohse.

Time to do your holiday shopping! Her second CD CHRISTMAS CARD, is out.
It is available at Apple itunes and CD baby. Buy it today!

Janet turns her attention to her two favorite genres: Christmas music and jazz. She has sung for thousands during the Christmas season with cabaret shows, school events and church solos. She has been exploring her other favorite musical style, jazz for the past four years and combined them into a Christmas jazz show. The show went well, so during the hottest weeks of July and August, Janet found some of the hottest jazz musicians in New York and created this very cool Christmas CD. Along with a few classics, Oh holy night and Oh come oh come Emmanuel we hear some great traditional numbers jazzed up and taken to a whole new level, such as Silver Bells, I wonder as I wander , and What are you doing New Year's Eve? We also hear jazz, early rock ands swing numbers, such as Rockin around the Christmas tree, Christmas time is here and I've got my love to keep me warm given a whole new twist. It's traditional, it's jazzy, and it's really very cool.

Here are some pictures from the session:

Janice Friedman - Musical director, arranger, piano
Brian Glassman - double bass,
Barbara Merjan - percussion,
Jessica Jones - flute, saxophone,
Cover photo by Gregg A. Martin,
Produced by Step One Productions, Linda Heard, executive producer
Recorded at Second Story Sound, NYC, Associate producer: Scott Lehrer

Other recent stuff:

Here's Janet performing at the diva lounge in Montclair, NJ at the release party for Christmas Card.

Janet was back at Trenton Q-night, singing her jazz standards in December. She recently was a soloist at the Stonewall Chorale's holiday concerts at Merkin Hall in New York and in Ridgewood, NJ. She sang Christmas time is here from the album. Janet sang a jazzy Christmas program at Oakeside Cultural Center in Bloomfield in anticipation of her new album. Sales of the album will benefit Oakeside's memorial gardens.
She has appeared at the Red Tower in Somerset, the Red Lion Cafe at the Rutgers University Student Center with Jim Jasion on piano. She also performed with Jim at a benefit for the Third Riverbank Association, an environmental activist group in Bloomfield, and for GAAMC in Morristown.
She won the Stonewall Society Pride in the Arts award for 2003 for her CD Something Wonderful.

To purchase Something Wonderful, or Christmas Card, or download the album, see the stores below. It is on CD Baby now or call 1-800-BUY-MY-CD with any major credit card. Her CD is also available at WoodstockCD.com and Amazon.com. She's also available for digital downloads on Apple iTunes, Yahoo music and many others.

Career:

Janet Villas has been a member of the NY City Opera for 19 years, and returns this year with performances in Puccini's Turandot in the chorus. She's also sang lead roles with George Shirley in Transcendent Voices, and in Susanah and Suor Angelica. She is also an accomplished soloist in the classical repertoire. She has sung many famous soprano solos at Christ Church in glamorous Glen Ridge, NJ, including the Mozart Ave Verum, the Faure Pie Jesu, a spiritual of Were You There, Handel's Messiah, the Mozart Laudate Domine and the Alleluia. In addition she has appeared as both the Soprano and Mezzo soloist in the Bach "Magnificat" with the Grace Choral Society.
As a cabaret singer, She performed for the Frontrunner's benefit at the Pride Center in New York, and performed with Dreamcatcher Rep theatre for their Holiday Cabaret. She also wrote and performed a tribute concert for Richard Rodgers' 100th birthday entitled, "Something Wonderful" (interesting how the name matches the CD, huh?) at Oakeside Cultural Center in Bloomfield. Janet also performed a spring concert at Oakeside called "It might As Well be Spring".
She performed her third cabaret show "I Always Wanted to be A Fifth Dimension..." at Don't Tell Mama's in New York City in May, 2002. Neil Ginsberg was her musical director. She performed her solo cabaret act"...but not for me!" at Don't Tell Mama's, in 2000. Her first show "Always" was performed at the Ballroom in NYC and was seen throughout New Jersey. Her benefit performance at Drew University in Madison, NJ for the Names Project raised over $850 for the AIDS memorial quilt in 1994. She has also performed benefits for "Hearts and Voices, "the Jewish Guild for the Blind" and "The Race for the Cure".
She was given the nickname "la Villas" by Greg Moore during a chorus job in 1984, to help Janet feel the inspiration of "La Callas", Maria Callas!
Here she is during the recording session of "Something Wonderful" in 2002.

She has sung both the Canadian and American National Anthems for the NY Mets. This is her eighteenth appearance at Shea Stadium. She's also graced the New Jersey Jackals with the anthems.
In addition to baseball and softball, she has opened several NJ statewide celebrations with the anthem, especially the Maplewood Domestic Partnership celebration and Jersey City Pride. She's also sung the National Anthem at Continental Arena for The NJ Devils. You can see her singing between Randy McKay and Claude Lemieux (#22). Go Devils!

And here she is singing God Bless America on the dugout at Shea Stadium. Let's go Mets!

Other important things in her life:

Janet is a teacher at the Brooklyn Friends School. Here's Janet and her students on WNBC television with Janice Huff in May of 2001:

She is also a triathlete, (she likes to put the "Try" back into "triathlete.") and an ardent cyclist. Janet swam the "Swim for Life" in Provincetown for the 4th time this year. The 1.4 mile open water swim is a charity event benefitting people with AIDS and women with cancer. She has completed the 130 mile Boston to Provincetown (in one day) bike ride three times. She has also completed the Harriman Park triathlon twice. She has completed dozens of races in Central Park, eventually.

Stores:

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