VINO E VOCE • WINE + SONG

VINO E VOCE — WINE + SONG

Songs of Movement, Memory, and Arrival

Thursday, September 10 • 7:30 PM (7 PM Doors)

Tickets:

$55 (Wine + Music)

$35 (Music only, no wine)


A wonderful baritone soloist and a wine sommelier (CIA graduate) bring music and tasting together for an evening of story, sound, and place.

Featuring:

Charles Gray, Baritone

Vanessa Da Silva, Sommelier


Theme: Migration

The program follows the arc of the migration story as it’s always been told in song: departure, the crossing, what survives in the new place, and the complicated—never clean—moment of arrival.

The music draws from the actual traditions that traveled and settled in Queens, the world’s most diverse borough.

A Co-production of CultureLab LIC and Queens Opera Theatre.

Sommelier, Vanessa Da Silva
While studying abroad in Florence, Italy, Vanessa became enamored with wine. After graduating from the University of Maine with a Bachelor's in Marketing, Vanessa completed the Intensive Sommelier Training Course at the International Culinary Center. After several years working as a Sommelier in Manhattan, Vanessa returned to the ICC where she took on the role of the Wine Coordinator, working on the educational side of wine. Vanessa decided to return to the restaurant industry and worked as a Sommelier and Wine Director in several fine dining restaurants in New Jersey and Manhattan before moving to the distribution side of the industry.

Baritone, Charles Gray
Originally from Southern California, baritone Charles Gray made his debut as Plagio with Manhattan’s Amore Opera in 2011 in the American premiere of Saverio Mercadante’s I Due Figaro. Most recently, he appeared as Sharpless and Papageno in the 2025-26 season. Other roles with Amore Opera include Morales in Carmen and Schaunard in La Bohème. In Brooklyn, he has appeared with Regina Opera as Lescaut in Manon Lescaut and Monterone in Rigoletto. Beyond opera, his artistic focus extends to art song and sacred music and he most recently performed as the soloist in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Morris Choral Society in May.