Principal performers in Dada Divas
Jacqueline Bobak is a singer, composer, and educator committed to creating, interpreting, and teaching adventurous music made with and for the voice. She has performed extensively throughout the US and Europe, conducted research in experimental music and art, and collaborated with numerous artists. Her compositional voice, informed by over three decades of deep involvement in new music, mixes visceral and intellectual elements, expands vocal boundaries, and incorporates extra-musical ideas from the worlds of art and theater. She is considered one of the leading teachers of contemporary vocal music in the United States. Since 1991 she has taught at the California Institute of the Arts, where she co-developed the acclaimed VoiceArts Program.
Carmina Escobar is a creative interpreter of contemporary music, improviser, and intermedia artist from Mexico City. Her work focuses primarily on sound, the voice, the body, and their interrelations to physical, social, and memory spaces. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, she has held artist residencies in the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Mexico, and across the US. She is founder, co-director, and vocalist of [LIMINAR], a leading contemporary music ensemble in Mexico. She has premiered works by numerous emerging and established composers, and appeared at diverse festivals, biennials, experimental venues, formal concert halls, and in living rooms of Mexico, the US, and Europe.
Micaela Tobin is a Los Angeles-based soprano, sound artist, and teacher who specializes in contemporary opera and experimental voice. She has performed with The Industry in its groundbreaking production Hopscotch directed by Yuval Sharon, as a soloist alongside Annette Bening in Medea at UCLALive, and as a guest with hip-hop experimentalists "clipping." Her electroacoustic opera Unseal Unseam, co-composed with Sharon Kim, premiered to a five-star review at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Under the moniker White Boy Scream, she dissects her operatic singing style through the use of electronics and extended techniques. Her album Remains was named by The Wire as one of the top ten noise and industrial recordings of 2018.
Internationally acclaimed jazz singer, composer, and educator Meltem Ege is admired for her multi-disciplinary approach to vocal jazz. Praised for her theatrical tendencies, warm stage presence, and agile voice, she has received several awards at international voice competitions, performed with numerous ensembles from big bands to symphony orchestras, and headlined countless shows at numerous clubs, concert halls, and festivals worldwide. Currently based in Los Angeles, she recently completed her DMA degree at the California Institute of the Arts, where she now teaches. Prior to moving to LA, she taught at Başkent University Conservatory in Ankara, serving as Chair of the Contemporary Singing Department.
