MIDDLETOWN – Coyote Film Festival, Lake County’s independent film festival, will kick off the 2009 film season on Saturday, March 21, with films about tea.

The festival's first event of the year will offer two screenings, at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., at the Calpine Geothermal Visitors Center, 15500 Central Park Road, Middletown.

The main feature is “All in This Tea” by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht.

Blank and Leibrecht created a multiple award-winning film about tea importer David Lee Hoffman’s travels throughout China – sometimes on foot – in search of handcrafted premium teas.

The directors follow this adventurer as he discovers exquisite teas and attempts to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to buying tea directly from farmers.

China’s emphasis on factory-produced tea treated with chemical fertilizers is endangering the small farmer who has produced organic tea for generations. Hoffman’s goal is to open the Chinese tea market, support the small farmers and make high-quality handmade teas available outside of China.

The film captures Hoffman’s boundless enthusiasm. Guest filmmaker, Gina Leibrecht will attend both screenings and share her adventures with us in making this film.

Two poignant shorts accompany the main feature. “Tea Time” – a film by Jay Bogdanowitsch – depicts a starving soldier who spots a gentleman on the battlefield having tea. Next to the gentleman sits a tea table with a delicious baked goodie. The soldier’s mission becomes: liberate that pastry, until he finds out he’s in for a big surprise. In war, nothing is what it appears to be.

“The Taste of Tea” by Alfonso Chin X is the story of a son who forgives his dying mother for all the years of abandonment by finding and making her a special tea.

The entire program will be approximately two hours, including a question-and-answer session with Leibrecht.

Tickets are $10 at the door and $5 for children 16 and under. Fresh popcorn and concessions also are available.

Coyote Film Festival is a fundraising arm of EcoArts of Lake County, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing visual art opportunities and ecologic stewardship to the residents and visitors of Lake County.

For more information visit: www.EcoArtsofLakeCounty.org.

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LAKEPORT – Four members of the prestigious San Francisco Opera scene will make an appearance in Lake County in a program entitled “Opera to Pops – With a Latin Flavor” on Sunday, March 8, at 3 p.m. at Lakeport's Soper-Reese theater.

The concert is sponsored by Clear Lake Performing Arts.

Originator of the event is native son William “Bill” Pickersgill who was raised in Lake County and graduated from Clear Lake High School before embarking upon a musical career that led him to a tenured position as a baritone and bass with the San Francisco Opera Chorus.

In the interim he studied and performed in Austria, Germany and New York. He has appeared in a number of CLPA operatic concerts over the past two decades which has resulted in a substantial local following.

Pickersgill will be accompanied by tenor Jimmy Kansau and soprano Amy Giovannetti as well as pianist Cesar Cancino.

The "Latin Flavor" starts with Mr. Kansau who is a native of Venezuela and has sung leading roles in numerous U.S. venues, as well as in Europe where he appeared as a guest artist for the Internazionale Institutto d'opera di Roma.

Since settling in the Bay Area he has sung with the San Francisco Opera Guild, Napa's Jarvis Conservatory, the Livermore Valley Opera and also appeared with the Santa Cruz Symphony.

Soprano Amy Giovannetti studied music at Millersville University in Pennsylvania and participated in student programs in Salzburg and Graz in Austria.

After graduation she continued her solo work in the Philadelphia area before moving to California where she began performing with several opera companies, including the Livermore Valley Opera, the Townsend Opera in Modesto, the San Francisco Pocket Opera and Opera Fresca in Mendocino.

"Opera to Pops" will be the last Soper-Reese program before the facility closes for additional improvements. It is, however, a perfect venue for the kind of "up close and personal" performances presented by Pickersgill and friends.

The singers will be supported by an artist with an extensive musical background; Cesar Cancino has been a solo pianist, musical director and conductor since his graduation from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has accompanied such noted musicians as Joan Baez, Liliane Montevecchi, Thelma Houston and many others in performances throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

Tickets for the March 8 performance may be obtained in advance from "Wild About Books" on Olympic Drive in Clearlake, Catfish Books in the Willow Tree Plaza in Lakeport, the box office of the Soper-Reese or at the Main Street Gallery of the Lake County Arts Council in downtown Lakeport.

All tickets will be $15. For further information call 279-0877.

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