Gayla finds as much delight in singing contemporary art songs and Mozart as in singing cabaret and pop repertoire. Her current career focuses on solo work, although she occasionally sings as an AGMA chorister member in professional New York-based choirs.
 
Gayla's past classical solo work includes appearances with New York Virtuoso Singers, Hunter College Choir, and Amor Artis.  In the field of contemporary art song, she has premiered works by Joji Yuasa (Merkin Hall, Music from Japan), Petr Kotik, Eleanor Cory, Mark Grant and Ilsa Gilbert, and appeared on the Sound of New Music series at St. Mark’s in the Bowery (Mimi Sterne-Wolfe, dir.)
 
In more of a crossover mode, she has been delighted to appear onstage as a soloist with Peter Schickele of “P.D.Q. Bach” fame in Woodstock, NY.  She has also recorded a solo CD of contemporary lullabies by Joseph P. Marcello, Perchance to Dream.
 
Gayla has worked in several professional small ensembles.
• She was a member for 5 years of the 6-voice Western Wind, a Grammy-nominated a cappella concert group that tours nationwide singing repertoire from Monteverdi to jazz.  The Western Wind released 3 CDs during her 5 years with them.
• She appeared in 2005's International Diaghilev Dance Festival in Russia in the dance opera, A More Perfect Union (Ruth Kirstein, producer).
• She has somehow managed to perform now for over 30 years (!) as one of The Trailriders, a 4-person western/folk show group based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
 
Her expertise in cabaret style was fostered in Denver coffeehouses, performing with a piano trio.  In MA, she was the regular “girl singer” with the 16-piece Cosmo Valente Swing Orchestra, based in Marlborough and featured during the city’s annual 4th of July fireworks celebrations for 4 years.
 
She is the featured soloist on "At Prayer With St. Anne," a CD of prayers and songs released by St. Jean-Baptiste Parish to enhance worshipers' participation during the Novena to St. Anne held each July at the church.
 
Gayla's solo CD of original songs, pictures, was reviewed by Westword in Denver, CO, as "Broadway-quality songs delivered by a vocalist with a Broadway-quality voice and a gift for arranging . . . brassy, belt-for-the-balconies entertainment." (Westword, Feedback, June 1-7, 1994.)
 
She also had a chance in 2004 in Denver, CO to show off her “funk” chops when she performed a solo concert of Christmas carols arranged to non-traditional grooves with the Mercury Orchestra (Thomas Blomster, conductor).  A live recording of that concert, Have a Funky Holiday, is available at the Mercury Ensemble website.
 
For sound clips of Gayla's solo work, click on the "Soloist" link above. For info about her musical theater singing, see the "Actress" page.
 
As a professional chorister, Gayla has worked with such highly regarded New York-based choral institutions as Musica Sacra (Richard Westenburg, dir.), the St. Ignatius-Loyola Choir (Kent Tritle, dir.), and New York Virtuoso Singers (Harold Rosenbaum, dir.). As a choral singer, she has worked with the New York Philharmonic (with Kurt Masur), the Brooklyn Philharmonic (with Robert Spano), and American Symphony Orchestra (with Leon Botstein), and has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman.  In NYC, she has performed in Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Merkin Hall, and at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

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