ART FEEL: Opera comes to The Woodlands to help fight blood cancers

Campaign Manager Mindy Reynolds likes what she hears as Woodlands resident and professional opera singer Ian Ramirez raises his voice to raise funds for the Leukemia &Lymphoma Society. Campaign Manager Mindy Reynolds likes what she hears as Woodlands resident and professional opera singer Ian Ramirez raises his voice to raise funds for the Leukemia &Lymphoma Society. Photo: Courtesy Photo Photo: Courtesy Photo Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close ART FEEL: Opera comes to The Woodlands to help fight blood cancers 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

-An art maven's weekly fix of the local arts scene: what to see, what to hear, what to do, who to meet and musings about how art makes people feel-their ArtFeel.

ArtHear: the news that The Woodlands inaugural Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Man & Woman of the Year Campaign will be hosting various artistic based fund-raising events this spring in our community. The LLS Man & Woman of the Year Campaign kicks off March 22 and runs for 10 weeks through June 1. Campaign candidates will use their creative talents to affectionately compete against one another to see who can raise the most funds for blood cancer research and win the title of Man or Woman of the Year.

The official candidates were announced at a Winter Cocktail Party at the Grogan's Point home of Tami and Gary Laugharn and include Ian Ramirez, a professional opera singer. Ramirez will use his beautiful light lyric tenor voice in a charity recital possibly at The Glade Cultural Arts Center, which opens next month. Details are forthcoming.

Since graduation from The Woodlands High School and the prestigious Houston Grand Opera's Voice Studio in 2006, Ramirez earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in vocal performance from The University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, and has been successfully working in the field of opera ever since. His career highlights include performing in Cinderella at the College-Conservatory of Music, Salem in the Rake's Progress, a contemporary opera in Portland, Opera and myriad performances of Carmen most recently at Opera Stuttgart in Germany. He is currently teaching private voice lessons in The Woodlands area as he prepares for the LLS concert.

"Transporting people out of the mundane and into another world through music makes me happy," says Ramirez. "I also want to help make a difference and change people's lives by being part of funding for research for a cure for leukemia and lymphoma."

Ramirez will be raising funds and awareness for LLS in honor of his grandmother, Fulvia Grimaldi-Ramirez, a professional ballerina, who lost her life to leukemia.

Woodlands event planner Mindy Reynolds, who has been planning LLS events for over nine years and who recently wrapped volunteer event planning for The Inspire Film Festival, is serving as Woodlands Campaign Manager.

Last year, the Houston Man & Woman of the Year Chapter, raised a whopping $1.1 million during their 10-week spring campaign.

"Watch out Houston, The Woodlands is known for its generous giving and creative artistic events," said Reynolds. "We will all raise our voices to aid in the fight against blood cancers."

In Ramirez's case…literally.

For updates on this upcoming opera recital for LLS or to learn more about the Man & Woman of the Year campaign please visit http://pages.mwoy.org/txg/woodlands18/iramirez.