The Walking Tenor performs

Heart Theatre, in partnership with the environmental organization Corazón Latino and Amazing Place Music, will bring Jesús Daniel Hernández, The Walking Tenor, to North Valley Music School for a free concert of opera and the Neapolitan music he loves, along with boleros and a few surprises, on Sept. 26. 

The concert is at 7 p.m. 

Hernández was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and came to the United States as a teenager. He later joined the U.S. Army and served in Iraq. In 2007, after attending a Plácido Domingo concert in San Antonio, Hernández found a way to sing for the legendary tenor. Domingo listened and invited him to join the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera.

Hernández went on to perform leading operatic roles in the United States and Europe. As The Walking Tenor, he also takes his music outside the opera house, singing for people wherever he finds them.

The concert also falls on National Public Lands Day, the nation's largest single-day volunteer effort for public lands, celebrated on Saturday, Sept. 26. The date has special meaning because of Heart

Theatre’s relationship with its sister organization, Corazón Latino, whose conservation work includes a longstanding partnership with the USDA Forest Service.

“When you experience the power of Jesús’s voice, you understand the power of the human voice,” said Stacy Whittle, artistic director of Heart Theatre. “There is just pure joy in the way he sings. That's

why we’re bringing Jesús to Whitefish. We want the community to experience that joy for themselves.”

Joining Hernández at the piano will be Mitchell Zeidwig, known professionally as ZeidwiG, who now lives in Whitefish. A Juilliard-trained concert pianist and comedian, ZeidwiG has performed at Carnegie Hall and with orchestras worldwide.

Whitefish tenor and Executive Director of Amazing Place Music, Mike Eldred will join Hernández to sing John Denver's “Perhaps Love.” Eldred has spent more than four decades performing professionally.

His Broadway credits include "Les Misérables," where he performed the role of Jean Valjean, and the original Broadway cast of The Civil War. For this concert, he will step onstage for one song with Hernández.

The concert is under Whittle’s artistic direction and is produced by Felipe Benítez, co-founder of Heart Theatre and executive director of Corazón Latino.

Heart Theatre calls itself a theatre on the run because it was never meant to live inside one building. Whittle and Benítez founded the company to take professional theatre and music directly into communities. 

Heart Theatre works to keep its performances accessible to all, including free community events like the Sept. 26 concert.