David Granger currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area where he works as a freelance musician performing in orchestras throughout northern California.
Currently Artist Affiliate in cello and chamber music at the University of California, Davis, Susan Lamb Cook is an active performer and educator in the capital region.
Caleb Lewis is a young music professional interested in inspiring others toward excellence. He works primarily as a conductor with groups of people who want to be more effective performers and who enjoy making music together. He has degrees in choral music from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Emory University, in Atlanta. Recently, he completed coursework for his Doctor of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
D.M.A., Manhattan School of Music, New YorkM.M, William Paterson University, New JerseyB.MUS, QLD Conservatorium, Australia
Jazz composer/arranger, saxophonist/woodwind player and music educator Jacam Manricks has been a highly respected figure among the New York City jazz scene for over thirteen years. Manricks has released highly acclaimed albums as a leader (Labyrinth, Trigonometry, Cloud Nine, Chamber Jazz, and GilManricks) and performed as a sideman on countless other releases.
Brian Rice is a highly acclaimed performer, educator, and recording artist and one of the most versatile percussionists in the Bay Area. Though best known as a specialist in Brazilian and Cuban music, Brian can be heard playing a multitude of styles and his percussion playing graces over 60 recordings.
After coming to the United States over two decades ago, Rita Sahai continued her extensive music studies under the world famous sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, who passed away in 2009. Impressed by her talent and passion towards music, “Khansahib,” as she affectionately called her guru, gave her the title Gayan Alankar (Jewel of Music).
Sahai, an acclaimed composer, performer and teacher, tours throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India. She is also in demand at recording studios at home and abroad, where she graciously lends her voice to many diverse musical projects, including contributing vocal tracks for Grammy Award-winning artist Béla Fleck and performing on Alonzo King’s Sacred Texts, a CD of international music that won the Isadora Duncan Award for music excellence. She has also collaborated on several live musical productions with Jennifer Berezan’s “Edge of Wonder” project.
Stacey Pelinka is a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and the Eco Ensemble. She plays principal flute with San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program productions and second flute with the Berkeley Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and the Midsummer Mozart Festival. A certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner, Stacey teaches Feldenkrais at the San Francisco Symphony. She attended Cornell University and the San Francisco Conservatory, where she studied with Timothy Day.
Michael Goldberg, guitar, is currently playing solo and chamber recitals throughout the United States. He has toured throughout the United States as part of the Alma Duo, an ensemble of violin/viola and guitar, and is also a longtime member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, a group devoted to contemporary music performance. He has recorded on the Arabesque and Kameleon labels.
Oakland-based composer-performer Kyle Bruckmann’s work extends from a classical foundation into gray areas encompassing free jazz, electronic music, and post-punk rock. He is a member of acclaimed new music collective sfSound, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Eco Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, and Quinteto Latino. He has worked with the San Francisco Symphony and most of the area’s regional orchestras while remaining active in an international community of improvisers and sound artists. From 1996 to 2003, he was a fixture in Chicago’s experimental music underground; long-term affiliations include the electro-acoustic duo EKG, the art-punk monstrosity Lozenge, and the Creative Music quintet Wrack.
Percussionist Christopher Froh specializes in promoting and influencing the creation of new music through critically acclaimed performances and dynamic lectures. To date, he has premiered over 150 chamber and solo works by composers from 17 countries. His collaborations include some of the most significant composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Chaya Czernowin, David Lang, Steve Mackey, John Adams, George Crumb, Liza Lim, Matthias Pintcher, and Keiko Abe.
Soloist, chamber musician, master teacher and recording artist, Lois Brandwynne represents the fourth generation in a family of professional musicians.
Michael Seth Orland has appeared extensively in the Bay Area as a chamber musician, playing with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players Earplay, the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, New Music Theater, the Empyrean Ensemble, Other Minds, and in the San Francisco Symphony’s New and Unusual Music Series.
Marilyn Swan, piano, began her musical studies in Los Angeles with Robert Turner, and participated at an early age in master classes with Rosina Lhévinne at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and the Aspen Music Festival.
Kevin Stewart hails from the greater metropolitan area of Detroit. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, where he received a Bachelor of Woodwind Performance degree, Kevin headed west and settled in the Bay Area, hooking up with the San Francisco Saxophone Quartet, the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra, and most recently the South American Jazz group Quinteto.
Bassist, teacher, and conductor Thomas Derthick is currently principal bass of the Sacramento Philharmonic, Opera, Ballet, and Choral Society, and recently served 25 years as principal of the Cabrillo Festival, America’s foremost Contemporary Music Festival. He frequently performs with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento and has recorded and toured with the Empyrean Ensemble. Derthick has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Diego Symphony and Oregon Symphony, as well as recording work and Broadway shows.
Bruce Chrisp is the principal trombonist with the Marin, Santa Rosa, Fresno, Napa Valley, Santa Cruz County, Vallejo, and Carmel Bach Festival orchestras.
Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for his “unforgettable display of virtuosity,” trumpeter Dominic Favia is equally comfortable on modern and historical instruments.
Scott Choate is a native New Mexican who received his bachelor’s degree in orchestral performance from Arizona State University. He also studied performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
A champion of contemporary music in the United States and abroad, violist Ellen Ruth Rose is currently a member of Empyrean Ensemble, the flagship new music ensemble in residence at UC Davis, and Earplay, the San Francisco-based contemporary ensemble.
Jolán Friedhoff recently relocated to Davis after serving as assistant concertmaster of the Saar State Opera Orchestra (Germany) for twenty years. She also served as concertmaster of the Sinfonietta Saarbrucken for five seasons.
Sand plays with the chamber ensemble Musical Assembly, is director of the New York State Baroque, and appears with many Bay Area early music groups. He has recorded for Meridian, Harmonia Mundi (France and the U.S.), Arts and Music, KATastroPHE, Wildboar, and Titanic.
Malcolm MacKenzie is a professional dramatic baritone with twenty five years of performing experience at leading opera houses throughout the U.S. and Europe, having appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Paris Opera (Bastille), Finland’s Savonlinna Festival, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, San Diego Opera, Arizona Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Opera Colorado, Opera Omaha, North Carolina Opera, and Pittsburgh Operaamong others.
Peruvian-born mezzo-soprano Zoila Muñoz teaches voice on the faculties of UC Davis and California State University, Sacramento, and is artistic director of Apollo Opera in the Sierra Foothills.
