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.
DMA Jazz Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder 2017MA Instrumental Music Performance California State University, Fresno 2012BA Instrumental Jazz Performance, California State University, Fresno 2010
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.
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.
A native of Northern California, Dagenais Smiley
earned her bachelor of music degree at Oberlin
Conservatory as a student of Milan Vitek and her master’s degree
from University of Southern California under the instruction of
Kathleen Winkler. She is proud to have worked under notable
conductors such as Leon Fleisher, David Zinman, Robert Spano,
Michael Tilson Thomas, and John Williams. She has participated in
master classes given by Yuval Yaron, Kathleen Winkler, Alexander
Barantschik, Fritz Gearhart, the Calder Quartet, and Glenn
Dicterow.
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.
