Noon Concert Series

April 29   Angela Lee, cello,  Avi Downes, piano

Program

J.S. BACH (1685-1750)

May 6    Lowell Trio: Janet Popesco Archibald, oboe/English horn; Emil Miland, cello; Margaret Wong Fondbertasse, pianist

Program

May 13  Jeanette Tietze, pianist

Program

Sonata No. 31 in A Flat Major – Josef Haydn

    Allegro moderato

    Adagio

    Finale: Presto

 

Prelude and Fugue in E Flat Minor, BWV 853 – J. S. Bach

 

Six Variations, Op. 34 – L. van Beethoven

    Adagio

    Allegro ma non troppo

    Allegretto

    Tempo di Menuetto

    Marcia – Allegretto

    Allegretto

    Adagio molto

 

Four Mazurkas Op. 24 – F. Chopin

    Lento

    Allegro non troppo

    Moderato con anima

    Moderato 

May 20    Christian Pursell, Baritone

May 27   Anne Rainwater, piano

Program

Goldberg variations by Bach    

Biographies of Musicians:

Craig Perry has been perfecting his uniquely elegant style for many years. Trained at the Governor’s School for the Arts for classical and jazz guitar under Dr. Sam Dorsey, Jeff Smith and Chris Batson, Craig helped win the Gibson Award from the Grammy in the Schools. He has a BM Degree in Classical Guitar Performance from Virginia Commonwealth University where he studied with David Robinson and was a recipient of the Jesú Silva Merit Scholarship. He has performed in Master Classes led by world renowned players such as Scott Tennant, William Kanengiser, Mathew Greif and John Dearman of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Sérgio and Odair Assad, Jason Vieaux, and John Patykula. He has performed in distinguished locations such as The Roper Theater and The Chandler Recital Hall in Norfolk, VA; The Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall, The James W. Black Music Center, and The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, VA; The Cavalier Hotel and The Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach, VA. The Prado at Balboa Park and The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, CA; as well as Duke University’s Nelson Music Room and The Nasher Museum in Durham, North Carolina. In October of 2013, Craig released his debut, solo-classical guitar album of all original compositions, “Himself”, receiving high-acclaim and challenging the conventional image of the classical guitar. 

Emma Rosenthal is a soprano and native of Northern California. She has performed in recitals and competitions throughout the Bay Area and Southern New Mexico, including the Junior Bach Festival of California and the Vocal Artistry Art Song Competition in Albuquerque, NM. In 2012, she was the soprano soloist in Bach’s B Minor Mass at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rome, Italy.  Emma’s repertoire ranges from Baroque to twenty-first century music and includes opera, oratorio and art song. Recent performances include Cobweb in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rosalinda in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and the West Coast Premiere of Lembit Beecher’s documentary oratorio, And Then I Remember. She recently perform the role of Eve in Haydn’s The Creation with San Jose Symphonic Choir, and will perform the soprano solos in Handel’s Messiah with them in late November.  Emma received her Master’s Degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Sylvia Anderson, and currently resides in San Francisco.

Described as a “keen personality” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, violinist Lisa Romain is an artist who values in-depth musical exploration and collaboration. As the winner of the 2012 Mannes Concerto Competition, she made her New York concerto debut in Alice Tully Hall in March 2013, performing Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with the Mannes Orchestra.  Most recently, she was named as the Lauréate de l’edition 2013 des Rencontres de musique nouvelle du Domaine Forget, giving her a concerto appearance and additional performances with Lorraine Vaillancourt and Montréal’s Le Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne.

As a chamber musician, she has performed alongside violinist Ulf Hoelscher, cellist Diana Ligeti, pianists Danny Driver and Jerome Lowenthal, and members of Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. For the past two seasons, she has been a resident artist at the newly formed Birdfoot Chamber Music Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has previously been heard at Le Domaine Forget (Canada), master classes and the invitation-only Open Chamber Music session at the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove (United Kingdom), Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival (Maine, United States), and the Yale Summer School of Music’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Connecticut, United States).

As an orchestral musician, Lisa currently performs as a guest violinist with Concerto Budapest in Hungary. For the past two seasons, she has also performed and recorded with Symphony in C, one of three professional training orchestras in the United States.

Lisa received her Master of Music degree from the Mannes College of Music as a scholarship student of Laurie Smukler and her Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where her teacher was Sally Thomas. She completed post-graduate studies at Mannes in their Professional Studies Diploma program where she was presented with the George and Elizabeth Gregory Award for Excellence in Performance upon graduation.

Lisa is the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to Hungary for 2014-15 where she will research, study, and perform the music of Hungarian composer György Kurtág under the guidance of violinist András Keller. 

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Breen of Oakland, California is a scholarship student of Dr. Sharon Mann at the San Francisco Conservatory, and will begin studies at the Juilliard School in fall; until age 10, she was self-taught.  Breen has won prizes in a number of national and international competitions, including first prizes in the Mondavi National Competition, Music Teachers’ Association of California Solo Competition, and United States Open Music Competition. She has performed the Tchaikovsky First Concerto and Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto across the country the past two seasons, and is scheduled to Perform Rachmaninov’s 3^rd Concerto as well as Mozart’s Concerto K 488 this year. She received the award for best solo performance from the great Professor Sergei Babayan at the 2013 Arthur Fraser International Competition, and the third prize and a special jury award as the youngest competitor in the International Russian Music Piano Competition. She was also an invited competitor and concerto-round semi-finalist at the 2012 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition and performed at the Hilton Head International Piano Competition this past March. Most Recently, she was named a 2014 Finalist by the National YoungArts Association, and performed at YoungArts week in Miami as a result.

Breen specializes in the music of Bach, and has performed many times for the Junior Bach Festival. Appearing frequently at openings for books about Glenn Gould, her musical idol, she has presented a series of recitals for the launching of author Katie Hafner’s book A Romance on Three Legs.

She is a seven-year member of the Cerberus Piano Trio, and performs all types of chamber music regularly. Aside from piano, she graduated from Miramonte High School at 16, where she received the first prize on the National Latin Exam and third prize on the National French Exam. She hopes to pursue a career as a performing and recording artist.

Sarah Holzman, Flute, is an active performer in both chamber music recitals and with many of the Bay Area’s orchestras, among them the Symphonies of Berkeley, Marin, Stockton, Santa Cruz and Symphony Silicon Valley.  From 2005-2010, Sarah concertized extensively with the Laurel Ensemble, an all-female chamber group of mixed strings, winds, piano and harp.  Sarah’s interest in new music has brought her to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Other Minds, Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, UC Berkeley and Public Radio’s Echoes.  In recent summers, Sarah played with the Midsummer Mozart Festival, Utah Festival Opera, and the Festival at Palma de Mallorca.  Sarah holds a Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied flute with Michel Debost.  Her Master of Music is from San Francisco Conservatory, where she studied with Timothy Day. 

Krisanthy Desby, Violoncello, has been active in chamber ensembles and orchestras in North America, Europe and South Africa.  She founded the Laurel Ensemble with Sarah Holzman in 2005 to perform and commission repertoire for mixed strings, winds and piano.  The ensemble performed throughout the Bay Area for five years and was a member of San Francisco Symphony’s Adventures in Music program.  In 2009, the Laurel Ensemble traveled to Hong Kong to premiere 5 new works at the Musicarama Festival.  Ms. Desby was Assistant Principal Violoncello of both the Napa Valley Symphony and the Santa Cruz Symphonies and and plays with several orchestras in the Bay Area.  She coaches young chamber and orchestra musicians as String Specialist at University High School in San Francisco, and is a member of the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Keisuke Nakagoshi began his piano studies at the age of ten, arriving in the United States from Japan at the age of 18. Mr. Nakagoshi earned his Bachelors degree in Composition and Masters degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Graduating as the recipient of multiple top awards, Keisuke was selected to represent the SFCM for the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project, a program featuring the most promising young musicians from major conservatories across the United States. Mr. Nakagoshi has performed to acclaim on prestigious concert stages across the United States, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He has received training from some of the most celebrated musicians of our time – Emanuel Ax, Gilbert Kalish, Menahem Pressler, Robert Mann, Norman Fisher, The Peabody Trio – and enjoys collaborating with other accomplished musicians such as Lucy Shelton, Ian Swensen, Jodi Levitz, Robin Sutherland, the Afiara String Quartet and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Mr. Nakagoshi is half of ZOFO, the Grammy nominated piano duo he shares with Eva-Maria Zimmermann. They tour regularly throughout the US and Europe. 

Josepha Fath grew up in Mill Valley, California and received her musical training at the San Domenico School, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco State University and the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.  She has been a participant in the Tanglewood, Blossom, Spoleto and Mendocino Festivals.  Professionally, Josepha plays and records with California and Berkeley Symphonies, the Western Opera Theatre, Lamplighters, Pocket Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony and the San Francisco Opera.

Philip Fath was born in New York City and attended the Manhattan School of Music.  Over the past 47 years he was the Assistant Principal Clarinet with George Szell’s Cleveland Orchestra, Principal Clarinet with the San Francisco Symphony and Principal Clarinet with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra from which he recently retired.  Phil has been on the music faculties of UC Berkeley, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Domenico School in Marin.

Roxanne Michaelian studied at the San Francisco Conservatory with Paul Hersh and Claire James.  She made her debut at the age of twelve with the San Francisco Symphony.  She then won the North American Artists Competition and played with Denver Symphony as soloist.  Michaelian is also a past winner of the Coleman Chamber Music competition and the Los Angeles Young Musicians Foundation.

San Francisco native Anne Rainwater is a multi-talented artist known for her compelling interpretations of music from Bach to Zorn. An active freelancer and teacher, Anne is passionate for and excels in both solo and chamber settings. She has appeared at the Kennedy Center, Le Poisson Rouge, the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and the Galapagos Arts Space, amongst others. Other recent shows include a trio performance at Mass MOCA, a residency at Louisiana State University, and recital appearances at the Mendocino Music Festival, Cornelia Street Cafe, 142 Throckmorton Theatre, and the Center for New Music in San Francisco. Anne specializes in Baroque and contemporary music and is excited to play music from both time periods side-by-side. Besides piano, she loves running, cats, and the San Francisco Giants. 

California native Stephanie Willow Patterson is a bassoonist with a passion for collaboration, outreach, and contemporary music. As a member of the Enid Trio, she performs across the country, reaching out to young musicians to share a love of innovative music and music education. She has formerly held teaching positions at Bethany College and Bethel College in Kansas.

Stephanie has performed and taught at the Festival Internacional de Música Colonial Brasileira e Música Antiga in Juiz de Fora, Brazil, as well as the Sequoia Music Festival in Arcata, CA. She has been invited to perform at the Fairbanks New Music Festival, the Sonorities Festival in Belfast, Ireland, the IHearIC music series, and the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Bassoon Symposium. She has been a member of the Wichita Symphony, the Fairbanks Symphony and Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with the Wichita Grand Opera, Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, and the Quad-Cities Symphony. She has also performed with the Iowa City Jazz Vespers group and the Wichita-based free-jazz Bodo ensemble.

Her primary bassoon gurus have been Professors George Sakakeeny, Nicolasa Kuster, Scott Oakes and Benjamin Coelho, though she has also dabbled in improvisation under the direction of jazz bassoonist Paul Hansen, and studied in Russia with Igor Gerasimov, who neither plays jazz nor speaks English. She holds degrees in Performance and Russian from the Oberlin Conservatory and College, Wichita State University, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Iowa. Stephanie has attended the Lucerne Festival Academy, working under conductors Peter Eötvös and Pierre Boulez, and the Aspen Music Festival with Marin Alsop and David Zinman. 

Stephanie frequently collaborates with composers to create new works for bassoon. Recently she has worked with Lewis Nielson (Oberlin), Kathryn Alexander (Yale), Zachariah Zubow (Grinnell) and David Gompper (University of Iowa).  

She organized the first season of the Wichita State University New Music Concert Series in 2008-2009, and in 2013 she organized and performed in the Iowa Celebration of Women Composers, a concert featuring new works by women including brand-new pieces by Katherine Murdock and Stephanie Pieczynski. 

Her staged performances include Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis at the Wichita Knob Festival at the FischHaus art gallery, and In Freundschaft by Stockhausen for bassoon-playing teddy bear. She has performed in Carnegie Hall, on the busy streets of Moscow, on the pedestrian malls of Madrid, in the gilded Kappella hall in St. Petersburg, inside a medieval church in Prague, for after-school programs in Alaska, with Pierre Boulez at the Kunstmuseum Luzern, atop a gallows at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, in a room with speakers encircling the audience, and in the mountains of North Carolina.

British cellist, Hannah Sloane, recently completed her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School in New York with Darrett Adkins and Joel Krosnick, where she also received her Bachelor of Music degree with Scholoastic Distinction in 2011.  As a 2012 recipient of a Carla Bruni Sarkozy French-American Exchange Grant, she studied for a semester at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris with Phillippe Muller.  Hannah has appeared as a soloist with the Blackheath, Haydon, Lambeth and Juilliard Orchestras and has played in masterclasses throughout Europe and the United States, including those at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove.  She has participated in the Domaine Forget, Kneisel Hall, Lewes, Maiastra and Taos Chamber Music Festivals, but equally enjoys reading quartets with friends as late into the night as the neighbors ell allow.  Hannah plays a Piattilini ‘cello dating 1750 which is kindly on loan to her from the Stark family.

Described as brilliant by the San Francisco Classical Voice, pianist Allegra Chapman has performed throughout the US and Europe as soloist and chamber musician in venues such as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tull Hall, New York City Center, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Franz Liszt Memorial Museum in Budapest, and the Bard Music Festival.  She has collaborated with acclaimed artists including Joseph Bloom, Blair McMillen, Ian Swensen and Steven Tenenbom, and her performances have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and broadcast on WFMT Chicago and WQXR New York.  Allegra’s commitment to new music has led her to premier the works of many young composers and she has worked with world-renowned living composers Joan Tower and Charles Wuorinen.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Music as a member of the unaugural class at the Bard Conservatory of Music and completed her Master of Music as a scholarship student at the Juilliard School.  Allegra’s teachers have included Jeremy Denk, Seymour Lipkin, Julian Martin, Sharon Mann, Robert McDonald, and Peter Serkin.  Allegra makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is is co-founder of the chamber music ensemble Phonochrome Collective.

Natalie Parker, clarinetist, is currently the principal clarinet of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Ms Parker joined the Ballet Orchestra in January of 2012 and received her masters in music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music the following May. Ms Parker has recently attended such music festivals as Brevard Music Center, the Madeline Island Chamber Music Camp and the Texas Music Festival. While in school, she actively participated in the Houston Da Camera Young Artist’s Program and JUMP!, the community music outreach program at Rice University. In 2010, Ms Parker won second prize in the International Clarinet Association’s Young Artist Competition and performed in recital at the Association’s annual ClarinetFest.  Since arriving in San Francisco, Ms Parker has played frequently with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and enjoys performing chamber music throughout the Bay area.  

An active Bay Area violist, Elizabeth Prior is the principal violist with the Santa Rosa symphony and is also a season substitute with the San Francisco Ballet. Elizabeth is associate principal with the Marin Symphony and performs regularly with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Other orchestral credits include Freiburg Philharmonic (Associate principal) and Cape Town Symphony. She has toured and worked with Südwestfunk, Stuttgart Radio, Basel Symphony, and the Mannheim Opera Orchestras.     

Jillian Khuner is well known to Bay Area Opera audiences. She has performed with many regional companies including Berkeley Opera, West Edge Opera, West Bay Opera ,North Bay Opera, Pacific Rep Opera, Cinnabar, SF Lyric Opera, Verismo, singing many lead roles including Violetta in La Traviata, Mimi in La Boheme, the title roles in Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Suor angelica, Madama Butterfly, Martha, Rusalka, and Baby Doe, Eva in Die Meistersinger, Fiordiligi in Cosi, Micaela in Carman, Lady Macbeth,and Magda in Menotti’s The Consul.
She has appeared as soloist with the Berkelely Community Chorus in Verdi’s Requiem and Poulenc’s Gloria. Jillian has performed as soloist for the SF Chamber Orchestra and the Tel Aviv Symphony. Her first and principal teacher was Frank Baker at Bennington College, Vt. Jillian teaches voice in the East Bay.

Joe Bloom has been concertizing and teaching for the past fifteen years in California and prior to that on the East coast where he also taught at Bennington College and Rutgers University.  “A first rate pianist”  (The NY Times)   “A master at work”   (The Washington Post).   “His excellent accompaniments set the seal on a brilliant recital” (The N.Y. Times).  “A truly cultured and sensitive artist” (Henryk Szeyrng, late violin virtuoso).  “His ability to get results with students at all levels is truly amazing; he is universally loved” (Norman Derby, Dean  Bennington Coll.).

A native San Franciscan born into a very musical family, Helene’s earliest memories include falling asleep each night to either the sounds of her father composing at the piano, or her mother singing beautiful Armenian lullabies. By the time Helene was five years old, she was already a regular in the church choir. Her well-rounded performing arts background includes thirteen years of formal training at the San Francisco Ballet School, studies at the American Conservatory Theatre, and a degree in Dramatic Art from U.C. Berkeley.

An impromptu performance in an Italian palazzo led to her professional debut in San Francisco, where she was chosen to be the soprano soloist in a world premier production set to Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” with the San Francisco Ballet Company. Of that performance, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “The brief stunned silence at the curtain, and the roars of approval that followed were proof of the powerful feelings elicited in the audience.” Following this local triumph, Helene received many invitations to sing as a guest artist, both locally and in Europe, where she eventually relocated for an extended engagement. An invitation to perform Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” in Chicago enticed her to return to the United States, where she now maintains an active concert schedule.

Helene is often featured as a soloist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, which was recently hailed as Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year”. Her solo appearances there include Campra’s “Requiem”, Purcell’s “Birthday Ode to Queen Mary”, Rameau’s “Grand Motet”, Handel’s “Samson”, and Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio”, all with maestro Nicholas McGegan conducting.

Helene performs regularly throughout the Bay Area as a professional member of several distinguished ensembles including Philharmonia Baroque, American Bach Soloists, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, San Francisco Opera Chorus, AVE Artists’ Vocal Ensemble, the Sanford Dole Ensemble, San Francisco Renaissance Voices, the Throckmorton Chamber Players, and the Carmel Bach Festival.

Recent orchestral soloist engagements include Purcell’s “Dioclesian”, Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Rosenmüller’s “Magnificat” with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, as well as a return to the Chicago area to perform Berlioz’s “Les nuits d’été” with members of the Chicago Symphony and the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra. Closer to home, she has been featured in each of the last two concert seasons with Alasdair Neale and the Marin Symphony as the soprano soloist in Vaughan Williams’s “Dona Nobis Pacem” and Mozart’s “Requiem”.

Helene has three solo albums to date. Her first CD, “A Mother’s Love”, is a collection of Armenian lullabies and night songs. This tribute to her Armenian heritage won “Best Classical Voice/Opera Solo Album of the Year” at the 2006 Just Plain Folks Music Awards, and was nominated by the Armenian Music Awards for “Best Classical Vocal Album”.

Her second album, “In My Father’s Garden”, features songs composed by her father, Earl Zindars, as well as songs by Roger Quilter, Richard Strauss, Alexander Spendiarian, Romanos Melikian, and Carlos Guastavino.

Her most recent album, “Janabar” is a collection of Armenian liturgical hymns designed to follow the cycle of life. The album received an enthusiastic premier in Chicago, followed by a West Coast debut shortly thereafter. Currently, plans are underway to bring the project to Italy in 2014.

Robert Howard, Cellist  A native of Atlanta, GA, Robert began studying cello at age 12. Graduate of Rice University and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has studied and performed at festivals such as Tanglewood, Spoleto, Verbier, the Accademia Chigiana, and the Sandor Vegh Academy in Prague. Robert won first prize in the Rome Festival Competition and has received grants from the Maggini and Virtu Foundations. Robert has performed in the Festival Internacional de Musica in Costa Rica, the Festival de Guadarama in Spain, and on the Mostly Mozart series in Lincoln Center. Locally, he has performed with American Bach Soloists, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, the San Francisco Symphony, and as principal cellist of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. A frequent guest on many Bay Area chamber music series, Robert has also made concerto appearances with BARS Orchestra and Stanford Symphony. As a teacher, he has coached at San Francisco Conservatory, Stanford University, San Jose State University, and the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop.