Diane Alancraig enjoys a versatile career as a symphony and chamber musician, solo recitalist and teacher. Over the years, she has had the good fortune to work with some of the world's most distinguished artists and musical organizations, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Long Beach Symphony. She has also toured widely in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Outside of music, Diane dabbles in auto mechanics, loves to cook, has a wonderful family, and works professionally as a photographer specializing in portraiture. Diane is currently on faculty at California State University at Los Angeles.
Workshops: Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
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Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a "cellist who shows great sensitivity and great virtuosity at all moments," Ms. Ani Aznavoorian is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician with some of the world's most recognized ensembles. She has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the International Sejong Soloists, and the Juilliard Orchestra. Ms. Aznavoorian has also appeared as recitalist and chamber musician in over 20 countries spanning 5 continents.
Ms. Aznavoorian is an avid chamber musician and teacher. She is the principal cellist of Camerata Pacifica, one of the premier chamber music series in Southern California. She has also served on the distinguished music faculty at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, and in the summers she is on the faculty of the Great Mountains Music Festival and School in South Korea.
Her numerous accolades include first prizes in the Chicago Cello Society National Competition, the Juilliard School Concerto Competition, the Julius Stulberg Competition, and the American String Teachers Association Competition. She was a top prizewinner in the 1996 International Paulo Competition, held in Helsinki, Finland. As a recipient of the 1995 Level I award in the National Foundation for the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, Ms. Aznavoorian became a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performed as soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. where she met former U.S. President, Bill Clinton. She was also recipient of the prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award for her outstanding cello playing and artistry.
She proudly performs on a cello made by her father Peter Aznavoorian in Chicago.
For more informaiton visit Ms. Aznavoorian's website at http://aniaznavoorian.com.
Workshops: Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014
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Photo by Eric Isaacs
Paul Bambach is Director of the University Wind Ensemble and Senior Lecturer in Clarinet at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As clarinetist, Mr. Bambach is a Yamaha Artist and Clinician and has been a solo performer, teacher, coach, adjudicator, and clinician throughout the United States and Europe, including the Montanea Festival Summer Music Institute and International Composer's Conference (Talloires, France), the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Termoli, Italy), and the International Studies Institute (Florence, Italy). He has recorded for Battery Records, New World Records, CRI, and National Public Radio, and has been a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio) since 1975. An active local freelancer, he is former principal clarinet of the Santa Barbara Grand Opera, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Santa Barbara Chorale Society and the Santa Barbara Master Chorale. Mr. Bambach has also been a frequent guest conductor, having appeared in that capacity with the Santa Barbara Junior High School Honor Band, the Santa Barbara High School Honor Band, the Central Coast Section High School Honor Band, the Santa Barbara Nick Rail Summer Band Camp, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Bonefro, Italy), and the Miami Valley Academy Summer Camp (Ohio).
Workshops: Fall 2009,Fall 2016, Fall 2017
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The Los Angeles Times has praised Tamsen's solo playing as "both intuitive and lyrical". They described her ensemble playing as "having a unique synergy".
Tamsen is an active soloist, chamber, studio and orchestral musician, performing over 100 concerts a year. She has given premieres of concertos, chamber music, operatic and orchestral works. Her career includes performances with such notable artists as: Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, Renee Fleming, Zubin Mehta, Henryk Szeryng, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell, James Galway, Gil Shaham, Van Cliburn and the Golabek Sisters. In addition, she has performed and recorded with popular artists: Andrea Bocelli, Michael Jackson, Barry Manilow, Frank Sinatra Jr., Lalo Schifrin, Aaron Neville, Ray Charles, Diane Schuur, George Benson, Barry White, Doc Severenson, Roger Williams, Amy Grant, Frank Capp, CeCe Winans, John Cleese, June Foray and Bobby Vinton and Bernadette Peters.
Along with 20 years performing in the first violin section of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Tamsen has been concertmaster of the Crystal Cathedral Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, West Coast Symphony, Los Angeles Lyric Opera, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Antelope Valley Symphony, Inland Empire Symphony, Redlands Bowl Symphony, and Magical History Tour - A Celebration of the Beatles.
She is proud to have been a member of the New West Symphony for over twenty five years and has been principal second violin with the Glendale Symphony. Tamsen has also served as assistant concertmaster with the South Dakota Symphony, and performed with the San Luis Obispo Opera Orchestra, California Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, and The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra,
As a soloist she has performed with the Glendale Symphony, Claremont Symphony, West Coast Symphony, Goleta Chamber Orchestra, Crown City Symphony and Burbank Symphony. In 2019 Tamsen premiered David Stern's Violin Concerto with the West Coast Symphony at the historic Sunken Gardens in Santa Barbara.
Tamsen is the first violinist for the Avanti String Quartet and Ensemble who were Artists in Residence at Clemson University and were selected to perform student concerts for the Coleman Chamber Music series. They recently completed a concert tour in Texas, performing 7 concerts for the Navarro Arts Council. In 2020 and 2021 they premiered composer David Stern's String Quartet. As a member of the Calvarola String Trio and Los Angeles Piano Trio, she was a finalist in several prestigious competitions.
To observe the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks, Tamsen organized a collaboration of 75 musicians to present a community concert for the city of Monrovia. That concert featured a world premiere of David Stern's Lincoln Speaks of Liberty: "All Men are Created Equal" and a West Coast Premiere of Mr. Stern's composition, "9/11: We Stand for Freedom".
Touring has been another creative outlet for playing her music. She has performed in many countries including, Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Japan, and China.
Tamsen has taught private lessons on the violin and viola for over 40 years. Many of her students have been competition winners and gone on to become music professionals. In addition to her private teaching, Tamsen has taught at California State University Los Angeles, Cal State Fullerton, Westmont College, Shepherd University, and conducted Master Classes. She has frequently coached students at Westlake High School, Newbury Park High School, Los Cerritos Middle School, coached several youth symphonies and adjudicated competitions. She has taught for the Education Through Music program in Los Angeles.
She has donated her chamber music and orchestral skills to many philanthropic organizations such as Huntington Memorial Hospital, Kaiser Permanente Hospital, and The City of Hope. She has also performed benefits for victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, San Bernardino Victims, and Samaritan's Purse - Santa Monica.
Tamsen invented and patented the Acoustifoam Shoulder Rest which has helped hundreds of violinists, violists, cellists and harpists around the world. She is the owner of the 1780 "Hawley" J.B. Guadagnini violin, known to have been used by Louis Spohr at the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Workshops: Fall 2021
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Pianist Gloria Cheng is widely recognized as a preeminent performer of contemporary music, whose devotion to and advocacy of new music has led to close collaborations with many of the leading composers of our time. She has dozens of premieres and dedications to her credit from composers including John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Terry Riley, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Ms. Cheng's playing is regularly praised for its unassuming virtuosity and depth, and her recitals and recordings are noted for exploring significant interconnections between composers. As The New York Times put it, "It's not just that Ms. Cheng plays these daunting pieces with such commanding technique, color and imagination. She has brought together works that fascinatingly complement one another."
Her Telarc recording of Piano Music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Witold Lutoslawski was released to international accolades that included Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice, The New York Times Best of 2008, and the Grammy® for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra). Ms. Cheng appears on over twenty recordings, including three additional solo releases that showcase the breadth of her tastes in contemporary music: Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley, Piano Dance: A 20th-Century Portrait, both on Telarc, and her debut CD, Messiaen, on Koch International.
Ms. Cheng earned her B.A. in Economics from Stanford University, graduate degrees in Music from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California, and pursued postgraduate work in solfège and piano in Paris and Barcelona. Her primary teachers were Isabelle Sant'Ambrogio, Aube Tzerko, and John Perry. She is on the faculty at UCLA.
For more informaiton visit Ms. Cheng's website at http://gloriachengpiano.com.
Workshops: Spring 2012
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Since 1996, he has been music director and pianist of the Mount Desert Festival of Chamber Music in Northeast Harbor, Maine. His CDs include sonatas of Haydn and Schubert, works by Taneyev and Dohnányi, Liszt's piano solo transcription of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Ernst Toch's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the NDR-Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and forthcoming, a release of solo performances from the BBC of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Moscheles.
Born in Santa Barbara, California, he is an honors graduate of the University of California and the Juilliard School. In 1986 he received the University of California's Distinguished Alumni Award and is currently the George Sherman Dickinson Professor of Music at Vassar College.
Workshops: Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2014
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Randy Fisher has been a regular coach at chamber music workshops around California, including CMNC, Santa Barbara, San Diego and, this year, CalCap, Golden Gate and Idaho workshops. He has also been coach and Assistant Director for the Spokane (WA) String Chamber Music Camp, Strings in the Mountains in Steamboat Springs (CO) and the Hampton Roads Chamber Players in Norfolk (VA), a weekly chamber music school for middle and high school students.
Mr. Fisher has taught viola and chamber music at Old Dominion University, Virginia Governor´s School for the Arts, Hong Kong Conservatory and Colorado College, where he established and conducted both a College and a community chamber orchestra. He was a member of the Colorado Symphony, prior to which he was in quartets of principal string players with regional orchestras in Omaha, Sacramento and San Sebastian, Spain. Over the last decade, Mr. Fisher has established innovative arts education and community engagement programs as Education Director for the Virginia, Richmond and Spokane Symphonies and Young Audiences of Virginia, which sponsors presentations and residencies of artists of all genres in schools statewide.
Workshops: Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2014, Fall 2017, Spring 2018
Student Out Reach Coach:Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Fall 2018
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Violinist Agnes Gottschewski grew up in a family of musical amateurs where playing chamber music for fun was a frequent event. Even now, as a professional violinist she enjoys reading chamber music with friends. She has coached at Chamber Music Workshops in Santa Ana and Santa Barbara.
She has been a frequent guest artist with Camerata Pacifica for many years, and a regular chamber music artist at the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska since 1997. Other recent chamber music performances have been with the High Desert Chamber Music Festival in Bend, Oregon; the Sitka Music Festival's Autumn Series in Anchorage, Alaska; and El Paso Pro Musica, El Paso, Texas, as well as performances at the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival in Washington State.
For several years she was a member of Southwest Chamber Music, playing many premieres of contemporary chamber music and recording several CDs, including their Grammy winning Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Cha´vez. She has also been an artist faculty member at the chamber music festival, Aberystwyth MusicFest (Wales/England).
Agnes presently holds the position of assistant concertmaster of the Long Beach Symphony and has been a member of Pacific Symphony's first violin section since 1996. She teaches at Long Beach City College and is an active studio musician.
Agnes is originally from West Berlin, Germany, where she started playing the violin at age 6. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste, she moved to Southern California for graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego where she concentrated on contemporary music; and at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she was a member of the graduate string quartet in residence.
When not busy rehearsing, recording or performing music, Agnes spends time at a pottery studio making mostly functional ceramics, making jewelry, going walking or hiking with her husband and her dog, or spending an occasional evening at home.
Workshops: Spring 2014, Fall 2014
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Kristi is very passionate about teaching and works in many Santa Barbara schools as a strings coach and private teacher. When not playing or teaching Kristi works at Linda West Cellos learning to rehair, repair, and restore string instruments. |
Kristi Holstein moved to Santa Barbara in 2016 and has since become highly sought after throughout the central and south coast as an orchestral musician and teacher. In 2014 she received her Bachelor Of Music degree in Violin Performance Summa Cum Laude from West Virginia University and in 2016 graduated with a Master Of Music degree in Violin Performance from University of Texas Arlington. She spent three summers at the Eastern Music Festival and one summer at the 8-week chamber music intensive Bay View Music Festival. Since moving to Santa Barbara, Kristi has earned positions with American Youth Symphony and the Debut Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles, is principal second violin of the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara, and regularly plays with the Santa Maria Philharmonic Society, Lompoc Pops Orchestra, and Opera San Luis Opisbo among other Central Coast symphonies.
Workshops: Student Out Reach Coach: Spring 2018
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Flutist, Eileen Holt, is an accomplished and versatile performer. Her unique sound and ability to play in many diverse styles and genres have kept her in high demand as soloist, orchestral musician, and chamber musician. Ms. Holt has performed and toured throughout the United States, Europe, Singapore, Japan and China. She has had the privilege of appearing as soloist with the Riverside County Philharmonic several times where she also holds the position of principal flute. Featured solo appearances with the orchestra include performances of Carl Nielsen’s “Concerto for Flute and Orchestra”, Cecil Chaminade’s “Concertino” under the baton of Ransom Wilson and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti numbers #2, #4, and #5 conducted by Tomasz Golka. She has also premiered various works for multiple soloists with orchestra including “Concertante” for wind quintet by Damian Montano in 2012, and “Shinobu vs. Ghost Warrior”, for solo flute and solo piccolo by Christopher Tin in 2014. She has appeared with many symphonies including the San Diego Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, and Pasadena Pops Orchestra, Southwest Chamber Orchestras, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay, Long Beach Opera, among others. She is also principal flute with the Long Beach Municipal Band, the only existing professional municipal band in the country. She has also been principal flute for the orchestras of many pop stars including Elton John, Sarah McLachlan, Michael McDonald, Amy Grant, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Michael Bolton and Josh Groban with whom she appeared on the “Ellen DeGeneres” show. She has also been acting principal flutist for many Broadway touring shows such as “Aida”, “Into the Woods”, and “La Boheme”. Ms. Holt is also an active chamber musician and has also toured, recorded, and premiered pieces for various chamber ensembles, including the Los Angeles Flute Quartet, and the award winning, Calico Winds, with whom she has also appeared twice in performances at Carnegie Hall, and toured extensively throughout the country. She has also enjoyed a career as professional vocalist with the LA Opera and Los Angeles Master Chorale. During this time she shared the stage with such greats as Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Marilyn Horne and has also had the privilege of working under the batons of some of the world’s leading conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta and Andre Previn.
Workshops: Fall 2018
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Kim "gave the audience a rich sampling of his versatility. Kim has an expressive temperament: his playing is irresistibly dynamic and colorful. The [program] revealed Kim's sure ear, clean articulation, and maturity of interpretation." CASA Magazine
Violinist, Han Soo Kim is an award-winning and internationally accomplished artist who has performed to critical acclaim in over a dozen countries on four continents. He has been praised by many audiences around the world for his passion, sensitivity and charisma. His playing is described as a "musical gift of rare beauty" The Korea Times. His knowledge and versatility allow him to perform a diverse mix of musical styles ranging from the standard works to avant-garde contemporary repertoire.
Dr. Kim has concertized extensively as solo performer, duo-recitalist and chamber musician. In the United States, he has performed in some of the nation's most prominent venues including Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, Cutler Majestic Theater, Jordan Hall, Kaufmann Concert Hall, and The Kennedy Center. Performances have also led him to world renowned conservatories, music schools and festivals including Académie Internationale de Courchevel, Boston Conservatory, Columbia University, Le Domaine Forget International Music Festival, The Juilliard School, Longy School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, Meadowmount School of Music, Morningside Music Bridge, Musicorda, New England Conservatory, and Stony Brook University. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras in the US and abroad performing standard concertos to contemporary world premieres.
Dr. Kim has earned Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance under a fellowship grant. His Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in violin performance are from the prestigious The Juilliard School where he was a merit scholarship recipient studying under the tutelage of the venerable pedagogue, Professor Sally Thomas. Other influential teachers and mentors include Roman Totenberg and Pamela Frank. He has extensively worked with distinguished chamber music artists including Emerson, Guarneri and Juilliard String Quartets. He has held scholastic positions including Artistic Director and Director of Strings, and has also been invited to adjudicate numerous competitions. His passion for sharing musical knowledge and experience to young musicians has taken him to many different parts of the world. As an avid educator, he has been invited to give lectures, workshops and master classes on technique, innovative practice methods and performance. In New York, he has taught classes at Meadowmount School of Music, Stony Brook University and Pre-Colleges of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.
Dr. Kim maintains a close musical relationship with his sister Dr. Hailey Kim, a cellist and pedagogue, and his colleague and concert pianist, Mr. Jie Roger Luo, who he has been collaborating with for over a decade. Dr. Kim is a Promessa Records Artist with the recent release of Encore Favori, a solo CD featuring a dozen encores and virtuosic showpieces. He will be releasing more albums with Promessa Records in the near future including the complete Brahms Sonatas. Dr. Kim devotes a considerable amount of time to teaching, traveling for lectures and masterclasses, as well as maintaining an internationally active recording and performance schedule. At Westmont College, Dr. Kim is Head of Strings and teaches alongside his wife, Joanne Kim, a clarinetist. He is Founder and Director of Westmont Academy for Young Artists and is on the faculty at Montecito International Music Festival and InterHarmony International Music Festival. Dr. Kim performs on a Carlo Antonio Testore of 1721. His CDs can be purchased at the Westmont College bookstore and hanjoannekim.com.
Workshops: Fall 2018, Spring 2019
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Rosemarie Krovoza, violist and violinist, has an MA in music education. She studied violin with Gibson Walters and Alice Schoenfeld and chamber music and viola with the late Eleanore Schoenfeld. She is a string pedagogist, clinician, chamber music coach and honor orchestra conductor. Most recently she was an adjunct professor of music education at UCLA. She is an active Orchestra Festival Adjudicator for the Bay area Section of CMEA (California Music Educator's Assoc.) Each summer she coaches the 3 weeks of the Adult Chamber Music Workshop at Humboldt State. She and her husband live in Walnut Creek, close to children and grandchildren.
Workshops: Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2017
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Michael Lieberman pursues a busy career as a chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher. As violist of the Saint Helens String Quartet, resident ensemble at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Michael has performed extensively throughout the Pacific Northwest. During the 2000/01 season, he performed for the world premier production of Philip Glass's opera, "In the Penal Colony" written for a single string quintet that was on stage and in costume during the entire performance. With over a hundred performances in New York, Chicago and Seattle, the production was reviewed to critical acclaim. In 2007 Michael was the violist and music director for "Tempo of Recollection", an innovative collaboration of chamber music, dance, drama, projected images and sound set in a 1920s Prague dance-hall bringing to life the music of Czech composer and holocaust victim, Erwin Schulhoff.
As an orchestral musician, Michael has performed with the Los Angeles Opera, Oregon Symphony, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Northwest Sinfonietta, among many others. Since moving to Santa Barbara with his wife, fellow violist, Helen Callus, Michael has joined the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Santa Barbara Symphony and Opera Santa Barbara and is much in demand as a freelance player in the region. Born and raised in Virginia, Michael studied at the Peabody Conservatory.
Workshops: Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Fall 2013
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In the past few seasons, pianist Steven Lubin has performed as concerto soloist or recitalist in
England, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Ukraine, Australia, and all across North
America. He has appeared as soloist in many of the world's great concert halls (Avery Fisher, Alice Tully,
Barbican Center, Kennedy Center, Davies, Herbst, Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Wigmore, Queen Elizabeth,
St. John's Smith Square, Myerson, Ambassador, Ordway, Severance, El Auditorio de Zaragoza, etc.), and in
major international festivals (Lufthansa, South Bank, Regensburg, Colmar, Utrecht, La Roque d'Anthéron,
Aranjuez, Ravinia, Espoo, Mostly Mozart, Mainly Mozart, etc.). He has performed with the National
Symphony, the Odessa Philharmonic, the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, the St. Paul and Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestras, the Academy of Ancient Music of London, the Wiener Akademie, Il Fondamento, and many
others. He has recorded twenty CDs, mostly for major labels, and has received critical approbation
worldwide for his artistry, musical originality and technical excellence.
As an early musician, in his sub-specialty as fortepianist, Mr. Lubin has been a dominating figure for
two decades. He pioneered a series of solo recitals including fortepiano in major New York venues
(including his 1977 debut in Carnegie Recital Hall), and, having organized a classic-period orchestra in
the early 80s, offered pathbreaking performances of Mozart concertos in period style, as soloist/conductor,
in several of New York's principal halls (Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, and the
Metropolitan Museum).
His recordings of several Mozart concertos for Arabesque served as an introduction for many listeners
world-wide to period-style performance of this repertoire. These recordings garnered widespread critical
praise, including a recording-of-the-year citation from Stereo Review magazine, and earned Mr. Lubin a
European reputation. He was chosen by Decca to record the five piano concertos of Beethoven with
Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, a recording cited as definitive by many critics
internationally, and named as one of the most distinguished recordings of the year by Stereo Review,
The New York Times, Gramophone, Fanfare, and The Penguin Guide. Mr. Lubin has
also released a series of highly acclaimed recordings for Harmonia Mundi USA.
Mr. Lubin received his bachelors degree in philosophy at Harvard College, and his masters in piano at the
Juilliard School. He earned a Ph.D. in musicology at New York University, with an analytic dissertation
on Beethoven. He served as Head of the Graduate Theory Department as a professor at Cornell University,
and has also taught at Vassar College and the Juilliard School. He has published substantially in the
musical area, and has a busy lecture career. He is currently Professor of Music at the Conservatory of
Music at Purchase College, Purchase, NY. In 2001, he was the recipient of a Kempner Distinguished
Professor Award at Purchase College.
For more information please visit Dr. Lubin's website at www.stevenlubin.com
Biography text from www.stevenlubin.com
Workshops: Fall 2011, Fall 2010
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A native of Santa Barbara, California, Paul Mori got his earliest start in music through public school music programs. He continued his musical education at Westmont College, then to the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, earning a master's degree in bassoon performance with Phillip Kolker and later completing a doctorate in orchestral conducting, studying with the legendary Frederik Prausnitz.
His reputation as a conductor with the Bach Ensemble of Baltimore in the 1990s garnered critical praise, as that chamber orchestra performed a wide-ranging repertoire, from Bach to Bartok, and was featured numerous times on the public radio station WBJC's prestigious "Music in Maryland" series.
He served as the musical director of the Rainier Symphony (1996-2001) and also as the music director of the Bainbridge Orchestra and the Rainier Youth Symphony. He has also appeared as guest conductor for various orchestras, including the Northwest Mahler Festival Orchestra and the Huntington Chamber Orchestra in West Virginia).
Dr. Mori returned to Baltimore in December 2005 at the invitation of the world-renown violinist Hilary Hahn, where he conducted a concert with her and members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Since 2005, he has been an adjunct professor at Westmont College, where conducts the chamber orchestra, coaches chamber ensembles and is the wind/brass coach for the Westmont Orchestra.
Dr. Mori also currently conducts the Santa Barbara Reading Orchestra and regularly performs bassoon with several local organizations.
Workshops: Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018
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Cellist Maggie Parkins enjoys a busy musical life as both a performer and a teacher. She has performed in concerts, tours and festivals throughout North and South America and Europe. Maggie has participated at the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, Festival Internacional de Musica de Cadaques, Spain, Heidelburg Castle Festival, Spoleto, Tanglewood and the Bach Aria Festival. In 2004 she was a guest artist with the Pequenia Ensamble in Bariloche, Argentina. As a member of the Stonybrook Piano Trio she was a prizewinner in the 1991 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. While residing in New York, Maggie performed in the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Syracuse Symphony, the Omni Ensemble, the Jazz Passengers and the Anthony Braxton Ensemble.
Currently in Los Angeles she is a member of the Mojave Piano Trio, the Eclipse String Quartet, specializing in new music with multi media collaborations and Brightwork a new music ensemble. She is a former member of Quatracelli a cello quartet and the Robin cox Ensemble. The Eclipse Quartet has released recordings on the Tzadik label and New World Records. She has played in various orchestras throughout LA such as the LA Master Chorale, Riverside Symphony and the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. Maggie has been professor of cello at University of California at Irvine since 1997 and has served on the faculties of Southern California College and Concordia University. She has toured Germany, Austria and Italy and recorded with accordionist/composer Guy Klusevsek and in the Zeena Parkins Group and can be heard on the Avan, Tzadik and Victo labels. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Maggie earned a Doctoral degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Workshops: Spring 2016
Back to the TopAndy Radford, is the Principal Bassoonist of the Santa Barbara Symphony and the California Philharmonic. Active in the recording industry, Radford has played in over 300 soundtracks including the films: Up!, Star Trek, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Forrest Gump. He has performed and recorded with artists such as; Neil Diamond, The Three Tenors, Dixie Chicks, Joshua Redmond, Pat Benatar, Chris Botti, The Who, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Josh Groban, Michael Crawford and Faith Hill.
A free-lancer for many years in the Los Angeles area, Andy now lives in Ojai and splits his working hours between bassoon performance and music education. Radford is the Education Coordinator for the Ojai Music Festival and is an Artist-in Residence for the Festival's BRAVO! Program. Along with his wife, violinist Amy Hagen, Radford cofounded the Ojai Youth Symphony in 2001. Andy became Music Director of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony in 2004 and serves on the faculty of UCSB and Westmont Colleges.
Workshops: Spring 2011
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Professor Roscetti has been at CSUN for fifteen years, and currently teaches Cello, Chamber Music and Entrepreneurship. She is the Director of the CSUN Honors String Quartet Program. Prior to coming to CSUN, she was the Director of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Maine, where she was the Cello Professor for twenty-three years and a member of the Faculty Piano Trio which toured extensively. She started an advanced graduate string quartet program there, where she was in charge of two resident quartets, the Gilead and Le Stagioni. She has enjoyed a performance career spanning many years, performing at such festivals as the Algonquin International Music Festival, the Bay Chamber Concert Series, the Silver Bay Summer Music Festival, the Arcady Music Festival, and on CBS Sunday Morning. She has performed twenty-one solo and chamber music television/radio broadcasts throughout New England and the Canadian Maritimes. She has performed chamber music with Jacques Israelievitch, concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony; Victor Danchenko of Peabody Conservatory; Marvin Topolsky and Jerry Grossman of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Bill Blossom of the New York Philharmonic; the Portland and Laurentian String Quartets; Eugenia Zukerman; Steven Isserlis and many others.
Workshops: Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2019
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Violist ELLEN RUTH ROSE enjoys a varied career as a soloist, ensemble musician and teacher with a strong interest the music of our times. She is a member of Ecoensemble, the professional new music ensemble at UC Berkeley, Empyrean Ensemble, the flagship new music ensemble in residence at UC Davis, and Earplay, the San Francisco-based contemporary ensemble, where she also serves as Artistic Coordinator. She has performed as soloist with numerous ensembles, including the West German Radio Chorus, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Diablo Symphony, the symphony orchestras of UC Berkeley and UC Davis, at the San Francisco Other Minds and Ojai Music festivals, and at Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, she worked extensively throughout Europe with Frankfurt's Ensemble Modern and the Cologne experimental ensembles Musik Fabrik and Thürmchen Ensemble, appearing at the Cologne Triennial, Berlin Biennial, Salzburg Zeitfluß, Brussels Ars Nova, Venice Biennial, Budapest Autumn and Kuhmo (Finland) festivals. Traditional chamber music credits include appearances at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Cornwall, and recent chamber collaborations with Cho-Liang Lin and Matt Haimovitz in San Francisco.
Over the past several years she has collaborated with, premiered, and recorded works written especially for her by numerous Northern California composers, including Edmund Campion (Melt me with thy delicious numbers, for viola and live electronics, 2003, recorded on Albany Records), Cindy Cox (Turner, for viola and piano, 2008), Aaron Einbond (Beside Oneself, for viola and live electronics, 2008), John MacCallum (El Arbol de la noche triste, for viola and electronics, 2009), Mei-Fang Lin (Friction, for flute and viola, 2008), Kurt Rohde (Double Trouble, a double viola chamber concerto, 2002 (Recorded on Innova Records), and Double-Franken-Trouble-Stein, for two amplified violas and orchestra, 2011), Pablo Ortiz (The viola in the motorcycle boy's life, for viola and marimba, 2009), Mark Winges (Diverted Vignettes for solo viola, 2012; Night Voiced for viola and piano, 2011; Night Voiced for viola and organ, 2011, all recorded on Ravello Records), Linda Bouchard (4LN, for viola, percussion and electronics, 2008), Fang-Wei Luo (Illusion, in the Deep of the Abyss, for viola and live electronics, 2013), Ursula Kwong Brown (Reflections on Rothko for viola, electronics and video, 2016), and Hi-Kyung Kim (Untamed Brush I for solo viola, 2019).
Rose holds an M.Mus. in viola performance from the Juilliard School, an artist diploma from the Northwest German Music Academy in Detmold, Germany and a B.A. with honors in English and American history and literature from Harvard University. Her viola teachers have included Heidi Castleman, Nobuko Imai, Marcus Thompson, and Karen Tuttle. She is on the instrumental faculty at UC Berkeley and UC Davis and has taught at the University of the Pacific, the Humboldt Chamber Music Workshop and the Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop. Her students have gone on to masters and doctoral programs in viola performance throughout the country, as well as professional orchestras and chamber ensembles, medical school, veterinary school, music history graduate programs and other places where good violists enrich the world.
Workshops: Fall 2019
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Pascal Salomon has been widely acclaimed in Europe, China, Israel, and California more recently. "Real presence...the wonderful Lisztian sonority is long, smooth and without superfluous effects" (from Bien Public-France), 'excellent and talented" (from 24 Heures-Switzerland), "Real presence...the wonderful Lisztian sonority is long, smooth and without superfluous effects" (from City Theater of Sens-France).The major venues in which he performed both as a soloist and as chamber music partner include the Ernest Ansermet Studio at the National Swiss Radio (Geneva, Switzerland), Stravinski Auditorium (Montreux, Switzerland), Toulouse Capitole (France), Chisinau Organ Hall (Republic of Moldova), Iasi Philharmonic Hall (Romania), and Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing, China).
Pascal Salomon has studied at the "Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris" with Gabriel Tacchino. He has taken numerous master classes with the pianists Vera Gornostaeva (professor at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow), György Sebök, Andras Schiff, Paul Badura-Skoda, Murray Perahia and Jeremy Denk. He was granted the virtuosity degree at the "Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Genève" where he studied with Edson Elias and Nelson Goerner. He then taught at the same Geneva Conservatory for 10 years before moving to the USA. Winner of the scholarship for young performers from the Société de Musique d'Yverdon-les-Bains (Switzerland), he also received the prize for best French pianist in the Senigallia International Competition in Italy, as well as the Honor Diploma in the Maria Canals International Competition in Barcelona.
Pascal Salomon is currently an ABD doctoral student at UCSB and he is writing his dissertation on phenomenology applied to music.
For more information: www.pascal-salomon.com
Workshops: Fall 2015, Fall 2017, Fall 2018
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Burke Schuchmann studied in London, England with William Pleeth. He also studied for extended periods with Margaret Rowell and Colin Hampton. He became principal cellist and soloist with the Salzburger Solisten in Austria. He has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the U.S. and Israel. He has also been principal cellist and soloist with the Sacramento Symphony and the Mendocino Festival Orchestra.
Burke is greatly sought after as a chamber music coach of young musicians and adult amateurs. He was for many years the director of the Mendocino Music Festival's Young Musician's Scholarship program. A gifted teacher, Burke has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and also CSU Chico. He currently teaches string technique classes, and directs the Berkeley and Marin chamber music workshops. He is the artistic director of the Palomarin Chamber Music Foundation and has recently inaugurated an all-cello workshop ("Cello Heaven") in Berkeley, California.
Workshops: Spring 2010
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Ruth Siegel graduated with honors in music performance from Cal State Sonoma where she studied violin and chamber music with Anne Crowden. She also studied chamber music with Colin Hampton, and developed a great love for the world of chamber music. Ruth is an active free-lance violinist in the Los Angeles area. She has played with Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Burbank Symphony, Downey Symphony, Opera a la Carte, and is assistant concertmaster in San Fernando Valley Symphony. Ruth has been a coach at the Humboldt Chamber Music Workshop for adults for many years. For her own enjoyment, she frequently gets together with friends for chamber music "dinners".
Workshops: Spring 2016, Spring 2017
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Under the leadership of Adrian Spence, Camerata Pacifica has become one of the most notable chamber music organizations in the country, distinctive not only for its exceptional artistic quality, but also for its dynamic sense of community. Spence carefully selected the group's exceptional international artists over the course of many seasons, and provided the rehearsal and performance environment necessary to form an ensemble unique in style and sensibility. The bond between the artists is clear, as is theirs with the audience. The Los Angeles Times recently highlighted the emphasis of Spence’s work: “What was out of the ordinary was the wildly enthusiastic response that each work received. Whatever it's doing, Camerata Pacifica seems to be cultivating a passionate audience – and that’s good news.”
Spence’s conviction of this music's viability and of the intellectual curiosity of the Camerata Pacifica audience is evident at every performance, where a broad range of programming is presented in a manner both welcoming and provocative. Over the course of 21 seasons Camerata Pacifica has developed a loyal following and now presents resident series in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Marino & Los Angeles.
Spence views classical music as an inviolable record of human emotional history, with distinctions such as period and style less critical to a vital performance than the communication of the expressive intent of the composer. The entire canon is part of that record and the creation of music of our time is essential.
Spence comes from Newtownards in County Down, Northern Ireland. He has three children; Erin, Keiran and Kaeli, is a master-rated skydiver with 700 skydives, and most recently obtained his Advanced Scuba Certification.
Workshops:Spring 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Fall 2014
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John Steinmetz, principal bassoonist with Los Angeles Opera and Los Angeles Master Chorale, plays chamber music with XTET and Camerata Pacifica and teaches at UCLA. His compositions have been released on CDs from Mark Masters, Albany, Helicon, and Crystal. Recently his pieces have been heard in Florida and New Hampshire, in the Bronx and L.A., and in Jerusalem and Amman. John is also a writer (his essays and articles are posted at www.johnsteinmetz.org), an arts educator and innovator, a workshop/retreat facilitator, and the host of the Oregon Bach Festival's annual post-festival roast. He is a regular guest faculty member at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in New Hampshire and has coached at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers Forum of the East at Bennington College.
Workshops:Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2018
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Pianist DELORES STEVENS' recent career engagements have taken her from her Los Angeles base to Argentina, Australia, The Czech Republic, Japan, China, Spain, England and Scandinavia as well as across the U.S. Acclaimed as a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed on the LA Philharmonic/Green Umbrella Series, the Ojai Festival, Monday Evening Concerts, Chamber Music in Historic Sites, The Coleman Chamber Concerts and the Athenaeum Chamber Concerts, among others. She is a six-term former Director/Trustee of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, is the Chamber Music Director for the Young Musicians Foundation and is the Founder/Artistic Director of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society. She has recorded for fifteen labels and recently completed both a DVD 5.1 Surround Sound recording of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet for AIX Records and Maria Newman's Piano Concerto.
Workshops: Fall 2001, Fall 2002, Fall 2005, Fall 2006, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Spring 2014
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A pianist of "unerring, warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious glimmers of power" Robert Thies (pronounced "Theece") is an artist renowned for his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament. He first captured worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the Gold Medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. With this victory, Thies became the only American pianist to win a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn's triumph in Moscow in 1958.
Thies enjoys a diverse career as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He has already performed 40 different concerti with orchestras all over the world, including the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, the Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), the Mexico City Philharmonic, Mexico's National Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Pasadena Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra, the Naples Philharmonic, and the Des Moines Symphony.
A dedicated chamber musician, Thies is highly sought after as a recital partner and collaborator in both instrumental and vocal chamber music. He frequently shares the stage with members of the LA Philharmonic and the LA Chamber Orchestra. He also performs frequently with his unique ensemble, the Thies Consort.
Thies teaches privately and gives frequent masterclasses around the globe.
Workshops: Fall 2013, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019
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Clarinetist, chamber musician and teacher Margaret Thornhill made her New York solo recital debut in 1982 at Merkin Hall and her London debut in 1991 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. For ten years she was the clarinetist and artistic director of the LA-based Matrix Chamber Ensemble, which was on the touring roster of the California Arts Council and received numerous grants and awards. Her spring 2010 engagements include concerts with her piano trio, the Armadillo String Quartet and the "Category Five" Woodwind Quintet.
Ms Thornhill taught clarinet and coached chamber music as a member of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Stanford University and Occidental College and is currently with Concordia University, Irvine and she coaches frequently for the Chamber Musicians of Northern California. She holds a DMA in performance practice from Stanford University. For more information visit:
http://www.margaretthornhill.com
Workshops: Spring, 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2017
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She attended Carnegie Mellon University for graduate school with a full scholarship to study with Andres Cardenes, concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony. During this time period, she participated in the Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra Winter Festival in Israel and was co-concertmaster of the orchestra. After obtaining her Master's Degree in Violin Performance, she spent the summer on faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. In the fall of that year, she began teaching at Biola University Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles where she taught violin, viola, music history, strings literature/repertoire, strings pedagogy, and was head of chamber music studies. During her 7 years at Biola she led a group of students on a chamber music concert tour of mainland China, and soloed with the Biola Symphony Orchestra on a concert tour of Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
In 2005, upon the birth of her first son, Ms. Woodruff left Biola and focused on both performing and teaching privately in the Santa Barbara community. She has played with the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and served as assistant concertmaster of Santa Barbara Opera Orchestra. In 2008, she founded Santa Barbara Strings, a multi-tiered string orchestra program for young musicians from age 4-18 serving children from 26 different schools in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. They expanded to now include 11 string trios, quartets, and piano trios. As a violinist, she has also played in and/or served on the faculty at the following summer festivals: Interlochen Center for the Arts, Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill, Maine, the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, Songfest International, and the Zell a.d. Pram Summer Chamber Music Program in Austria. Her principal teachers have included Ronald Copes, James Buswell, Andres Cardenes, and John Harbison (chamber music and composition). Currently, she is Conductor and Artistic Director of Santa Barbara Strings, serves on the MIT Educational Council, is the Santa Barbara Representative for the Royal Conservatory of Music Development Program and has a violin/viola studio of 30 students. She is in demand as both as a chamber music coach, adjudicator, and masterclass clinician. She is an avid chamber musician and considers herself very fortunate to have shaped and coached many chamber ensembles of all ages. She lives in Solvang with her husband, Matthew, and their three young children Aidan, Henry, and Claire.
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Thomas Yee, violinist from Santa Barbara, California, is hailed as a dynamic and versatile professional musician equally comfortable in solo, chamber, recording, and orchestra mediums. Highlights this season will include summer performances in Mt. Shasta and Pennsylvania with Tango Del Cielo, a unique ensemble that involves violin/cello/harp/percussion coupled with Dance. In the fall, Thomas will collaborate with Jose Rodriguez as Duo Revirado in solo performances at the Gallo Center for the Arts through the Modesto Community Concert Association, as well as a tour in Mexico. The previous season concluded with Thomas taking part as a string quartet member in San Francisco Symphony's acclaimed Adventures in Music, visiting nearly every k-6 school where he presented a special program designed to inspire thousands of San Francisco public elementary school children to connect with music. He also performed as a jazz violin soloist with the Santa Rosa Symphony under the direction of Michael Berkowitz in the tune "Have You Got Any Castles." Thomas performs as Associate Concertmaster of the Monterey, and as a rotating principal with the Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and Napa Valley Symphonies, as well as performing with Marin, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and many other Bay Area Orchestras.
In addition to his performing career, Thomas Yee is an experienced and dedicated violin teacher teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area at Jou Music Institute in Cupertino and at home in Daly City, CA.He graduated with both a Bachelor's of Music degree and a Master's of Music degree in Violin Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on full scholarship on the patronage of the Conservatory and Santa Barbara Foundations. There, he served as a concertmaster with the conservatory orchestra and has participated in Masterclasses with Robert Mann and Sylvia Rosenberg, among others. At the Conservatory, his mentors included Alexander Barantschik, concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony, Axel Strauss, and Camilla Wicks. Other mentors include Catherine Van Hoesen and Nina Bodnar.As a frequent performer, Thomas has soloed with the Santa Rosa Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, San Luis Obispo Symphony, Santa Barbara Youth Symphony, and Music and Arts Conservatory. He also has been a winner of several Santa Barbara area scholarships and competitions, which include the Alice Nelson Music Competition, Dellar Performing Arts Scholarship Competition, SB Foundation Scholarship, SB Music Club, Profant Foundation, and Leni FeBland Scholarship. Artists worked with have included faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Symphony, Professional Freelance Musicians, and Friends distinguishing themselves in their musical careers. Thomas has collaborated with Axel Strauss, Jose Rodriguez, Timothy Bach, Benjamin Simon, Stefan Hersh, Roger Chase, among others. His performances in chamber music and solo recitals have spanned over the United States and abroad in Europe.
Thomas's other interests include playing chamber music, concert-going of all sorts, travelling, team sports, and keeping a busy lifestyle. He has a positive enthusiasm for all of the work he does, and enjoys very much collaborating on special projects with others. His passion is performing and teaching future generations of musicians.
Workshops: Spring 2012
For more informaiton visit Mr. Yee's website at http://www.thomasyee.net.
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Joshua Zajac began playing the cello with his school teacher Lisa Rose in Downers Grove Illinois. His other teachers include Ingrid Krizan, and Richard Hirschl. Joshua spent five years at the Cleveland Institute of Music, obtaining his bachelor's and master's degrees under the tutelage of Stephen Geber. Following music school, Joshua sat principal chair for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago for two years. The following year, he was a soloist with the orchestra in Strauss' Don Quixote under the baton of Carlos Miguel Prieto. His highlight experiences with the Civic Orchestra include working closely under Yo-Yo Ma toward the score study of Beethoven, Bach, and Strauss, and using their analyzed music to illustrate the power of how music brings communities together.
Joshua has attended numerous festivals for orchestra, chamber, and solo experience. These festivals include Festival Hill at Roundtop, Kent-Blossom Music, and two years at Tanglewood. In Chicago, he was a frequent guest with the Chicago Symphony's modern music series called, "MusicNow," and participated in many concerts featuring music of the latest century. Zajac was also a studio musician for the Matt Jones Orchestra and the Chicago Recording Company under Cliff Colnot.
Joshua moved to Santa Barbara in July 2019, and has since rebooted his career as a freelancing musician. Has begun to build a teaching studio, and performs frequently as a soloist for the community.
Workshops: Fall 2019, Spring 2020
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Anne Diener Zentner recently retired as Principal Flute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a position to which she was appointed in 1971, immediately after she finished her Master's Degree at the Julliard School, where she studied with Julius Baker. While still a student she served as solo flutist with the Julliard New Music Ensemble at Lincoln Center under Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio and Dennis Russell Davies.
In Los Angeles she served under Music Directors Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Andre Previn and Esa-Pekka Salonen. She has also played under nearly every major conductor of our time, including Leronard Bernstein, Erich Leinsdorf, James Levine, Eugene Ormandy, Seiji Ozawa and Simon Rattle. Her solo performances with the LA Phil have included the Bach B-minor Suite with Levine, the Cimarosa Concerto for Two Flutes and Orchestra with Jean-Pierre Rampal, and the Mozart Flute Concerto in D with Previn.
Anne appeared often as a member of the Philharmonic New Music Group and the Chamber Music Society. She has also served on the faculties of both USC and Rice University.
Workshops: Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011
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