Gary Friedman was born in 1934 and raised in University Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Gary Friedman received his higher education at Antioch College, The University of Chicago (B.S. and M.D. degrees), and Harvard University (M.S. degree). His main career has been as a physician-epidemiologist. He worked in the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research for 30 years including 7 years as its Director. Since retiring from Kaiser Permanente in 1999, his current position is Consulting Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Friedman's musical education started with piano at age 5. He also played trumpet in junior high and high school and studied organ and music theory during teen age. Playing and improvising on the piano only occasionally during adulthood, he returned to music seriously at age 54, studying oboe and English horn with Janet Popesco Archibald. He currently plays these instruments in the San Francisco Civic Symphony, the College of Marin Symphony, the Bohemian Club Band and chamber groups. Starting at age 64, he studied composition for four years with Alexis Alrich in the Adult Extension Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His musical compositions, mostly chamber works, are described in his music web site www.garyfriedmanmusic.net.

Davide Verotta was born in a boring mid-sized Italian town close to Milano (Gallarate, one can Google-earth it), and moved to the much larger and very much more exciting San Francisco in his late twenties. He studied piano, and music, in Milano with Isabella Zielonka, Ernesto Esposito, and Giacinto Salvetti, and in San Francisco with Renee Witon, Peggy Salkind, Robert Helps, and Julian White. Composition is a more recent endeavor (with graduate studies at SFSU and UC Davis with Richard Festinger, Josh Levine, Kurt Rohde, and Laurie St. Martin), but it is little by little coming to dominate as his main musical interest. As a pianist he teaches, in his home and at the Community Music Center in San Francisco, and performs regularly in the Bay Area as a soloist, with multiple appearances at the Trinity Chamber, St. Timothy, Piedmont Piano, Chapel of the Chimes, and Lakeshore Presbyterian concert series. As a composer/pianist he studies the craft, performs his and others works (in particular, for the last three years, as a pianist with the San Francisco Composers' Chamber Orchestra), and writes for solo instruments, chamber, orchestra, and voice. Davide's interest in music is intertwined with a lifelong academic occupation in mathematical modeling of biological systems. Although this might generate the familiar reaction (Ah! Musicians and Math!), he admits that the relationship of music and mathematics still eludes him. Acoustic phenomena can of course be described, up to a certain point, using mathematics, but when it comes to music (how we organize those sounds) the suspicion is that ‘math' can be as poor a descriptive tool as it is for literature, painting, or other art forms … this is just to say that, unfortunately, there is little connection between his two careers: those two main occupations do not talk too much to each other! More generally, Davide looks at music as a way to explore his self and his relationships with others, and to reflect on reality. It is a highly metaphorical way, which gives only hints, intuitions, and often, especially if one is honest, some surprising and disconcerting insights. It is a vague, mysterious, and sometimes confusing endeavor: a mirror of our life that might bring some light on it, or cast more shadows.

Lisa Scola Prosek, Composer, Librettist, Soprano, Pianist “ A gifted local composer” The San Francisco Bay Guardian, 2008 was raised in Rome, Italy, and graduated from Princeton University, where she studied with Edward Cone and Milton Babbitt, and privately with Lukas Foss in New York. During this time, Lisa studied singing with Margherita Kalil of the Met. After Princeton, Lisa returned to Italy, where she attended the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, and studied with composer Gaetano Giani-Luporini. To date, Scola Prosek has composed two oratorios, and 5 operas, in Italian and English, including Satyricon, reviewed by the San Francisco Observer as a “Tour de Force” and featured on KRON TV; and Leonardo's Notebooks, in Italian, both of which premiered to capacity audiences, and were featured on NPR's West Coast Live.. The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly writes:” This composer's work is steeped in the Mediterranean world of gestures, writ both big and small. Her vocal writing references bel canto and the madrigal, and the instrumental writing, with its shadowy inner voices, has character and point. Intricate and highly expressive music.” Sequenza 21. Lisa Scola Prosek is the recipient of numerous commissions, grants and awards, including from the Argosy Foundation, for Belfagor, and from the LEF Foundation, Meet The Composer, The Hewlett Foundation, the Argosy Contemporary Music Fund, and the American Composers Forum for her opera Trap Door. Look for Lisa's new opera, Identity Theft, in 2010. Visit Lisa and her work on the web at lisascolaprosek.com, where video excerpts from Belfagor and Trap Door are posted.

Sheli Nan, composer, harpsichordist, pianist, teacher and author, is published by PRB Productions of Albany California and Screaming Mary Music of El Cerrito, California. She is the author of 2 books, "The Essential Piano Teacher's Guide"and "Bach the Teacher ­ a Practical Approach to Teaching Bach from the Beginning", co-authored with the late Laurette Goldberg. Sheli's latest large scale works include "SAGA ­ Portrait of a 21st Century Child", the opera for our time. SAGA is social commentary through a musical lens. Her new Symphony, "Signatures in Time and Place", will be performed under the baton of Martha Stoddard, by the San Francisco Composer's Orchestra this fall. "Absinthe avec mes amis", Sheli's new sonata for harpsichord and violin, will be preformed this holiday season along with the Brandenburg concertos, by the Ariel quartet and Bill Barbini. Sheli is a member of ASCAP and the consistent recipient of the Standard Awards panel for compositions and performance for the last 20 years. She is a member of the American Composers Forum and the New York Composers Circle. She is also a member of Early Music America, Music Sources in Berkeley, Ca., The San Francisco Early Music Society and she is program coordinator for WEKA; The Western Early Keyboard Association. Her many published articles on different aspects of the musical experience as well as information about Sheli and her books, cds and scores is available on www.shelinan.com

Clare Twohy is an active performer and composer in the Bay Area and an alumna of The Crowden School and a former violin student of Anne Crowden,. She holds a B.M. in violin performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied violin with Camilla Wicks and composition with Elinor Armer. Clare is a long-standing member of the SFCCO, which performed her latest composition last November. Clare has attended summer festivals including the Music Academy of the West, Roundtop, and Bowdoin festivals. Currently, she has a private composition studio and is on the Musicianship faculty in the Preparatory division at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Martha Stoddard earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Humboldt State University and her Master of Music degree from San Francisco State University, where she studied flute, conducting and composition. She is a 2009 recipient of an ASCAPPLUS Award for her work as a composer. Her compositions have been performed for the San Francisco Chapter of the American Composer's Forum, by Avenue Winds, by Carla Rees at the San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival and in London, UK, by the San Francisco Choral Artists, San Francisco Composers' Chamber Orchestra, schwungvoll!, the Community Women's Orchestra, Womensing, on the New Directions Series of the Bakersfield Symphony, in the Trinity Chamber Concert Series and the New Music Forum Festival of Contemporary Music. Ms. Stoddard is the Artistic Director of the Oakland Civic Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Composers' Chamber Orchestra. In 2008 she received a commission from the Community Women's Orchestra (SF Bay Area) for a new work for the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the orchestra. In 2008 she also received a commission for a chamber work for her professional chamber ensemble, which was premiered in the 2009 San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival by her resident ensemble, ChamberMix. As a conductor and flutist Ms. Stoddard is a tireless advocate for new music, supporting the creative work of both emerging and established contemporary composers. She is a featured performer on alto flute on Capstone Records CPS 8787 in John Bilotta's Shadow Tree and in John Thow's Cantico (on Palatino label #1001) Marika Kuzma, conductor, as conductor on Janis Mercer's Voices (Centaur Records CEN 295). ChamberMix is featured on Beauport Classical 2008, New Music for Concert.