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SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA |
SOLOISTS |
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Sqwonk
grew out of a joint concert that Jeff Anderle and Jon Russell did together
in the spring of 2005. The concert featured mostly solo bass clarinet
works, and a few bass clarinet duos as well. We enjoyed playing together
so much, that we decided to make the duo into a regular group and called
ourselves Sqwonk. Since then, we have performed at a wide variety of
venues in the San Francisco Bay Area, from clubs to churches to concert
halls, including the Revolution Café, the National Shrine of St. Francis
of Assisi, Old First Church, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
In the fall of 2006, we received a grant from San Francisco Conservatory
to help fund our first CD, which features new works composed for us
by Ian Dicke, Damon Waitkus, and Jon Russell, as well as our arrangement
of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor. For more information,
visit us at http://www.sqwonk.org.
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| Maria
Mikheyenko, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, is actively involved in
bringing Russian repertoire to audiences of all backgrounds. Ms. Mikheyenko’s
opera roles include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Lucy in The
Telephone (Bay Area Summer Opera Theatre Institute), Ida in Die
Fledermaus (Bay Shore Lyric Opera), La Poésie in Les Arts Florissants
(Opera Lafayette), Drusilla in L’incoronazione di Poppea (BASOTI),
Second Woman and First Witch in Dido & Aeneas, Second Lady in
Die Zauberflöte, (which marked Ms.Mikheyenko’s European debut),
Second Tourière in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, (Berkeley Opera),
and Saffi in Johann Strauss’operetta, Der Zigeunerbaron (The
Gypsy Baron), with the Austrian American Mozart Academy in Salzburg. In
the world of contemporary opera, she has portrayed a wide range of fascinating
characters. In Tom Dean’s White Darkness, with Oakland Opera
Theater, Ms. Mikheyenko sang the role of Mary Ann White (wife of Dan White
who in 1978 murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor
Harvey Milk). She has also had the opportunity to premiere three roles
written for her, in two operas by Bay Area composer Lisa Scola Prosek:
Salai (Leonardo da Vinci’s lifelong servant and pupil) in Leonardo’s
Notebooks, and Lucifer and Onesta Donati (a wealthy Florentine socialite)
in Machiavelli’s Belfagor. Ms. Mikheyenko has been a guest artist
with the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the Fortnightly Music
Club of Palo Alto, and on the national radio show West Coast Live with
host Sedge Thomson. For more information, please visit www.MariaMikheyenko.com
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Harriet March Page has pursued a life-long obsession with the arts: as actor, singer, writer, director, producer. Reeling off the decades, the 1970's was grand opera in and about San Francisco Bay Area; 1980's acting in plays and musicals with the Los Altos Conservatory Theatre; 1990's, writing and performing autobiographical monologues in San Francisco and producing monthly Sunday-Salons; and the 2000's, directing and producing as Artistic Director for Goat Hall Productions San Francisco Cabaret Opera on Potrero Hill, whose mission is presenting contemporary opera in English and premiering new opera theater by Bay Area composers in a cabaret setting. March Page is very happy to be a part of SFCCO, singing an orchestrated version of four songs from “The Wind God” part of a larger autobiographical work written by her with music composed by Mark Alburger which they like to call “Harriet's Verdian Ring”. |
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| Clifton
Romig is a former member of Opera San Jose's resident artist program and
a regular with the San Francisco Opera working as an extra chorister and
most recently, as a soloist in Verdi's Macbeth. He performs regularly
with Bay Area opera companies such as Berkeley Opera, West Bay Opera,
Pocket Opera, North Bay Opera and Festival Opera. His most recent collaboration
with Lisa Scola Prosek was the premier of her opera Belfagor
at the Thick House in San Francisco this past June. This April he will
join Opera San Jose for their production of Mozart's Magic Flute,
singing the role of “The Speaker” and in June he will again join Lisa
Scola Prosek for her new opera, Trap Door. He performs regularly with
Savoy Express, a nationally touring Gilbert and Sullivan revue and recently
joined the cast of Oh, Mr Sousa!, a tribute to the life and music
of “The March King”, John Phillip Sousa. Mr. Romig received his Masters
in Music from Indiana University and is a former member of the Santa Fe
Opera apprentice program. |
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COMPOSERS |
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Dr. Mark Alburger is an eclectic, aware-winning, ASCAP, American composer of postminimal, postpopular and postcomedic sensibilities. He is Music Director of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Cabaret Opera/ Goat Hall Productions, Editor-Publisher of 21st Century Music Journal (21stcenturymusic.com), Instructor in Music Theory and History at Diablo Valley College, oboist, pianist, vocalist, recording artist, musicologist, author and music critic. Dr. Alburger began playing the oboe and composing with Dorothy and James Freeman, George Crumb, and Richard Wernick. He studied with Karl Kohn at Pomona College, Joan Panetti and Gerald Levinson at Swathmore College (B.A.), Jules Langert at Dominican College (M.A.), Roland Jackson at Claremont Graduate School (Ph.D.), and Terry Riley. Alburger's music, recorded on 1 Kill Me Music, New Music, and North/South Consanance, is on regular rotation at kvdc.org and myspace.com/markalburger.
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| Michael Cooke | ||
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The multi-instrumentalist Michael Cooke is a composer of jazz and classical music. This two-time Emmy and Louis Armstrong Jazz Award winner plays a variety of instruments: you can hear him on soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, flute, soprano and bass clarinets, bassoon and percussion. A cum laude graduate with a music degree from the University of North Texas, he had many different areas of study; jazz, ethnomusicology, music history, theory and of course composition. In 1991 Michael began his professional orchestral career performing in many north Texas area symphonies. Michael has played in Europe, Mexico, and all over the United States. Cimarron Music Press began published many of Michael’s compositions in 1994. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been exploring new paths in improvised and composed music, mixing a variety of styles and techniques that draw upon the creative energy of a multicultural experience, both in and out of America. In 1999, Michael started a jazz label called Black Hat Records (blackhatrecords.com) and is currently on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. The San Francisco Beacon describes Michael's music as “flowing out color and tone with a feeling I haven’t heard in quite a while. Michael plays with such dimension and flavor that it sets (his) sound apart from the rest.” Uncompromising, fiery, complex, passionate, and cathartic is how the All Music Guide labeled Michael’s playing on Searching by Cooke Quartet, Statements by Michael Cooke and The Is by CKW Trio. His latest release, An Indefinite Suspension of The Possible, is an unusual mixture of woodwinds, trombone, cello, koto and percussion, creating a distinct synergy in improvised music that has previously been untapped.
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| Philip Freihofner | ||
Phil Freihofner began playing the oboe in the SF Unified School District in 7th grade, but dropped it as a hopeless cause after his senior year at Lowell High School, due to chronic neck problems. In the following years, his musical work included sound design and composition for dance and theater, gaining a reputation for solid research and a high level of integration. Collaborators included UC Berkeley directors George House, Lorne Buchmann, and choreographer Cheryl Koehler of Zig Zag Theater. In the 1990's, he resumed playing oboe and started arranging composing for the instrument. Most notable is “The Golem” , a silent film score for the 1920 German silent horror film of the same name, excerpts of which have been recently recorded and are due to be released by the double reed ensemble “Wizards”. His “Quartet for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon” was performed in Oct. 2007 at a UC Santa Cruz Music Faculty concert. The first section of tonight's “Carmilla” makes substantive use of music selected for a June 2006 reading by the new music ensemble Earplay.
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| Erik Jekabson | ||
Erik Jekabson is a trumpet player and composer whose music draws from many different sources, but remains firmly rooted in the “third-stream” explorative west coast tradition. A Berkeley, California native, his music has been shaped by his time spent studying at the Oberlin Conservatory, playing professionally in New Orleans (1994-98) and New York (1998-2003), and by his recent completion of graduate studies in classical composition at the San Francisco Conservatory in 2006. Erik has toured with John Mayer, Illinois Jacquet, the Woody Herman Big Band and the jam-band Galactic, and has composed for film and dance projects. His solo album “Intersection” was released in the fall of 2003 by the Fresh Sound/New Talent label. To visit Erik on the web, go to www.erikjekabson.com
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| Lisa Scola Prosek | ||
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Lisa Scola Prosek
(Composer. Librettist, Pianist) has composed two oratorios, and 4 operas,
in Italian and English, including the “Tour de Force” SATYRICON,
and Machiavelli’s Belfagor, in Italian, which premiered at Thick House
to capacity audiences in June 2007. “This composer’s work is steeped
in the Mediterranean world of gestures, writ both big and small. Her
vocal writing, with it’s shadowy inner voices, has character and point.
Intricate and highly expressive music…” Sequenza 21. Raised in
Rome, Italy, Lisa began studying piano at age 4. Lisa 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 developed a great love for the voice, and 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. Watch for Lisa’s next opera. “Trap
Door”, commissioned by The Lab, premiering in June of 2008. |
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| Jonathan Russell | ||
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Jonathan Russell writes music for a wide variety of ensembles, from orchestra to chorus to rock band. His works have been performed by numerous ensembles, including the San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Empyrean Ensemble, the new music bands FIREWORKS and Capital M, and pianists Sarah Cahill and Lisa Moore. Important influences on his work include Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Charles Mingus, Steve Reich, Guns N' Roses, Radiohead, Cornelius Boots, Ryan Brown, Ben Gribble, klezmer music, and free improvisation. Also active as a performer on clarinet, bass clarinet, and alto saxophone, Jonathan is a member of the heavy-metal inspired Edmund Welles bass clarinet quartet and the Balkan/Klezmer/Experimental band Zoyres. He also plays in, composes for, and is a founding member of the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, and freelances in the Bay Area as a classical and klezmer clarinetist. Jonathan teaches Theory and Musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, serves as Music Director at First Congregational Church, San Francisco, and is a critic for the San Francisco Classical Voice. He has a BA in Music from Harvard University and an MM in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His composition teachers have included Dan Becker, Elinor Armer, Eric Sawyer, John Stewart, and Eric Ewazen. To learn and hear more, visit Jonathan online at www.jonrussellmusic.com. |
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