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| Matthew
Cannon, Marimba |
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Matthew Cannon's origins are in the Deep South. Seven years ago he tore up his Southern roots for the glory of the San Francisco Conservatory where he trained in the subtle art of the mallet under the instruction of Mr. Jack van Geem. It was during his tenure at the Conservatory that he met Ms. Alrich and the two discussed plans for collaborating on a marimba concerto. Mr. Cannon is honored to be performing this movement of the work tonight with the SFCCO. Matthew may be seen performing around San Francisco as a marimbist and keyboardist with the award winning cabaret ensemble, Cotton Candy.
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Micah
Epps, Bass Baritone |
Micah
Epps, a native of Houston, Texas earned his Bachelor of Music Degree at
the University of Arizona. His experience ranges from opera to classical
and sacred choral music. He has performed as soloist in the San Mateo Masterworks
Chorale (European Tour), San Francisco Symphony Chorus; and was Mozart Requiem
bass soloist in Hermosillo, Mexico. Mr. Epps has performed roles in Berkeley
Opera productions of Pénélope and The Magic Flute. His
recent operatic roles include U.S. premieres with local composers David
Conte in Firebird Motel (Recorded on the Arsis label) and Erling Wold in
Sub Pontio Pilato. He has created the roles of Baldassare Castigilione
in Leonardo's Notebooks, and Eumolpus in Satyricon, operas
by Lisa Scola Prosek. Micah also has performed in the casts of Ariadne and
Chrysalis, works written by Clark Suprynowicz and Creon in Mark Alburger's
Antigone.
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Enzo
Garcia,
Banjo |
| Enzo
Garcia plays guitar, banjo, accordion, musical saw, jaw harp, and percussion.
He has been performing and recording professionally for over ten years,
the last seven of which he has spent in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has
recorded with Grammy nominees Darol Anger and Mike Marshall as well as Anti-Records’
recording artist Jolie Holland. Enzo has recorded eleven full length CDs,
nine of which are for families. Eight of the eleven CDs were made in a span
of less than two years for "LMNO Music", a school of movement and music
for infants, toddlers, parents and caregivers which Enzo founded in San
Francisco in 2005. His "LMNO Pink CD" was a top twenty pick for children's
CDs of 2006 on NPR's, "All Things Considered" and his "LMNO Green" CD is
a "Parenting Magazine, Parenting Pick." He is in his fifth year of professionally
teaching music and movement to children. You may see him perform for families
on Saturdays from 10a.m. ‘til noon at a weekly concert in The Bernal Heights
Neighborhood Center (515 Cortland near Andover.) It’s called, “Breakfast
with Enzo”. |
Maria
Mikheyenko, Soprano |
Maria
Mikheyenko, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, has sung with the Russian
Chamber Orchestra of Marin, was a guest artist at the San Francisco Russian
Festival, and has performed recitals of Russian Romances around the Bay
Area. In the world of opera, Ms. Mikheyenko has sung with Bay Shore Lyric
Opera, Berkeley Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, Pocket Opera, Bay Area Summer
Opera Theater Institute, the Rome Festival, and the Austrian American Mozart
Academy in Salzburg. She received her BM from the University of Michigan
School of Music, and her MM from the San Francisco Conservatory. Ms. Mikheyenko
will be singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with CapitolOpera Sacramento
April 25-27 at the Veterans Memorial Theater in Davis, and the role of Onesta
Donati in the Lisa Scola Prosek's opera Belfagor, which will premiere at
Goat Hall in San Francisco May 30-June 3. For details, please visit www.MariaMikheyenko.com
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Eliza
O'Malley, Soprano |
Eliza
O'Malley most recently appeared as Emma in a workshop production of Khovanshchina
conducted by Kent Nagano. She has also sung roles with Oakland Opera Theater,
Berkeley Opera, Goat Hall Productions, Solo Opera, BASOTI, Capitol Opera
Sacramento, Labor Fest and for the past five years in the annual Harvest
of Song new music concerts produced by Allen Shearer and Peter Josheff.
This spring she will perform in Dido and Aeneas with the Santa
Cruz Chamber Orchestra. Eliza received training at AIMS in Graz, Aspen,
the Wesley Balk Institute, BASOTI and Oberlin College. She earned a M.M.
in Voice Performance at TTU School of Music.
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Aurelio
Viscarra, Tenor |
Aurelio
Viscarra has been an active performer in the San Francisco bay area for
over 20 years. Aurelio has appeared in Goat Hall's Fresh Voices programs
since its inception and was featured in last year's performances of Leonardo's
Notebooks and Joan of Arc: Fear of the Fire . He has also
sung in other Goat Hall productions including Amahl and the Night Visitors,
Mahagonny Songspiel, and The Fantasticks. Aurelio has
also appeared in productions with Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, Berkeley
Opera, Eugene Opera, Not Quite Opera (SF), George Coates Performance Works,
and LA Opera Theater. c concerts produced by Allen Shearer and Peter Josheff.
This spring she will perform in Dido and Aeneas with the Santa Cruz Chamber
Orchestra. Eliza received training at AIMS in Graz, Aspen, the Wesley Balk
Institute, BASOTI and Oberlin College. She earned a M.M. in Voice Performance
at TTU School of Music.
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Alexis
Alrich |
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Alexis Alrich’s piece
Island of the Blue Dolphins was performed by the Santa Barbara
Symphony on January 19, 2007. She has been chosen again to attend an artists’
colony in 2007, I-Park in Connecticut, where she will write Fragile
Forests II: Cambodia, next in the series after Fragile Forests
I: California Oaks, which was premiered by SFCCO in December of 2006.
As one of the winners of a Continental Harmony grant from the American
Composers Forum she has written a piece for chorus, orchestra and soloists
for the state of Maine. Avenues, her first orchestra piece, was premiered
by the Women's Philharmonic and has been played around the country. Her
chamber compositions have been performed by members of the San Francisco
ballet, opera and symphony orchestras and ensembles including Bay Brass,
City Winds, the Ahlert and Schwab guitar and mandolin duo in Germany,
the Ariel Ensemble, New Release Alliance and Earplay in San Francisco.
Ms. Alrich is one of the hosts of a weekly radio show on KUSF in San Francisco,
“Classical Salon” with little-heard music from 1800 to the present.
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| Christopher
Carrasco |
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Christopher Carrasco is a burgeoning young composer, hailing from the San Francisco bay area. He is becoming fairly well known throughout the Contra Costa and Solano Counties and has been commissioned by several schools in that area to write works for band and percussion ensembles, many of which have received awards. An expert in the fields of brass and percussion, Christopher toured for two years with the world champion Concord Blue Devils. A combination of this strong wind band and percussion background along with a passion for minimalist music gives his music its unique sound that can be described as Drum Corps meets Philip Glass.
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| Loren
Jones |
Loren Jones is a native of San Francisco. He studied with Tom Constantine, Alexis Alrich and is currently working with David Conte at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His music has been performed by students and teachers from around the Bay Area. He has performed professionally, produced recordings of his own music, and has recorded for radio and film, including a sound track for an animated short which won a special Academy Award.
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| Lisa
Scola Prosek |
Lisa Scola Prosek was raised in Rome, Italy, and began studying piano at the age of 4. Her mother, Elena Scola, is an accomplished painter and entertained many of the great artists living in Rome at the time. Moving to the United States at the age of 11, 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.
To date Lisa has composed 4 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, which premiered to capacity audiences in May 2006, and was featured on KQED’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 it’s shadowy inner voices, has character and point. Intricate and highly expressive music.” Sequenza 21.
Lisa Scola Prosek is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including for her latest work for choir and orchestra, Libera Me, which premiered in June 2006, with the Schola Cantorum Choir, and the SFCCO Orchestra.
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| Dr.
Erling Wold |
Dr. Erling Wold is a prolific composer based in San Francisco specializing in large-scale works. He recently completed a Mass after Blessed Notker the Stammerer for the Dom Cathedral in St Gallen, Switzerland. He is currently writing a solo and highly technological work for John Duykers and a fantasy autobiographical opera with James Bisso. The last few years have seen a number of performances of orchestral works, the premiere of his dance theater work Blinde Liebe in Nürnberg, Amsterdam and in San Francisco, and the premiere in the US and Austria of his opera Sub Pontio Pilato, an abstract historical fantasy on the death and remembrance of Pontius Pilate. He was artist in residence at ODC theater in San Francisco, where he presented a trilogy of chamber operas, including one based on William Burroughs' early autobiographical novel Queer, with the support of the Burroughs estate. His critically acclaimed work A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil, based on the Max Ernst collage novel, has had a number of independent productions in the US and Europe, including one by the Paul Dresher Ensemble and one by the city of Brühl, Max Ernst’s birthplace.
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| Katrina
Wreede |
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Katrina Wreede has been a professional symphony musician, a jazz violist, a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, a concert soloist, a belly dancer, a police fingerprinter, a non-denominational wedding officiant, a player of Tango Nuevo, Persian, Central European and Roma (gypsy) music and a composer for soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestras, film, and dance, sometimes collaborating with other artists to create works about social injustice. Her works are distributed by MMB Music and performed internationally, including “Mr. Twitty’s Chair”, now in it’s 10th touring season with the David Parsons Dance Group.
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