Charya Burt

Alexis Alrich

Alexis Alrich is presently living in Hong Kong but visits the Bay Area frequently. Her Marimba Concerto, which was presented by the SFCCO, will be played by the Plymouth Symphony in Plymouth, Michigan in 2009 with conductor Nan Washburn. Her piece Island of the Blue Dolphins was performed by the Santa Barbara Symphony on January 19, 2007. She attended an artists’ colony in 2007, I-Park in Connecticut, where she wrote Fragile Forests II: Cambodia, next in the series after Fragile Forests I: California Oaks, which was premiered in December 2006 by the San Francisco Composers Orchestra. 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 the director of the John Adams Young Composers program in Berkeley, California. This is an intensive training program for composers ages 9-18 in honor of and under the aegis of John Adams.

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.

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.

Dan Reiter is the Principal cellist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Fremont Symphony and the Festival Opera orchestra. In 2007, the contemporary music ensemble "earplay" performed his trio for clarinet, viola and cello. At the Oakland symphonys Sound Spectrum series Dan recieved critical acclaim for his Pyramids, Canon and Raga, for 3 cellos and middle eastern drum. In 1997 he earned an "Izzy" award for his dance piece, Raga Bach D minor, for cello percussion and solo dancer Robert Moses. As arranger and performer, he has worked with Indias master musician,Ustad Ali Akbar Khan , on 2 recordind projects and the "Maihar" orchestra. In collaboration with his wife, harpist Natalie Cox, they have toured the U.S. performing his many transcriptions and compositions including a cello and harp sonata, a trio for flute, cello and harp, and a sonata for flute and harp.

Lisa Scola Prosek (Composer) was raised in Rome, Italy, and began studying piano at the age of 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. Lisa 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; Machiavelli's Belfagor, in Italian, which premiered at Thick House to capacity audiences in June 2007, 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 Meet the Composer, Argosy Foundation, and the LEF Foundation for Trap Door, a new opera commissioned by The Lab, premiering in June of 2008.

Martha Stoddard, whose mainstay is now conducting, is primarily a composer of choral and instrumental chamber music. This is her third orchestral composition. Her works have been programmed in venues throughout the Bay Area and beyond. She is the Artistic Director of the Oakland Civic Orchestra, where she regularly works with living composers to present new works. Other conducting credits include the 2007 premiere of Lisa Proseks’ opera, Belfagor, in San Francisco, Santa Rosa Symphony Summer Academy Orchestra, the San Francisco All-City High School Festival Orchestra, Schwungvoll! New Music Ensemble, Community Women’s Orchestra, El Camino Youth Symphony Flute Ensembles, Palo Alto Symphony, UCSF Orchestra (now Symphony Parnassus), Humboldt Symphony, Oakland Symphony Chorus and the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus. In the summer of 2007 Ms Stoddard participated in the Rose City Chamber Orchestra Conducting Workshop as an Emerging Artist. She also performs on flute with “Chambermix”.

Erling Wold is a San Francisco based composer specializing in large-scale works. His Mass after Blessed Notker the Stammerer has its premiere next month at the Dom Cathedral in St Gallen, Switzerland. Also premiering this spring is a new opera written for John Duykers and soon a fantasy autobiographical sex comedy with libretto by linguist 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.”.