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HSC Concert Series Past Programs
The Berkeley Hillside Club Concert Series has been proud to host some of the finest
artists performing today. Scroll down this page to view some of the past programs in our series.

The Randy Vincent Quartet
Friday July 18th at 8:00 PM
Admission $15 ($10 for HSC members and Seniors)
The Berkeley Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley 94709
Info: (510) 845-1350
The Berkeley Hillside Club is delighted to present the
Randy Vincent Quartet in a concert of original jazz
and jazz standards. Don't miss this rare performance by these
noted artists in our acoustically warm and welcoming hall!
The Ensemble:
The Randy Vincent Quartet was formed in 2005 when Bay
Area veteran guitarist Randy Vincent and bassist Chris Amberger
collaborated with two up-and- coming talents in the area, drummer
Alex Aspinall and vibraphonist Tyler Blanton. Tyler and Alex,
both Sonoma State University Alumni, had the opportunity to
work with and learn from Randy in the classroom, as well as on
the bandstand. Randy, one of the founding faculty members of
Sonoma State's jazz program, has a long standing reputation
for mentoring young musical talents. The group plays mostly
original music composed by Tyler and Randy, as well as a handful
of jazz standards which have been arranged to suit the group's
instrumentation. They have frequently performed throughout the
Bay Area since 2005 including The Benbo jazz festival and The
Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco, to name a few. The
groups first full length album, "Nisha's Dream" was released in
2007 on the Triangular music label.
The Artists:
Randy Vincent began his career in Florida and moved to
the San Francisco Area in 1980. Since then, he has divided his
time between performing and teaching. Among the many musicians
with whom he has performed and recorded are: Joe Henderson,
Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hutcherson, Leny Andrade, Stephanie
Ozer, Mel Martin, Benny Barth, Mel Graves, Bennett Friedman,
Larry Baskett, Peter Welker, Chris Amberger, George Marsh,
Smith Dobson, Bill Watrous, George Cables, Tony Dumas, Akira
Tana, Billy Childs, Bob Sheppard, Steve Smith, Harold Jones,
Bob Badgley, Ernie Watts, Warren Gale, Herb Pomeroy, the Bay
Area Jazz Composers' Orchestra, the New Oakland Jazz Orchestra,
Dave Eshelman Jazz Garden Big Band, and The Turtle Island String
Quartet. He plays on a regular basis with many local musicians
throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
He has performed at numerous jazz festivals such as Monterey
Jazz Festival, Mount Hood Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival,
Telluride Colorado Jazz Festival, Space Coast Jazz Festival,
North Coast Jazz Festival, Fairfax Jazz Festival, Benicia Jazz
Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, Sacramento Jazz Festival, Cotati
Jazz Festival, Jazz on the (Russian) River, Harvest Festival, San
Miguel de Allende Jazz Festival in Mexico, and at the Hollywood
Bowl for Dizzy Gillespie's 75th birthday celebration.
Randy has taught jazz guitar at Sonoma State University (in
Sonoma County, California) since 1981 and has conducted clinics
throughout the U.S. While on tour with Joe Henderson, he taught
at Taller de Musicos in Madrid, Spain. Randy's students include
Julian Lage, the young prodigy who appeared on the 2000 Grammy
Awards show. Randy has also taught Dave McNab, who has worked
with Shelby Lynne and has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno and Late Night with David Letterman; and Liberty Ellman, who
works on a regular basis with Greg Osby and Henry Threadgill.
Bassist Christopher Amberger's has studied music at
Merritt College in Oakland, Berklee College in Boston, Cowling
Institute in England, and Cal State, Los Angeles. Chris has made
several tours around the United States and Europe with The George
Shearing Quintet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and has also
made tours with Rosemary Clooney in South America, to mention
just a few. He has worked with Helen Forrest, Vaughn Monroe,
Bobby McFerrin, Helen O'Connell, Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson,
Maria Muldaur, Jimmy Witherspoon, Red Garland, Stan Kenton,
Art Pepper, Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Donald
Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Herb Ellis, and many other
outstanding performers. Some of the musicians that Chris has
recorded with include Red Garland, Art Blakey, Noel Jewkes,
and Rosemary Clooney. He has also performed with the Buffalo
Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the Milwaukee Symphony.
Alex Aspinall is one of the San Francisco bay area's
up and coming jazz drummers. Alex graduated from the music
department at Sonoma State University in 2002. While earning his
BA at SSU Alex studied extensively with drum legend George
Marsh. Alex keeps a busy schedule performing, recording and
teaching. He currently performs with the Randy Vincent Quartet ,
Edo Castro, the Erik Lindquist Trio, Shea Breaux Wells, Michael
Lamacchia, and SF swing band Lee Press On and the Nails. Alex has
also performed with Mel Graves, Julian Lage, and award winning
vocalist Kathleen Grace.
Jazz vibraphonist Tyler Blanton moved to New York in
2007 from the San Francisco Bay area where he quickly gained
recognition as an up and coming talent on the instrument. He
has shared the stage with Randy Vincent, Mel Graves, Eddie
Marshall, and Chris Amberger, among many others. In 2006,
his long standing musical collaborations with veteran Jazz
guitarist Randy Vincent was documented with the release of
'Nisha's Dream" on the Triangular music label. As a bandleader,
Blanton performs regularly both in New York and abroad with
his trio featuring original music and arrangements of known Jazz
Standards. Blanton's repertoire ventures into swing, bebop,
brazilian, modern jazz styles, and everything in between.

Mitch Marcus Quintet + 13
Friday June 20th at 8:00 PM
The Berkeley Hillside Club is excited to present the
Mitch Marcus Quintet + 13 in a remarkable evening of
original jazz. This award-winning ensemble will fill our stage
with virtuoso players and our acoustically-wonderful hall with
sublime sounds. Don't miss this event!
The Mitch Marcus Quintet + 13 Big Band is a highly
energetic, innovative group featuring 18 of the best musicians in
today's jazz scene. After receiving the 2004 Subito music award
from the American Composer's Forum, the Mitch Marcus Quintet was
expanded to form this super-group. The MMQ + 13 Big Band will
be performing new arrangements of the quintet material as well
as other cutting-edge compositions stretching beyond the post-bop
idiom. The group features works by collaborators Mitch Marcus and
Sylvain Carton. Their arrangements and compositions experiment
with dense harmony, polyrhythmic ideas, and altered song forms,
bringing the exploratory spirit of the underground jazz scene into
a traditional big band setting - juxtaposing improvisation with
orchestration. Every musician, being a distinguished soloist,
enables the music to reach new heights through improvisation
and personal interpretation.
"Mingus meets Prokofiev at a luncheon with Gunther Schüller
hosted by Duke Ellington and 70's cop show heroes Starsky
and Hutch. Art Blakey is the chef."
The Band:
Mitch Marcus - tenor sax
Sylvain Carton - alto sax
Sheldon Brown - tenor sax
Marcus Stephans - alto sax
Charlie Gurke - baritone sax
Henry Hung - trumpet
Darrin Johnston - trumpet
Erik Jekabson - trumpet
Mike Olmos - trumpet
John Gove - trombone
Jeanne Geiger - trombone
Danny Grewen - trombone
Marc Bolin - bass trombone/tuba
Jason Slota - vibraphone/percussion
Jeff Mars - drums
Mike Abraham - guitar
Geroge Ban-Weiss - bass
David Ewell - bass

John Butcher & Carla Kihlstedt
Sixth Annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Concerts
featuring performances over two evenings:
Thursday, June 5th at 8:00 pm
John Butcher
Friday, June 6th at 8:00 pm
Carla Kihlstedt
The Berkeley Hillside Club is proud to host the Sixth Annual
Matthew Sperry Memorial Concerts. Matthew Sperry was a talented
bass player and beloved member of the local avant garde music
community who was tragically killed while bicycling in 2003. Since then his
friends and fans have gathered annually to honor his memory in music.
Thursday's Program:
John Butcher - saxophone
Solo, duo, trio, and quintet
with special guests John Shiurba - guitar, Tom Djll - trumpet,
Tim Perkis - electronics, and Gino Robair - percussion.
Friday's Program:
Carla Kihlstedt - violin & vocals
Solo, duo, and trio with special guests Marika Hughes - cello, Myles Boisen - guitar
Fred Frith - guitar, and Chris Sipe - drums.
Featured Artists' Bios:
John Butcher's music ranges through free improvisation,
composition, multitracked saxophone pieces and work with live
electronics, amplification and feedback. He is well known as
a solo performer, recently exploiting extreme acoustics, and
has composed pieces for Chris Burn's Ensemble, Polwechsel,
the Elision Ensemble and the Rova Saxophone Quartet. He
started playing the saxophone whilst studying physics, but,
after finishing a doctorate on quantum chromodynamics he left
academia in 1982 and went off with music - working with Burn,
John Russell, Phil Durrant, Paul Lovens and Radu Malfatti. In
the early '90s he joined what became the final version of John
Stevens' Spontaneous Music Ensemble and also began playing with
Derek Bailey and Phil Minton.
Electronic music was an early influence on his approach to
saxophone playing, and became explicit in his electromanipulation
duo with Durrant, and, more recently, in duos with Christof
Kurzmann and Toshimaru Nakamura. Some current projects include
Thermal with EX guitarist Andy Moor & Thomas Lehn, The Contest
of Pleasures with Axel Doerner and Xavier Charles, and duos
with Steve Beresford, Gerry Hemingway, Rhodri Davies, Paal
Nilssen-Love, Gino Robair, John Edwards and Eddie Prevost. Butcher
continues to play in many occasional, sometimes just one-off
encounters - ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris'
London Skyscraper, Radu Malfatti's Orkestra and the EX Orkestra,
to duo concerts with Fred Frith, Akio Suzuki, and Otomo
Yoshihide.
For more info on John Butcher check out
www.johnbutcher.org.uk.
Carla Kihlstedt enjoys many kinds of music with many
kinds of people. Most recently, these people have included
Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Matthias Bossi, Colin Jacobsen,
and Lisa Bielawa. She also enjoys what happens when people
form groups. Some of her favorite such groups that she works
with are The Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, 2 Foot Yard, Tin Hat,
The Book of Knots, The ROVA Saxophone Quartet, San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players, and Cosa Brava.
She is in the process of starting her own label for her own
music (Twelve Cups), as a way of sidestepping the evils of the
recorded music industry and losing her own damn money. In three
days time, she will make a record with Matthias Bossi and Shahzad
Ismaily called Causing a Tiger, based on field recordings that
she has collected on her travels. Later this month, she will
record with one of her favorite musicians, Satoko Fujii. (The
resulting cd will come out on Tzadik later this year.) She
has also been working very hard on a staged song cycle called
Necessary Monsters (featuring Nina Rolle, Theresa Wong, Freddi
Price, Michael Mellender, Matthias Bossi, Chris Fisher-Lochhead,
and the words of Rafael Oses) that she hopes to bring to the
Bay Area next year.

Larry Karush and Gyan Riley
with Scott Amendola
In Concert
Friday, May 23rd at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is delighted to present
pianist Larry Karush, guitarist Gyan Riley,
and drummer Scott Amendola in concert. These
virtuoso artists, each celebrated for his own individual
musical achievements, will collaborate in a concert featuring
new works and improvisation. Don't miss these three wonderful
players performing in our acoustically-excellent hall!
The Program:
For Larry Karush, improvisation is integral to the
genesis and performance of compositions created out of his roots
in jazz, world, and western classical and 20th century music.
This concert of "comprovisations" will feature new works, and
selections from original repertoire, including "The Salsa Way",
"The 5-Star Rag", and "Meditation: American Granite". Based in
Los Angeles, Mr. Karush's last Bay Area appearance was in a shared
concert with Maestro Terry Riley. For this event, he will share the
stage with M. Riley's son, guitarist/composer Gyan Riley,
in a program including solo and duo works by both artists. Joining
Karush and Riley for this evening's performance will be the celebrated
Bay Area jazz drummer, Scott Amendola.
The Artists:
Larry Karush is an improvising pianist/composer with roots
in Jazz, 20th century western music, African-based percussion,
and the classical music of North India. From Carnegie Hall to
the Purple Onion, he has performed Jazz with John Abercrombie,
Jane Ira Bloom, Jay Clayton, Bennie Wallace, and Oregon, World
Music with Kanai Dutta, Francisco Aguabella, and Glen Velez,
and New Music with Steve Reich and Terry Riley, in addition to
his solo piano performances.
His compositions and improvisations have been recorded on
the ECM, Vanguard, Inner City, AudioQuest, Music of the World,
and NAXOS labels. He has received grants and commissions from
the New York Foundation for the Arts, the NEA/Arts International,
Meet the Composer, the California Arts Council, and the City of
Los Angeles. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in
music composition, and a nominee for the 2008 Alpert Foundation
Prize in Creative Music.
He has performed concerts of original music for solo piano and
his piano/bass/three world percussion ensemble, The Combination,
throughout the United States in addition to festival appearances
in Europe, Canada, and South Africa.
Mr. Karush has been an artist-in-residence at the University of
California Santa Barbara, a composer-in-residence at the Wurlitzer
Foundation of New Mexico, and has presented lecture/demonstrations
of his approach to integrating composition and multi-stylistic
improvisation at the Universities of California, Tufts, Brandeis
and New York, Reed and Berklee Colleges, and the California
Institute for the Arts. He is currently on the faculty of
Occidental College in Los Angeles.
"In Art of the Improviser, a riveting set of solo piano tracks,
Karush draws together such disparate elements as bluegrass
banjo, stride, tinges of Erik Satie, boogie-woogie, country and
the blues. But his own vision - one of the most fascinating in
current jazz - remains constant." --Los Angeles Times (Don Heckman)
"Elegant and earth... (Karush's) music travels around the world
carving out some real poetry. Highly recommended." --Cadence
Gyan Riley brings together elements of American
fingerpicking, Indian raga, jazz, flamenco, and classical
guitar techniques to form a highly compelling compositional and
performance style unto itself.
In 1999, Gyan became the first guitarist ever to be
awarded a full scholarship from the San Francisco Conservatory
of Music. While still studying at the conservatory, he received
a recording contract for his debut CD of original works, Food
for the Bearded (New Albion Records). Gyan's awards include
First Prize in the Portland International Guitar Festival
Competition and First Prize in the San Francisco Conservatory
Guitar Concerto Competition.
Concert tours have taken him to some of the world's
most prestigious concert halls in the UK, Germany, Austria,
Italy, France, Spain, Croatia, Turkey, Norway, Ireland, and
throughout the United States. Gyan tours regularly with the
Los Angeles based Falla Guitar Trio, the Feinsmith Quartet,
and father/composer/pianist Terry Riley. Gyan has received
commissions from the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the New York
Guitar Festival, the San Francisco Foundation, and the Elaine
Kaufman Cultural Center.
Gyan served as the artistic director for the San Francisco
Classical Guitar Society from 2002-2004, and as professor of
guitar at Humboldt State University for the 2005-2006 academic
year. This year he serves on the faculty at the San Francisco
Conservatory of Music.
"Gyan Riley is the future of guitar, now." --Guitarra Magazine, Dec. '02
"(Riley's) musical range reaches well beyond standard idiomatic
cliches with almost improvisatory freedom." --Gramophone, Feb. '03
While rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area scene, Scott
Amendola has woven a dense and far reaching web of bandstand
relationships that tie him to influential figures in jazz,
blues, groove, rock and new music. An organizer by nature,
he has become a creative nexus for a community of musicians
stretching from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York.
While he first gained widespread notice a decade ago for
his work in eight-string guitar ace Charlie Hunter's trio,
in recent years Amendola has stepped forward as the leader of
several compelling bands that showcase his supremely supple trap
work. He continues to work as a sideman, accompanying artists
such as the tart-toned vocalist Madeleine Peyroux, guitarist and
singer/songwriter Kelly Joe Phelps and the Nels Cline Singers
(a volatile instrumental trio without a vocalist), but it's as a
bandleader that Amendola's dynamic, ever-evolving style is best
showcased.
Around the Bay Area, Amendola explores the many facets of
his expansive rhythmic sensibility in an intriguing series of
small combos. As a jazz player, for instance, he's performed
extensively with the cooperative group 'plays Monk', a trio
featuring clarinetist Ben Goldberg and bassist Devin Hoff that
focuses on the brilliant, knotty composition of modern jazz giant
Thelonious Monk. "We've created certain moods for tunes, more
than developing set arrangements," Amendola says. "What really
makes the trio its own thing and opens up possibilities is the
lack of a chordal instrument. We've all played and listened to
a lot of Thelonious Monk. One could really study Monk's music
for a lifetime
Amendola's past musical connections are vast and varied,
including recordings, tours and performances with artists such as
Bill Frisell, Wadada Leo Smith, Shweta Jhaveri, Larry Goldings,
Jeff Parker, Sex Mob, Larry Klein, Darryl Johnson, Carla Bozulich,
Robin Holcomb and the Joe Goode Dance Group, Wayne Horvitz,
Johnny Griffin, Viktor Krauss, Tony Furtado, Julian Priester,
Jessica Lurie, Sonny Simmons, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Pat Martino,
Peter Apfelbaum, Jim Campilongo, Bobby Black, Paul McCandless,
Ben Goldberg, Noe Venable, and Mark Turner. He considers all
of these formative experiences, but singles out a few gigs as
particularly inspiring, including a six-week European tour with
pianist Jacky Terrasson, and a performance at the Jazzschool in
Berkeley with saxophonist Dave Liebman that was documented on
a live recording.
"If Scott Amendola didn't exist, the San Francisco music scene
would have to invent him." -- Derk Richardson, San Francisco
Bay Guardian
"Amendola, certainly the most accomplished and inventive
drummer on the local scene, maintains a constant flurry of
percussive sounds - drums, cymbals, tom-toms - smoothly shifting
dynamics and rhythmic emphasis." - Phil Elwood, San Francisco
Examiner

Lily Storm & Dan Cantrell's MegaBand
In Concert
Friday, May 9th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is pleased to present a fabulous double
bill with Lily Storm in a concert of folk songs from Eastern
Europe and neighboring countries, and Dan Cantrell's MegaBand
featuring a set of original compositions inspired by traditional
Romani (Gypsy) Jewish, and American Folk music. Don't miss this
innovative new acoustic music in the sonic splendor of our hall!
The Program:
Lily Storm will open the night with song selections from
Eastern Europe accompanied by the Indian Harmonium. Then she
be joined by vocalists Briget Boyle and Dan Cantrell to premier
a new set of Greek polyphonic vocal music from Epirus.
Dan Cantrell's MegaBand features an amazing cast of
musicians specializing in World music traditions. These songs
are presented with modern compositional complexity and sung
primarily in the English language. The group will be joined by
special guest dancers to premier some tasty collaborative treats
for the eyes.
The Artists:
Lily Storm is a singer specializing in traditional
music, with particular experience in Eastern European styles. She
has studied with many traditional singers (Donka Koleva, Kremena
Stancheva, Merita Halili, Mariana Sadovska, Christos Govetas,
Carl Linich, Tsvetanka Varimezova, Radostina Kaneva, Tatiana
Sarbinska), and has traveled extensively, living for some months
in Hungary and Greece and visiting Russia, Georgia, Turkey,
Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and India. She
also makes use of archival recordings to study ancient styles
preserved into the early 20th century.
Lily performs with several ensembles in the Bay Area,
working with musicians including Ryan Francesconi, Dan Cantrell,
Aya Davidson, Beth Bahia Cohen, Eric Perney, Peter Maund, Shea
Comfort, Leslie Bonnett, Dan Ziagos, Bill Lanphier, Bryan Bowman,
and Lucia Comnes. She also performs early music with Shira Kammen,
Tim Rayborn, and Kit Higginson; Scandinavian folk music with the
Swedish duo Dråm, and she has collaborated with Kane Mathis,
an accomplished kora and oud player. Highlights of the last
year include singing with the Toids to open for Joanna Newsom,
and performing in Greece with Lucia Comnes at the Voices of Stone
Festival, sharing the stage with Petro-Loukas Halkias and Domna
Samiou, among others.
Previously she sang with the Bay Area vocal ensemble Kitka for
5 years. As part of Kitka, she recorded as a soloist (The Vine,
Wintersongs), collaborated in concert with ensembles including
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Ziyia, Ensemble Alcatraz, Linda
Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, Davka, and Mariana
Sadovska, and appeared on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home
Companion and then-NPR's Performance Today.
For more information about Lily, visit http://songbat.com
Dan Cantrell's Mega Band:
Dan Cantrell - Accordion, Voice
Briget Boyle - Voice
Peter Jaques - Clarinet
Eric Oberthaler - Trumpet
Lila Sklar - Violin
Eric Perney - Bass
Sean Tergis - Percussion
For more band info, visit
http://www.myspace.com/dancantrellsmegaband
Dan Cantrell began composing at age 11. Since that
time he has continued performing and writing music of all
kinds featuring his main instruments, accordion, piano and
musical saw. Dan received a rigorous training in Classical,
Jazz, and improvisational performance styles as well as extensive
formal composition training from an early age. He attended the
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and the Idyllwild
School of Music and the Arts studying piano performance and
musical composition. Drawing from his rich musical experience, he
strives to bring exciting new sounds to the world in collaboration
and composition for interdisciplinary art. In recent years
his attention has been focused on the study and performance of
Eastern European folk music as well as compositions for film,
dance, and theatre.
As a composer, Dan has scored over thirty films and numerous
plays. He has been commissioned by several dance companies
and circus arts groups to produce live and recorded scores.
His work has been premiered by a variety of ensembles ranging
from brass bands, to chamber orchestras, Balkan women's choirs,
to the California Shakespeare Festival ensemble cast. Dan has
been musical director for ensembles in theatre, dance and
for television with the PBS children's series Mark Kistler's
Imagination Station.
In recent years, Dan received an Emmy award for his soundtrack
to KQED documentary Home Front, as well two Golden Gate awards
from the San Francisco International Film Festival for his
work on local films. He is excitedly now writing the score
for a new television series "The Misadventures of Flapjack".
This new cartoon produced by the Cartoon Network which will air
this Summer.
As a performer, Dan recently had the honor of recording with
legendary songwriter Tom Waits. He has also recently toured and
recorded with emerging and internationally celebrated independent
artist Joanna Newsom.
For more information about Dan, visit www.bellowhead.com

Carl Ludwig Hübsch & Gino Robair
In Concert
Sunday, May 4th at 7:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club excited to present German
tuba virtuoso and composer Carl Ludwig Hübsch, and Bay Area
percussionist and composer Gino Robair in a concert of improvised
music that will stretch your ear and your mind. Don't miss this
exciting exposition of sound on the cutting edge of creativity in
our acoustically-wonderful hall.
The Concert:
Carl Ludwig Hübsch plays accoustic music that melds
the traditional brass sound of the tuba with the extended
sound/noise music genre, along with strong influences from electronic and
contemporary compositions. Perhaps one could say Hübsch plays
electronic music with mechanical means. In composition
Hübsch's work focuses on interweaving improvisation and ideas
written in advance of the performance. In the concert at
the Hillside Club he will play in a duo with the renonwned
percussionist Gino Robair. Together with the audience
they step into the unknown and let music grow from there.
The Artists:
Carl Ludwig Hübsch's early musical encounters were
with Punk, Rock and a local brass band. He later studied at
the University of Freiburg, earning diplomas in voice,
percussion and classical theory. He has studied composition
and New Music with Johannes Fritsch. He composes and performs
in concert halls, studios and theatres lending his talents to
ensembles and orchestras. He is well known for his unique solo
concerts. Hübsch concentrates on Improvised Music and Composition.
He also leads workshops for tuba and improvisation.
"Considering the dearth of good solo tuba recordings in recent years Carl
Ludwig Hübsch would be in a field of his own even if he didn`t try to be
different. DER ERSTE BERICHT ("the first report") acknowledges the
inevitable novelty charge with a Cover of Kashmir-we don`t get many Led
Zeppelin covers in these pages either but what persists is Hubsch`s control,
and, yes, poetry with an instrument that, for jazz, was long relegated to
huffing in the end zone, Creating overtones by singing through his horn, he
extends his instrument the way Albert Mangelsdorff stretched the trombone,
while his drumming on the side of the instrument in M5 and Ross 780 adds a
third party. Away from those extensions, he has astounding control of his
instrument`s softer range, as the reverie of Groombridge 34 affirms so
handsomely. -Coda Magazine July 2000"
Gino Robair is a percussionist, music journalist, and
published composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Gino
frequently tours North America and Europe as a soloist and often
improvises in ad-hoc groups. He has performed and/or recorded
with Anthony Braxton, Tom Waits, John Butcher, LaDonna Smith,
Otomo Yoshihide, Eugene Chadbourne, John Zorn, Nina Hagen,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Myra Melford, ROVA Saxophone
Quartet, The Club Foot Orchestra, and he is a founding member
of the Splatter Trio.
Gino Robair ...holds the listener captive as he
oscillates between the accidental and the intentional; between
the tiniest, most delicate noise and a torrential outpouring of
sound." -San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Robair is an enormously talented percussionist, with a
thorough-going musicality and an instinct for the unexpected."
-The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD
"Robair has taken the notion of open-ended improv to its
logical endgame; milking maximum-impact rhythms from the most
unlikely sources." -Jazziz

The Second Annual Bay Area
JazzPoetry Festival
Saturday, April 26th at 7:00 pm
Admission $20 ($15 for HSC members and Seniors)
The Berkeley Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley 94709
Info: (510) 845-1350
The Berkeley Hillside Club pleased once again to host the Second
Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival. As only the great Count
Basie could put it: "Let's try it one more once!" he called out
at the end of his classic "April in Paris." April in Berkeley
will once again be filled with jazz and poetry. Building on the
enthusiastic crowd response to its 2007 debut, the Second Annual Bay
Area JazzPoetry Festival returns to celebrate April's intersection
of Jazz Appreciation Month and National Poetry Month. "The mix of
spoken word with the soundscape of music was incredible. It was
like painting on a canvas with emotion-colored paints. Strikingly
beautiful." (from an attendee at the First Annual Bay Area
JazzPoetry Festival.) The Festival continues its mission of
presenting jazz and poetry collaborations from both New York
and the Bay Area.
This Year's Featured Artists:
The New York based Jessica Jones Quartet featuring
poet Arisa White. Berkeley High "jazz factory" alums
Jessica Jones and Tony Jones, are perhaps the only avant-garde,
tenor-sax playing husband-and-wife tandem in jazz. Their 15-year
track record revolves around experimental composition, freer
forms and collective improvisation.
Singer-poet Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) and Her Trio.
Mentored by saxophonist Jackie McLean, Lisa B grew up in NY
and California. With two poetry books authored and three CDs
released "daring, dexterous singer, songwriter, and poet Lisa
B...appeals to both traditional and contemporary jazz tastes
and even...hip-hop hipsters." (Philadelphia Daily News)
Yancie Taylor Quartet featuring poet Julian
Carroll. A genuine Bay Area treasure and acclaimed
vibraphonist, Yancie has entertained audiences at numerous
clubs and festivals with jazz giants such as Pharaoh Sanders and
John Handy. Whether he's performing here or in Tokyo, France,
Holland, or Germany, Yancie spreads the truth of his motto:
"Love, Peace, and JAZZ GREASE!"
Berkeley-born, Oakland-based jazzpoetry group, UpSurge!
is "an ensemble that earns its exclamation point with dynamic
performances that capture the soul, humor and off-the-cuff
inventiveness of a cascading saxophone solo." (Andrew Gilbert,
Contra Costa Times)
---
This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant
it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.
The Festival also appreciates support from Poetry Flash,
KPFA, KCSM, KALW, KPOO, Cafe de la Paz, Berkeley Public Library,
Berkeley City Councilmembers Max Anderson, Kriss Worthington,
and Laurie Capitelli, Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and National
Poetry Month.
For more info:
www.upsurgejazz.com/newsletter.

John Blakelock

César Cancino, Kathyrn Miller

Anna Pressler, Graeme Jennings, Leighton Fong
Spotlight on Local Composers
New Works by John Blakelock
Friday, April 18th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is proud to present a new feature in
our Concert Series. Recognizing that the Bay Area is a hotbed of
new musical creativity, both in academic programs and on the part
of talented individuals, we have decided to shine a spotlight on
the work some of these wonderful local artists. The first of what
we hope will become a regular part of our Concer Series features
the world premieres of four new works by composer John Blakelock.
Come join us for a remarkable evening of new music performed by
stellar artists in our acoustically-wonderful hall.
The Program:
The Burning Barn - piano solo
Cesar Concino - piano
The World is Charged - four settings of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins for mezzo-soprano and piano
Kathryn Miller - mezzo-soprano
Cesar Concino - piano
Piano Sonata No. 2
Scott Hawkins - piano
To My Father's Father
Poem and String Trio
Anna Pressler - violin
Graeme Jennings - viola
Leighton Fong - cello
The Artists:
César Cancino enjoys a musically diverse career as
pianist, musical director and conductor. He graduated from the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music and then studied piano with
Alain Naude, a pupil of the great Dinu Lipatti. He was for
many years the musical director/pianist for "Teatro Zinzanni"
(a european style circus-cabaret in San Francisco) and for
several years toured with singer/songwriter Joan Baez as her
musical director and pianist. He is also a recipient of the
Bay Area Theatre Critic's Circle award for "Outstanding Musical
Director." Mr. Cancino has performed throughout North America,
Europe and Australia in such venues as "Montreux Jazz Festival,"
Carnegie Hall, "Int'l Music Festival of Mexico City," Atlanta
"Summer Pops" Symphony and the "New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival." He has appeared with such diverse artists as singers
Liliane Montevecchi, Thelma Houston, Maria Muldaur, Mercedes Sosa;
cellist Ron Leonard; and violinists Pierre d'Archambeau, Martha
Caplin and Tracy Silverman. Local credits include "Menopause,
The Musical", "Spelling Bee", Broadway By The Bay, 42nd Street
Moon, Theatreworks, Beach Blanket Babylon, Plush Room in San
Francisco, Monterey County Symphony, Alameda Civic Light Opera,
Circus Center/New Pickle Circus and Musical Director/Conductor
of Morrison Theatre Chorus. He is currently the new musical
director for "Palazzo", a German company that produces a variety
of circus-cabaret shows in Europe.
Leighton Fong is a longtime member of the Left Coast
Chamber Ensemble and serves as Principal Cello with the California
Symphony. He plays regularly with the Berkeley Contemporary
Chamber Players and the Empyrean Ensemble and is an active
freelancer in the Bay Area. He has taught at UC Berkeley since
1997. Mr. Fong studied at the San Francisco Conservatory, the
New England Conservatory, the Bern Conservatory in Switzerland,
and the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark.
He joined the San Francisco Contemporary Players in 2006.
Australian violinist, Graeme Jennings, formerly a
member of the legendary Arditti String Quartet (1994-2005), has
toured widely throughout the world, made more than 70 CDs, given
over 200 premieres and received numerous accolades including the
prestigious Siemens Prize (1999) and two Grammaphone awards. As a
recitalist, Mr Jennings has a wide repertoire ranging from Bach to
Boulez and beyond. HIs main focus these days is on chamber music,
as well as being an enthusiastic proponent of new music. He has
worked with and been complimented on his interpretations by many
of the leading composers of our time. After hearing him give
the Australian premiere of his "Partita" in 1987, Lutoslawski
described Graeme as an "inspired performer". In recent seasons,
he has given performances of Berg's Violin Concerto, and in
2003, the first Australian premiere of Ferneyhough's "Terrain"
with the Elision Ensemble. Graeme is now based in San Francisco
where he enjoys pursuing a wide range of musical activity.
Mezzo-Soprano Kathryn Miller began her vocal studies
at UC Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Conservatory, before
obtaining a post-graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of
Music in London. She focuses primarily on early music, and has
performed with the Vancouver Early Music Festival, where she
sang Dido; MusicSources, where she performed re-constructed court
ballets from France and Italy, and Bay Area Classical Harmonies
with whom she sang alto solos in the St. John Passion and Cantata
80. Opera roles include the Messenger from Monteverdi's Orfeo and
Menotti's Mrs. Nolan, both with BASOTI and Hansel, with both the
San Francisco Conservatory and the California Opera Association.
She currently studies with Michael Sokol.
A resident of Berkeley, California, violinist Anna
Presler plays in several Bay Area chamber ensembles. For ten
years she has played with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble,
bringing contemporary and classical works to San Francisco
audiences. She is a member of the New Century Chamber Orchestra,
where she has recently served as a soloist. As a member of the
Sun Quartet, Ms. Presler is on the faculty of Sacramento State
University. She has participated in programs at the Banff Art
Center, the International Music Seminar at Cornwall, and the
Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Presler holds a degree in history
from Yale University and studied music at the San Francisco
Conservatory of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts.
The Composer:
Composer John Blakelock began studying composition
with Dr. Gary Clarke as an undergraduate student at Washington
College. It was there that he received thesis honors for his
senior composition recital and the Alpha Chi Omega Award for
Outstanding Music Major. He went on to attend The Catholic
University of America where he studied composition with Dr. Helmut
Braunlich and Dr. Stephen Strunk and earned a master's in music
composition. In 2004 Mr. Blakelock moved to Berkeley to pursue
his compositional interests and recently studied compositon
with Dr. Brian Kane. His piece Tribute to Johannes Brahms was
premiered by the Menlo Brass Quintet in May of 2006.

Art Lande & Paul McCandless Duo
In Concert
Sunday, April 13th at 7:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is delighted to welcome back two
illustrious alumni of our Concert Series. Art Lande and Paul
McCandless, both internationally- renowned jazz artists in their
own right, are teaming up for a fabulous duo concert that promises
to be one of the hottest events of the season. Don't miss these
two superb artists performing in our acoustically-excellent
hall!
The Art Lande and Paul McCandless Duo:
Art Lande (piano) and Paul McCandless (saxes,
bass clarinet, oboe, English horn) have been performing and
recording together since the mid 1970's. They have had feature
concerts in festivals world-wide including Montreal, Zurich
(Switzerland) and Santa Fe. Their recordings for labels like
ECM (German), Windham Hill, (U.S.) and Musidisc (France), also
reflect their place in the international jazz community.
Both prolific composers, Lande and McCandless weave their
compositions together with improvisational interactions
where rhythm, texture, mood and style can go in many
directions. McCandless' wide variety of instruments give a
signature sound to each piece. Many musical traditions show
themselves in the course of an evening - from modern jazz to
blues to Indian music to salsa to modern classical and gospel
sounds. Both players' ftexibility on their instruments make
it possible for the duo to feel truly orchestral- full, lush,
and rhythmically alive, so that a rhythm section is never
missed. Between their sense of humor, driving intensity and
penchant for reflective beauty, their concerts satisfy a wide
range of listeners whose ears will surely get freshened, tweaked
and indulged.
The Artists:
An adventurous and subtle improviser who has established
himself as a creative voice in jazz as a pianist, drummer,
composer, arranger and educator, Art Lande was born in 1947
in New York City and studied classical piano there under Joseph
Kahn. He attended Williams College before moving to San Francisco
in 1969 and during the early 1970s played electric piano in a
jazz quintet with Steve Swallow. In 1973 Lande recorded in a duo
with Jan Garbarek and with the Ted Curson's septet and in 1976
he formed Rubisa Patrol, a quartet that regularly visited Europe
and made its recording debut that year on ECM Records. He left
Rubisa Patrol in 1983 to teach for three years at a jazz school
in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and in 1987 moved to Boulder, CO,
where he still resides, to teach at the Naropa Institute. Lande,
whose work as a pianist considerably advanced the harmonic
innovations pioneered by Bill Evans, has worked with Chet Baker,
Woody Shaw, Kenny Wheeler, Gary Peacock, Ernie Watts, Charlie
Haden, Eddie Harris, Joe Henderson, Sheila Jordan, Mark Isham
and Paul McCandless among others and over the years has mentored
emerging improvisers and composers in the Denver-Boulder area,
North America and abroad. Art is currently a faculty member of
the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The son of two music teachers, Paul McCandless
grew up playing with parts of musical instruments he found
in his grandfather's repair shop. By age nine he was playing
classical clarinet and was introduced to jazz in middle school
when he took up the saxophone and his primary instrument,
the oboe. McCandless continued his musical studies at Duquesne
University and the Manhattan School of Music before embarking
on a career as a multi- instrumentalist and composer that has
spanned three decades beginning with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra and continuing with the Paul Winter Consort which
he joined in1968. In 1973 he left Winter to form the quartet
Oregon with guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner, bassist Glen Moore,
and percussionist Collin Walcott (now succeeded by Mark Walker
after Walcott's death). Oregon's discography includes recordings
on Vanguard, Elektra/Asylum, ECM, Epic, Chesky and Intuition
Records and the ensemble has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln
Center, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Vienna's Mozartsaal and other
intemationally renowned venues as well as at clubs and festivals
around the world. In addition to Oregon, McCandless has had an
eclectic and active solo career working with Jaco Pastorius, Carla
Bley, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Steve Lacy and Bela Fleck,
among others. His recordings as a leader include All the Mornings
Bring (Elektra), Navigator (Landslide), Heresay (Windham Hill)
and he contributed to several Windham Hill anthologies including
Bach Variations and The Impressionists. In addition to his ongoing
association with Oregon, McCandless works with artists in both
the jazz and classical worlds and appeared as a guest soloist with
the LA Philharmonic in 2005.

Jerry Kuderna
In Recital
Friday, April 11th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is pleased to present a
celebrated local piano virtuoso in a brilliant program of 20th
Century masterworks. Jerry Kuderna is well known as a
solo performer, teacher and member of the popular Maybeck Trio.
He has kindly consented to perform this program on short
notice to help the Club showcase a stunning new Grotrian
Concert Royal piano on generous loan to us from JB Piano
Company of San Rafael. Don't miss the opportunity to hear
this wonderful artist performing on this amazing instrument in
our acoustically-excellent hall!
The Program:
Two Centenaries: Elliott Carter and Joaquin Nin-Culmell
  Claude Debussy: Etudes (1915)
      Pour les arpèges composés
      Pour les cinq doigts
  Milton Babbitt: Tableaux (1973)
  Elliott Carter: Night Fantasies
  Joaquin Nin-Culmell: Tonadas (selections) (1957-1972)
  Federico Mompou: Musica Callada (selections) (1959-1971)
The Artist:
Jerry Kuderna received his initial training in piano
and conducting in Denver with Antonia Brico. After moving to
California at age 10, he continued private studies with Laura Nast
Nicolaisen and later worked with Adele Marcus at Juilliard and
Robert Helps at the San Francisco and New England Conservatories.
He holds a Ph.D. from New York University where he wrote his
dissertation on the piano music of Milton Babbitt.
He studied Webern and Schoenberg with Rudolf Kolisch at the
New England Conservatory and while teaching piano at Princeton
University during the 70's developed his commitment to the works
of Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. He was also assistant and
accompanist for soprano Bethany Beardslee, whose groundbreaking
recordings of Berg and Schoenberg were a decisive influence.
Her encouragement led to the first performance of Babbitt's
Phonemena and its subsequent recording on New World Records by
Kuderna and Lynn Webber.
Mr. Kuderna has performed numerous concertos for piano and
electronic sound, including the American premiere of Philippe
Manoury's Pluton, under the auspices of CINMAT at the University
of California, Berkeley. He substituted for the listed performer
at the last minute in a performance of Babbitt Reflections
for Piano and Tape at the SCREAM Festival, LA County Museum.
He has premiered the work of Bay Area composers, Edwin Dugger,
Richard Swift and Herb Bielawa , and has performed with Composer's
Inc., Earplay, and Cal Performances .
Jerry Kuderna is known to Berkeley Symphony audiences for
his 2001 premier of Daniel Brewbaker's Piano Concerto No. 2, "To
Kalon," which occurred in the weeks following 9/11. The following
year he performed with the Berkeley Symphony in the U.S premier
of Galina Ustvolskaya's 4th Symphony under Kent Nagano.
Most recently, in January 2006 he gave the west coast premiere
of Elliott Carter's Piano Concerto under the baton of George
Thomson.
Jerry gave the Irving Fine memorial concert at Brandeis
University and a program of 20th century nocturnes (including
Carter's Night Fantasies) at the Berkeley Arts Festival.
He performs with the Maybeck Trio and teaches at Diablo Valley
College where he recently conducted its orchestra. He continues
to give open classes on the classical and contemporary piano
literature which he has taught in the communities of Berkeley,
Concord and, currently, Walnut Creek. Mr. Kuderna lives in
Berkeley.

Dan Zemelman Quartet
In Concert
Friday, April 4th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is pleased to present the Dan
Zemelman Quartet in a concert of great contemporary
jazz. This excellent ensemble has been one of the most popular
acts in the three years of our Concert Series. Don't miss the
return of this great group to our acoustically-outstanding hall!
The Dan Zemelman Quartet:
This ensemble is comprised of four of the finest local jazz
artists playing today. Each has achieved individual recognition,
but when they come together to make their music the results are
truly magic. Each of the quartet members brings something special
to the ensemble, including unique original compositions and
arrangements, as well as a wide range of musical influences. The
music thus created is a tasty blend of the different creative
visions and musical backgrounds present including jazz, afro-latin
influences, rock, blues, and classical music.
The Artists:
Dan Zemelman maintains a very busy jazz life in the
bay area. He has performed numerous times with the bay area's
great bassist, Marcus Shelby, and also appeared on the last John
Lee Hooker album made, 'Face to Face'. Dan currently teaches
at the JazzSchool and Jazz Camp.
Erik Jekabson is one of the hottest trumpet players
in the Bay Area jazz scene. Jekabson, a conservatory-trained
musician with a master's degree in composition, currently works
as a freelance composer, arranger and trumpeter, leading his own
bands as well as playing with bands like the Realistic Orchestra,
Mitch Marcus Quintet +13 and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. Erik
also teaches at the Jazzschool in Berkeley.
Fred Randolph is a busy freelance acoustic/electric
bassist, composer, and educator who works with top local and
national jazz artists. He has also turned out several great
albums of his own that feature some very talented bay area jazz
players.
Alan Hall is among the finest drummers on the local
jazz scene. A first-call player, Hall has also performed and/or
recorded with such jazz luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie
Harris, Paul McCandless, and Art Lande, among others.

Thomas Pandolfi
In Recital
Friday, March 28th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is honored to present international
prize winning pianist Thomas Pandolfi in a brilliant program of
music by Liszt, Scriabin, Chopin, and Gershwin. Lauded for the
"intensity, technical brilliance and clarity of his playing,"
Thomas Pandolphi has been described as "one of the finest young
pianists of his generation." Don't miss this wonderful recital
in our acoustically-excellent hall!
The Program:
This program features "Apres Une Lecture du Dante (Fantasia
quasi Sonata)" by Franz Liszt, "Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op. 9,
No. 2 for Left Hand Alone" by Alexander Scriabin, "Four Etudes,"
"Fantasy-Impromptu, Op. 66," and the "Polonaise in A-Flat Major,
Op. 53" by Frederic Chopin, as well a selections from the work
of George Gershwin.
The Artist:
American pianist Thomas Pandolfi is emerging as a
prodigious virtuoso who excels in reviving the core repertoire
from the golden age of pianism. Praised for his interesting and
innovative programming, his recitals regularly include works
by Busoni, Godowsky, Dohnanyi and Chasins, and his orchestral
appearances often feature concerti by Paderewski, MacDowell,
Moszkowski and Anton Rubinstein.
The young pianist's career has already included performances
with such European orchestras as The George Enescu Philharmonic,
The Moravian Philharmonic, and The National Philharmonic of
the Republic of Moldova, as well as the American symphony
orchestras of Mississippi, Cedar Rapids, Asheville, Princeton,
and San Angelo, to name but a few. He has collaborated with such
conductors as Dimitru Goia, Peter Schmelzer, Mihail Agafita,
Andreas Delfs, Christian Tiemeyer, Ron Spigelman, William Kushner,
Nicholas Palmer and Robert Hart Baker. Following a performance
of Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Asheville Symphony,
The Asheville Citizen-Times remarked, "Pandolfi is a standout
among today's young pianists, demonstrating a great technician's
grace, finesse and polish...his virtuosity and strength might
have had some believing that Liszt himself had taken over the
keyboard." After a recent recital, The Washington Post described
him as "an artist who is master of both the grand gesture and
the sensual line. Pandolfi possesses first-rate technical skills,
an unerring command of phrasing, a quicksilver touch and cunning
legerdemain when it comes to pedaling...etched with calm and
crystal clartiy...outstanding."
In the "Pops" genre, Thomas is also considered a leading
interpreter of the works of George Gershwin.
A graduate of The Juilliard School, Pandolfi earned both his
Bachelor's and Master's degrees as a scholarship student.
For more information please visit the artist's website:
www.thomaspandolfi.com.

Faik Ibragim ogly Chelebi
performs Azerbaijani classical music
on the Azeri (11-string) Tar
Friday, March 21st at 8:00 pm
Admission $15 ($10 for HSC members and Seniors)
The Berkeley Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley 94709
Info: (510) 845-1350
The Berkeley Hillside Club is privileged to present Faik
Ibragim ogly Chelebi, virtuoso of the Azeri Tar, an 11-string
traditional instrument, in a concert of classical music from
Azerbaijan. Don't miss this opportunity to hear this rarely-played
repertoire performed by a master musician in our acoustically-wonderful hall.
About the Artist and the Performance:
Faik Ibragim ogly Chelebi, originally from Sheki,
Azerbaijan (of the south-east Caucasus), is a well-known
folklorist and an outstanding tar player. Chelebi holds a
Ph.D. in ethnomusicology (his 1999 dissertation was dedicated
to the Azeri instrumental genre called "reng"). Chelebi has
written many scholarly articles in the Russian and Azeri
languages; currently he is Professor in Music at the Herzen
State Pedagogical University of Russia and a research fellow at
the Russian Institute for History of the Arts, both located in
St. Petersburg.
At the same time, Chelebi has a long and very successful
career of solo performance on the Azeri tar, an 11-string version of the
original Iranian 5-string tar. His repertoire consists of the
instrumental mughams. The Azeri mugham is a highly original
Azerbaijani version of the well-known Iranian classical cycle
dastgah. This Islamic art music, based on modal principles, is
emotionally deep and beautiful, and represents an amazing
typological parallel to European baroque music.
Faik Chelebi will present the unique solo "poem" version
of the traditional mugham suite usually performed by a singer
accompanied by an instrumental ensemble. However, the mughams,
tantamount to classical tradition, can be performed on the tar
alone when the musician is a deep connoisseur of the genre and
a great virtuoso and improviser.
Faik Chelebi is a gifted pupil of a famous Azeri musician
Bahram Mansurov (1911-1985), one of the most distinguished tar
performers and teachers of the last hundred years. Chelebi as a
tar-player performed in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia,
Lithuania, and many other places. In the USA he is, for the
first time, performing at the invitation of Indiana University
in Bloomington, City University of New York (CUNY), CREEES at
Stanford University, and the Silk Road House in Berkeley. His
visit is sponsored by the Silkroad Foundation.
During his presentation, Dr. Faik Chelebi will offer an
improvisational set of various mughams. Dr. Izaly
Zemtsovskyi, currently visiting professor in music at Stanford
University, will be introducing and commenting his performance.

Members of the Mirage Ensemble
Songs Without Words: great instrumental music inspired by song.
Friday, February 22nd at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is thrilled to present two members
of the aclaimed Mirage Ensemble in a program of masterworks
from popular song composers, performed in the classical idiom,
and featuring arrangements, improvisations and homages. Don't
miss this fabulous evening of music in our wonderful hall!
The Ensemble:
The Mirage Ensemble members in this performance
are clarinetist Rob Bailis, and pianist Hadley
McCarroll. Critical acclaim for these two artists is
glowing:
Rob Bailis has been lauded for his "sweet, singing
tone...and technical wizardry" (S.F. Classical Voice).
"Robert Bailis' memorable debut performance in London,
doubtless the first of many appearances in this country, was the
highlight of our summer season." - Matthew Greenall, Director,
British Music Information Centre
Hadley McCarroll, a familiar face in our Concert Series, has
been hailed for her "...lively and exhilarating..." pianism,
(San Francisco Classical Voice). "Hadley McCarroll is one of
the most expressive pianists I have heard. She is a technically
intuitive and sensitive musician who plays magnificently..." -
Matthias Kuntzsch, Conductor: Previously the General Music
Director, Opera and Symphony of Lübeck; State Theater and
Orchestra of the Saarland, Saarbrücken.
The Program:
Songs Without Words: great instrumental music inspired by song.
works by Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, and others!
This program features an evening of great music, paying homage
not just to popular song but also to the composers who produced
memorable classical vocal music as well as major instrumental
chamber music works. Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" for solo
piano was the most popular song in its day. George Gershwin had
such success with his songs that he published improvisations for
solo piano on "I Got Rhythm" and "Clap Your Hands", in addition
to arranging his wildly popular "Three Preludes for Piano"
for clarinet and piano. In 1942 Leonard Bernstein published his
first work, Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, which looks ahead to
the musical "West Side Story" with its Cuban and jazz rhythms,
and to his opera "A Quiet Place" with its intimate, poignant
melodies. In 1920, while studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger,
Aaron Copland was delighted and shocked that he could sell a
quickly composed piano piece "The Cat and the Mouse" (Scherzo
Humoristique) to Debussy's publisher! Gerald Finzi composed
nine vocal cycles, countless choral works and, sadly for us,
few chamber music pieces. The Five Bagatelles for clarinet and
piano are a cornerstone of the clarinet and piano literature
by one of the most popular 20th century British composers.
The Artists:
An emerging leader of major arts organizations in his native
northern California, Rob Bailis is artistic director of
San Franciscor's acclaimed ODC Theater and a founding director
of Accendi Performances, a presenting/service organization for
independent musicians in the Bay Area. Previously he held posts
at the Perry Mansfield School for Performing Arts in Steamboat
Springs, Colorado, the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
in Richmond, California, as well as the San Francisco Community
Music Center. In addition to his activities as a performing
arts curator, Mr. Bailis is an accomplished touring clarinetist,
appearing regularly with orchestras and in chamber recitals
across the U.S., Canada, Asia, and the U.K. He was appointed to
the Napa Valley Symphony in 1999; he performs as well with many
other symphony orchestras and chamber groups throughout Northern
California. A proponent of contemporary music, he has premiered
many new works, including pieces from Luciano Berio, Martin
Bresnik, Jack Perla, and Arlene Sierra. Mr. Bailis received
his early training from San Francisco Symphony clarinetist Don
Carroll. He went on to earn degrees from Northwestern University
School of Music, where he was a student of Russell Dagon, and
the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Shifrin.
The recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, Mr. Bailis
was recently nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award, honoring
his performances in service to dance for the Composers' and
Choreographers' Consortium at the West Wave Dance Festival.
Highlights of past seasons have included recitals in Chicago,
San Francisco, New York, and at Cambridge University.
Pianist Hadley McCarroll appears regularly throughout
the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States, and internationally
as a solo and collaborative artist. An active vocal coach, Hadley
enjoys collaborations with local companies San Francisco Opera
and Opera Center, Festival Opera, Berkeley Opera, and West Bay
Opera. She has frequently collaborated with conductor Kent Nagano,
serving as musical preparer for concert performances of operas by
Elliott Carter (West Coast premiere of "What Next?") and Phillip
Manoury (West Coast premiere of "The 60th Parallel"). An active
teacher, Hadley has served on the faculty of the San Francisco
Community Music Center since 1997, in addition to running
a private music studio in Oakland. In the spring of 2006 and
summer of 2007 Hadley was invited to serve on the musical staff
of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Other projects in
2007 included assisting in preparing, for Kent Nagano, Unsuk
Chin's staged vocal work Sopranica Cantatrix, for two sopranos,
countertenor and chamber ensemble; Hadley was a featured pianist
at a forum on the music of George Gershwin at Grace Cathedral
in San Francisco, moderated, among others, by conductor Michael
Morgan and George Gershwin's nephew Michael Strunsky; she finished
the year with performances throughout the Bay Area as a member of
martha & monica, a piano-cello duo. In March of 2008 Hadley will
accompany a major concert of Wagner and Strauss arias at the Marin
Center featuring local heldentenor Roy Stevens, and in April she
will perform concerts at Old First Church in San Francisco and in
Point Reyes. Hadley received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees
in piano performance from the University of Texas at Austin,
where she studied with Danielle Martin. Ms. McCarroll has also
coached with Richard Goode, Mike Reynolds, Samuel Sanders,
Martin Katz, Warren Jones, and Isaac Stern.

Hemispheres
In Concert
Friday, February 1st at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is tickled at the thought of
presenting Hemispheres, in concert. This ensemble is the
musical collaboration of some of the best jazz artists playing
anywhere today. Each of these stellar players has achieved
recognition in his own right, and their gathering for this performance
can truly be called a super-group! Don't miss the rare appearance
of this ensemble in our acoustically-wonderful hall.
The Ensemble:
Blending African, Middle Eastern, Asian and South American
instruments with more traditional Jazz instrumentation,
Hemispheres merges myriad elements of Jazz with colors
and flavors from around the globe. Woodwind virtuosi Sheldon
Brown and Paul McCandless, blazing world percussionist
Ian Dogole, master bassist/flutist Bill Douglass,
pianist extraordinaire Frank Martin, and special guest
vocalist Hossein Massoudi collaborate to take their
listeners on an unforgettable aural journey, replete with
humor and a spirit of high adventure. Original compositions
by Hemispheres members, plus pieces from the Jazz and "World"
traditions will be featured at this special performance.
The Artists:
For over 25 years, Ian Dogole has articulated his vision
of Global Fusion Music as a multipercussionist, bandleader,
composer, recording artist, producer and educator. He has
released five records and a DVD as a leader - Along the Route,
Dangerous Ground, Ionospheres, Night Harvest, Convergence and Ian
Dogole & Hemispheres In Concert (DVD). Dogole has recorded and
performed with artists such as Hamza el Din, Paul McCandless,
Alex DeGrassi and Ancient Future. Dogole's compositions are
available on the recordings, Dreamchaser and Asian Fusion by
Ancient Future, and have been used by the San Francisco Giants,
the Philadelphia Phillies, Brown University and the Indonesian
Park Service. Dogole performs on a wide variety of percussion
instruments, including udu, cajon, hang, talking drums, global
drum set, mbiras and dumbek. He received a Jazz Performance
Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991and
Marin Arts Council grants in 1994, 1995 and 1998 for his
educational program, Adventures in Global Fusion Music. Dogole
has been a frequent participant in the San Francisco Symphony's
Adventures in Music program, presenting assemblies to more than
20,000 elementary school students throughout the San Francisco
Public School system. He is currently a faculty member of the
Sierra Jazz Society's summer Jazz Camp and is a contributing
writer for JazzTimes Magazine.
Composer and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Sheldon
Brown formed the Sheldon Brown Group in 1993, and in 1996
he released the jazz/fusion CD Shifting Currents. Brown has
performed internationally (most recently with pianist Omar Sosa)
at world-renowned venues such as the North Sea Jazz Festival,
Moers Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Jazz d'Or, Toronto
Jazz Festival and the Spoleto Festival. He is featured on Omar
Sosa's CDs Prietos, Bembon, Spirit of the Roots and Free Roots
and on Ian Dogole's CDs Ionospheres and Night Harvest. Brown
is a member of San Francisco's Club Foot Orchestra, for whom he
has composed scores for Film Roman's cartoon series The Twisted
Tales of Felix the Cat and silent films such as Fritz Lang's
Metropolis, Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. and Cops, G. W. Pabst's
Pandora's Box and Robert Wiene's Hands of Orlac. Club Foot has
performed at New York's Knitting Factory, Walter Reade Theater,
at Lincoln Center and the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington,
D.C. Brown performed in Anthony Braxton's Composition No. 132
at Grace Cathedral as part of the 1986 San Francisco Jazz
Festival. Brown currently teaches composition at Jazzschool in
Berkeley, California.
Bassist/flutist Bill Douglass was influenced early in
his career by Rafael (Don) Garrett, who inspired him along his
lifelong path of pursuing both bass and bamboo flutes. In the
1970s, Douglass joined Rubisa Patrol, led by pianist Art Lande
and later joined The Flowing Stream Ensemble, a Chinese music
group in which he played bamboo flutes. Douglass is noted for
his flute work both in concert performances throughout the world
and in soundtracks for many highly acclaimed films, including
1000 Pieces of Gold, The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf. Over
the last three decades, he has performed and recorded on double
bass with world-renowned musicians such as Marian McPartland,
Mose Allison, Mark Isham, Terry Riley and Art Lande and has
performed at many of Europe's major Jazz festivals. Douglass
has also performed Chinese folk and classical music for over 20
years and has served as a Jazz instructor at the Cazadero and
Aptos Jazz camps. Currently, Douglass is the artistic director
of the Sierra Jazz Society, which presents the annual summer Jazz
Camp, along with year-round concert performances and educational
programs to the community in Nevada County, California.
During a distinguished career spanning three decades,
Paul McCandless has brought a soaring lyricism to his
playing and composing that has been integral to the ensemble
sound of two seminal world music bands, the original Paul Winter
Consort and the relentlessly innovative quartet, Oregon. A
gifted multi-instrumentalist and composer, McCandless has
specialized in an unusually broad palette of both single and
double reed instruments that reflect his grounding in both
classical and jazz disciplines. With the innovative quartet
Oregon, McCandless has performed at major festivals throughout
the world such as Kool Jazz, Telluride, Berlin, Montreux,
Montreal and Pori. Oregon was also presented with the St. Paul
Chamber and Philadelphia Orchestras and traveled to Asia for the
U.S. State Department. McCandless's career includes appearances
on over 200 albums and scores or performance collaborations with
artists such as Steve Lacy, Nguyen Le, Jaco Pastorius, Wynton
Marsalis, Carla Bley, Pat Metheny, Elvin Jones, Mark Isham, Al
Jarreau, Stephanie Mills, Bruce Hornsby and Bela Fleck. His solo
recordings include All the Mornings Bring, Skylight, Navigator,
Heresay and Premonition. He plays a vast array of instruments,
including: soprano and sopranino saxophones, oboe, English horn,
penny whistle, wood flutes and bass clarinet.
Keyboard virtuoso/arranger/musical director Frank
Martin has amassed a very impressive track record working
with world-class performers in a diverse array of musical
styles. In the pop arena, Martin has performed and/or recorded
with stars that include Sting, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Steve
Winwood, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Chris Isaak,
Andrea Bocelli, Cheryl Crow, Philip Bailey, James Taylor, Joe
Cocker, Billy Joel, Madonna and Ricki Martin. In the jazz world,
his performance credits include Flora Purim & Airto Moriera,
Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Dizzy Gilespie, Mel Torme,
Bobby McFerrin, John Handy, Ramsey Lewis, Joe Farrell and the
Slide Hampton Big Band. Orchestra performances have included
concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Chamber
Orchestra and the "Orchestra of St. Lukes" (New York Philharmonic
Orchestra). As a producer, he has worked with high-profile artists
such as Al Jarreau, Bobby McFerrin's "Voicestra," SoVoSo," Joey
DeFrancesco and Alex Acuña, Jazz guitarist Mimi Fox, vocalist
Angela Bofill and the Turtle Island String Quartet. As musical
director, he has toured with such artists as Patti Austin,
Angela Bofill, Narada Michael Walden, Mickey Thomas, Roy Ayres,
and Clarence Clemens. Currently, Martin is on staff at the
University of California in Berkeley as well as the Jazzschool
in Berkeley, California. He is in demand as a clinician both in
the United States and in Europe.
Steeped in the folkloric Kurdish vocal tradition of his
native Iran, vicalist and percussionist Hossein Massoudi
integrates his knowledge and love of Persian Classical
with his Kurdish roots, resulting in a musicality which is
rarely heard. Hossein is largely a self-trained and intuitive
singer. He was a member of the San Francisco City Chorus for four
seasons, and attended San Francisco State University vocal Jazz
Combo under jazz singer Molly Holm for over a year. Hossein's
style reflects a union of these diverse traditions with his
original interpretations and an improvisatory approach that moves
effortlessly from the soulful to the whimsical. He is a founding
member of Aleph Null (world, middle eastern, and jazz)ensemble
since 1997.

The Los Angeles Electric 8
In Concert
Friday, January 25th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is intrigued to present the
eclectic Los Angeles Electric 8, in concert. These artists
meld the sensibilities of a classical chamber ensemble with the modern
tones and timbres of the electric guitar. This promises to be a superb
evening of unique music; don't miss it!
The Ensemble:
Upon hearing Italian virtuoso Mauro Giuliani play, Beethoven
remarked, "The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself." What
would Beethoven have said had he heard Derek Bailey, Eddie Van
Halen, or Jim O'Rourke? What would he have said had he heard
eight?
The Los Angeles Electric 8 is a group of eight
guitarists who bring the electric guitar to a chamber ensemble,
channeling their classical backgrounds into an instrument usually
reserved for rock. They rectify the electric guitar's absence in
classical music, revealing the instrument's enormous potential
in the world of art music.
The 8's founding principle is to showcase the variety of rich
sounds made by guitars and vacuum-tube amplifiers. They draw
from and adapt a variety of art music including organ works,
string arrangements and Indonesian gamelan pieces. The effect is
an exploration of a greater potential of the electric guitar with
both intentional and accidental nods to the rock characteristics
of the instrument -- Mendelssohn meets Mogwai. The 8's sound is
a lush interweaving of clean and occasionally overdriven guitar
figures that often conjure harpsichords, bells, massive pianos and
choral textures. Their repertoire spans the late Renaissance to
today, including new works written specifically for the ensemble.
The Program:
Felix Mendelssohn: Organ Sonata in F minor
The organ and the electric guitar have a lot in common:
the physical distance between the played instrument and the
sound source, the range of possible effects (organ stops
and guitar pedals), the sheer volume, and even some timbral
similarities. This arrangement splits the voices juggled by an
organist among six electric guitars and two electric basses,
creating "clean" and "overdriven" halves of the group. The result
showcases the dynamic timbral range of the electric guitar and
offers another perspective on the music of Mendelssohn-a romantic
era composer who rediscovered the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
experimenting with the then exotic sound of counterpoint.
Wayne Siegel: "Domino Figures"
Originally for 10-100 classical guitars, we think the sound
of eight electric guitars makes up for being two instruments
shy. This long minimalist piece highlights the acoustic artifacts
produced by blending the sounds of many electric guitars, creating
ethereal undertones and overtones. The effect is greater than
the sum of the parts, revealing both a grandeur and simplicity
of sound unique to the electric guitar.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Octet, Op.11: Prelude & Scherzo
We'll never know what Dmitri Shostakovich would have written
for the electric guitar, but this arrangement of his double
string quartet makes you wonder if he would have found voice
for his early works in a metal band-Schostakovich wrote these
two disorienting contemplative pieces at age eighteen following
the Russian Revolution.
Randall Kohl: "Balinesa"
Contrasting with Braddock's "Ill Tempered Lancaran," this
adaptation of Balinese Kecak brings the music of 100 men
reenacting a battle from the Ramayana to electric guitars. The
tight interlocking figures create thick textures of sound
reminiscent of American minimalist compositions.
Nathaniel Braddock: "Ill Tempered Lancaran"
Chicago guitarist/composer Nathaniel Braddock funnels his
knowledge of Javanese gamelan into a composition for six
electric guitars and two electric basses. The result is an aural
double-take, confirming the timbral similarity of two seemingly
different types of instrument-guitar and gamelan. The piece is
written in traditional Javanese lancaran form and the guitars
retune their strings to achieve the microtonal nuances of the
Javanese slendro tuning.
The Artists:
Philip Graulty is a native Los Angeleno. As a soloist,
he has performed works ranging from the Pavans of Luys Milan to
Steve Reich's "Electric Counterpoint." As a chamber musician,
he has participated in numerous festivals including MicroFest
and the Minimalist Jukebox Series. Philip received his M.M in
Guitar Performance from UCLA and his B.A. in Music from California
Polytechnic State University Pomona.
Chelsea Green is completing her Doctorate in Musical
Arts at UCLA where she has received both the Mimi Alpert Feldman
Scholarship and the Randy Rhoads Memorial Scholarship. California
Guitar Archives publishes her transcriptions of art songs
for guitar and voice entitled Erik Satie: Four Songs from
1886. Chelsea currently performs, teaches, transcribes and plays
in the alternative band SuperDuperStar.
Ben Harbert directs the Electric 8 and is the primary
arranger for the group. He studied classical guitar with three
Andrés Segovia protégés: Benjamin Bolt, Philip Rosheger and José
Luis Rodrigo. In Chicago, he led the guitar department at the
Old Town School of Folk Music where he taught classical guitar
and played the electric guitar and bass in rock bands Mezodigm
and OX.
Brandon Mayer studied guitar at UCLA with Theodore
Norman and Peter Yates. He has performed extensively as a solo and
ensemble artist. He has composed music for theater productions and
films that have been performed/screened at festivals throughout
the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Mayer lives and works as a teacher in
Los Angeles, primarily working with blind and autistic students.
Andy Nathan is a bassist/guitarist/composer who spent
his formative years training in big band jazz, funk, classical
guitar, free improvisation, rock and blues. A graduate of Mills
College, Andy has studied with Fred Frith and Joëlle Léandre,
Joel Ryan, Konrad Boehmer, and Ken Benshoof. Performance master
classes with Cecil Taylor, Merideth Monk and Leo Smith; performed
with Joe Louis Walker and the Bosstalkers. Andy currently teaches
guitar full time while pursuing interests in film composition
and country guitar.
Marc Nimoy recently graduated from CalArts with an MFA
in Music Composition/Experimental Sound Practices and received
his B.A. in Classical Guitar Performance from UCLA. He is a
working musician, teacher, and programmer, performing regularly
with laptop as well as guitar. He has received the Randy Rhoads
Memorial Scholarship and the STEIM artist residency in Amsterdam.
Felix Salazar is a Los Angeles-based composer-guitarist
whose music ranges from works for solo guitar to large
ensemble. After graduating from the California Institute of
the Arts, Felix collaborated with world-renowned DJ, Paul
Oakenfold, where he composed and conducted arrangements for an
unprecedented live performance of dance DJ with live orchestra. In
every manifestation, Felix fuses contemporary classical music,
improvisation, and popular music into his own unique, empathic
and emotionally driven compositions.
JohnPaul Trotter has been playing on records since he
was 20, playing electric and acoustic guitars for arists such as
folk/rock singer Courtney Chambers, hip-hop/reggae group Grand
Marquis, and funk/rock group the Dialectics. He holds a degree
from Cal Poly Pomona in Music with an emphasis on classical
guitar. He teaches guitar full-time and performs frequently with
his rock band and jazz quintet.

Carla Zilbersmith
In Concert
Friday, January 11th at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is delighted to open our new year
with the critically-acclaimed vocalist, Carla Zilbersmith,
previewing material from her upcoming CD, "Extraordinary
Renditions". Carla will be accompanied by an ensemble of
the finest local jazz artists, including John R. Burr
(piano), Michael Zilber (sax), David Rokeach
(drums), and Robb Fisher (bass). Don't miss these stellar artists performing in our
acoustically-wonderful hall.
The Program:
Carla's upcoming CD is heavily influenced by some of Herbie
Hancock's recent recordings including The New Standard, River -
The Joni Mitchell Letters, and Gershwin's World. She is intrigued
by finding the jazz standards within the work of artists like
Prince, James Brown, the Beatles and of course fellow Canadian
Joni Mitchell herself. Carla's singing marries her Canadian folk
upbringing with her love for singers from both the jazz and R&B
world, including Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Betty Carter,
Sarah Vaughn and others. She is joined by musicians who are
equally comfortable straddling those worlds and who share a
commitment to exploring the new American Standard.
The Artists:
Carla Zilbersmith has been performing professionally
for over 15 years as both a singer and actress in Canada, Boston,
New York, and presently in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where
she has performed at The Coronet Theater, The Hayworth Theater,
Steinway Recital Hall, Gardenia Lounge, Anna's Jazz Island,
Yoshi's, Slims, Mr. E.'s, The Marsh, Venue 9, Theater Artaud,
Berkeley Repertory Theater, Don't Tell Mama, The Strand, Prism
and elsewhere.
Carla has performed in diverse settings ranging from the
Boston Symphony Orchestra to solo performance to folk/rock bands
to sketch comedy. She is the founding member of We're Redheads,
a women's sketch comedy troupe, Lighten Up John, a musical
improv group and was the Artistic Director of the College of
Marin Drama Department for many years. Carla is the vocalist
for The SubUrbans and was one of the year 2000 Lilith Fair
finalists. The band's CD is entitled Paradise . Lee Hildebrand
of the East Bay Express calls Carla "a superb singer." Carla"s
new CD "Extraordinary Renditions" will be released January 2008.
Carla's one-woman musical, Wedding Singer Blues has received
rave notices up and down the west coast, including a Best of
the Bay award(under Best Solo Flights). The LA Times compared
her favorably to Lily Tomlin.
Carla has written several plays and solo pieces: A Motherhood ,
which debuted at The Luggage Store Excess Baggage Festival , Car
Sex , developed with Charlie Varon and performed at The Marsh,
and License to Drive , also developed with Charlie Varon, a piece
chronicling her 15-year journey to learn how to drive. License
to Drive was a regular feature in The Marsh's Saturday night
series Night Schtick . Carla's off-Broadway production Notes ,
won her the Washington Square Players Young Playwright's Award
and was produced at the Intar Theater in Manhattan. She is
currently writing a new solo piece as well as performing with
We're Redheads, a sketch comedy duo with Gina Ottobini-Stahl.
John R. Burr is that rare pianist who combines jazz
technique with a genuine love for folk music. The Philadelphia
Weekly said, "Pianist extraordinaire John R. Burr has the most
sparkling style since former Allman Brother-turned-Rolling Stone
hired hand Chuck Leavell." Discology wrote, "John R. Burr ranks
with the best of the elegant jazzers." Burr was first drawn
to the piano at the age of 10 when he heard Vince Guaraldi's
playing on the Peanut's animated TV specials. He started out as
a child prodigy drummer; he was the only child out of 5 siblings
not forced to study the piano. It wasn't until he was in high
school that his focus turned to the keyboard. He then discovered
that there were too many drummers to compete with and the piano
became his instrument of choice.
After years of touring with such artists as Maria Muldaur,
The Alison Brown Quartet, Paul McCandless, Michael Manring
and Kathy Kallick and recognition including a feature spot on
Windham Hill's Piano Sampler II, Burr is stepping out with his
first solo album, Piedmont Avenue. His playing is as likely to be
inspired by James Taylor or Doctor John as by Oscar Peterson or
the Yellowjackets although he says it is his love of folk music
that has influenced him most. His musical diversity has enabled
him to tour and record with a variety of artists and has made
him the ideal pianist for the ground breaking folk/jazz group,
The Alison Brown Quartet. Burr explains, "I play a sort of jazz
piano version of the vocal music that I love to listen to. That's
what influences me. I love to play and study jazz but I listen to
vocal, folk/singer/songwriter music. I'm always searching for that
melodic song-like quality when I improvise."
Burr's playing is engaging and his breezy style blending
jazz and folk influences makes for a rare and articulate debut
album. Piedmont Avenue is cohesive in its conception, inspired
in its execution and serves as an excellent introduction to the
wonderfully original piano voice of John R. Burr.
Saxophonist Michael Zilber, whom jazz great David
Liebman calls" one of the best players and composers around
anywhere, period", has recorded 7 CDs as a leader, including an
independent music award finalist in 2000 and a Billboard pick
of the month in 1993 and over 20 as a sideman. He has performed
and/or recorded with too many leading artists in Jazz to list
here, co-led a band with drumming legend Steve Smith for 8 years
and has received multiple Downbeat awards as a jazz educator.
His current projects include a song cycle of poems by poet
laureate Billy Collins, as well as recording projects with
guitarist's guitarist John Stowell, a two sax-two drum CD with
Liebman, Steve Smith and Marko Marcinko, a collective project
with the group Happy Hour and leading the Jazzschool Composers
Collective, a big band made up of the bay Area's best musicians.
He is very proud to be part of Carla Zilbermsmith's new CD
project, believing her to be the best singer he has ever worked
with.
A long time Bay Area resident, drummer David Rokeach
has been working primarily in the San Francisco and Los Angeles
areas for more than 20 years. David toured nationally and
internationally with Ray Charles from 1990-91. This included
concert videos and many television appearances, including an
appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Doc
Severinson Orchestra. In recent years he has performed/recorded
with Patti LaBelle, Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples, Lou Rawls,
Grammy winner Joe Henderson, Down Beat Poll winner Mark Murphy,
Bluesman Charlie Musselwhite, The George Brooks-Zakir Hussain
Group, Wilson Pickett, Linda Tillery, Steve Miller, Joe Satriani,
Joyce Cooling, Maria Muldaur, Calvin Keys, Barry Finnerty,
Merl Saunders, David Grisman, Melvin Seals, The Family Stone
Experience, Louis Bellson, Wayne Wallace, The Nelson Riddle
Orchestra, Paula West, Brazilian Master Marcos Silva, Bluegrass
Grammy winner Alison Brown, Ernestine Anderson, Oscar Brown Jr.,
award-winning trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, acclaimed composer and
Grammy winner, Maria Schneider, and many more.
Since 1998 David has had the honor of playing with the Queen
of Soul, Aretha Franklin. In addition to live concerts, this has
included television appearances on the Rosie O'Donnell Show, The
View, Good Morning America, and VH1's Divas Live 1998, where he
also performed with Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan,
Shania Twain, and Carole King for the show's finale.
For the past few years, David has been working with Bay Area
Composer Joel Evans. Their recordings have appeared in numerous
motion pictures and television shows, including Universal's For
the Love of the Game, Paramount's What Women Want, Showtime's
Seventeen Again, Fox's Say It Isn't So, The Young and the
Restless, All My Children, Nash Bridges, The District, The
X-Files, Sex and the City, Frasier, The Osbournes, Desperate
Housewives, The West Wing, The O.C., LA Doctors, The Chris Isaak
Show, and many others.
David currently teaches at the Berkeley Jazz School, and has
also been a regular faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop
and at the Rhythmic Concepts Jazz Camp West. Recently he played
the Broadway Shows "Les Miserables," "Ragtime", and the Janis
Joplin show "Love, Janis" during their San Francisco runs. He
also plays on many commercial jingles, and film and television
soundtracks, both in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

Roberta Piket and Eric km Clark
with Special Guests
In Concert
Saturday, November 10th at 8:00 pm
Admission $15 ($10 for HSC members and Seniors)
The Berkeley Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley 94709
Info: (510) 845-1350
The Berkeley Hillside Club is tickled to host the return
of piano phenom Roberta Piket, joined this time by
talented violinist Eric km Clark, along with some special
guest artists, performing their exciting blend of classical,
jazz and experimental music. Don't miss these stellar artists
performing in our acoustically-wonderful hall.
The Program:
Roberta Piket is a superbly talented and accomplished
jazz pianist and composer whose music blends neo-classical
and post-modern jazz influences. Her musical relationship with
violinist Eric km Clark lies at the nexus of classical
music and improvisation. They will perform original works in
duo and with special guests including drummer Billy Mintz.
The Artists:
In the time since Roberta Piket returned to her native
New York, the pianist/composer has played professionally as a
sidewoman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek,
Lionel Hampton, Mickey Roker, Billy Mintz, Harvey Wainapel,
Eliot Zigmund, Benny Golson and the BMI/NY Jazz Orchestra and has
twice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz,
on National Public Radio. It is in her work as a composer and
bandleader, however, that the depth of Roberta's talent becomes
most evident.
Roberta, who holds a B.S. in Computer Science which she earned
concurrently with her music degree, turned away from a future
as a software engineer after a year in that field to pursue an
inevitable path in creative music. A gifted composer, Roberta
placed second in the first annual Thelonious Monk BMI Composers'
Competition.
Roberta's trio has toured Japan and Spain as well as the
U.S. She has performed her music at the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C., at the Earshot Festival in Seattle, at the
Rochester (NY) Jazz Festival, and in New York at Small's, the
Blue Note Club, Birdland, the Knitting Factory and the Kitano.
Roberta's CDs frequently make the "best of" lists of the major
jazz magazines. Whether performing her original compositions or
highly personalized reworkings of standards, Roberta's daring
rhythmic modulations and vast harmonic expansiveness set a new
standard for the piano trio. "September of Tears", released in
Japan, finds Roberta joining forces with Rufus Reid and Billy Hart
for an adventurous program of originals and reworked standards. A
new release features the virtuosic gifts of Roberta's new trio:
bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Billy Mintz. A new release
features the virtuosic gifts of Roberta's new trio: bassist
Ratzo Harris and drummer Billy Mintz. This working group has
toured the West coast during the past two autumns and performs
regularly in New York.
Roberta maintains an active schedule as an educator. She
has held master classes at the Eastman School of Music (where
she performed solo and in duo with Marian McPartland), Rutgers
University, Cal Arts, Duke University, the Northwestern University
Composers' Colloquium, and many others in the U.S., Europe and
Japan. She has coached ensembles at Long Island University,
has several private students, has served as a panelist for the
Queens Council on the Arts grant review process and has taught
at the Litchfield Jazz Camp and the Vermont Jazz Center. She is
also the author of the Jazz Piano Vocabulary series of workbooks,
published by Muse-Eek Publishing.
Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark is a composer and violinist
originally from Victoria, BC, Canada. A recent addition to New
York, he spent the past two years in LA studying composition with
James Tenney. Eric has also worked privately or in masterclass
with artists as diverse as Charles Castleman, Dave Douglas,
Stefano Scodanibio, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the
Kronos Quartet, the Alcan Quartet, and the Purcell Quartet,
among many others. Over the years, he has been fortunate
enough to collaborate in performance with artists such as Han
Bennink, Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris, Mark Dresser, Jurg Frey,
Michael Gordon, David Lang, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Julia
Wolfe. Eric recently played lead violin with Ensemble Sospeso in
a series of performances of filmmaker Guy Maddin's silent film
Brand Upon the Brain!, which included live foley sound effects
and guest narrators, including: Tunde Adebimpe, Laurie Anderson,
John Ashbery, Justin Bond, Crispin Glover, Edward Hibbert, Anne
Jackson, Joie Lee, Lou Reed, Isabella Rossellini, Peter Scarlet,
and Eli Wallach.
Eric has enjoyed success performing in many genres, though
most often in new music, experimental, and improvisational
settings. He has performed throughout Canada, the US, Europe,
and Australia, recently completing a tour of Belgium and Oslo
with his high octane group Skakk Trio. Eric also enjoyed a series
of performances as violinist with the legendary west coast new
music group California EAR Unit last spring 2006. Other notable
recent appearances include the premier of his New York band
Passenger Fish, the 2006 Minimalist Jukebox festival in Walt
Disney Concert Hall, Michael Gordon's new opera What to Wear and
Decasia, and the Creative Music Festival at RedCat. Eric just
completed a recording in LA of Anne LeBaron's Opera Pope Joan,
to be released November 1st 2007 on New World Records.
Compositionally, Eric is an extremely diverse composer, ranging
from writing for hearing-deprived musicians to improvisational
works for his bands in New York and Europe. He has recently
returned from the neither/nor new music festival in Toronto,
in which he performed and presented his works Mein Schatz
and Slaughter Series I-IV. Eric's music has been performed by
numerous ensembles and soloists, such as ARRAYMUSIC, Bang on a
Can, the California EAR Unit, the ANAlog Arts Ensemble, and the
Bozzini Quartet.
In an extraordinary career spanning nearly 40 years, drummer
Billy Mintz has played with some of the biggest names in
the jazz and pop worlds.
Mr. Mintz was born in Queens, New York in 1947. By the age
of 15 he was firmly entrenched in several of the show bands of
the Catskill Mountain resorts, and as his musicianship developed
he would eventually tour with jazz artists such as Lee Konitz,
Eddie Daniels, Harold Danko, Mike Garson, Mose Allison, Mark
Murphy, and the Kim Richmond Sextet. He also toured and recorded
extensively with Bobby Shew. At the same time, his credentials
grew in the pop arena, leading to tours with Juliette Prowse,
James Darren, Gloria Gaynor, and a stint with the show band for
the Merv Griffin Show. In 1986, Mr. Mintz toured Japan with
the Los Angeles Symphonic Jazz Orchestra (having relocated to
Los Angeles in 1981). In 1988 he toured Europe with saxophone
great Charles Lloyd, and from 1989 to 1995 he performed with
the Alan Broadbent Trio.
Throughout his life Mr. Mintz has taught privately and done
clinics at schools around the world, including the Berklee
School of Music, the Dick Grove School of Music, Bloomingdale
House of Music, Long Island Drum and Percussion Club, Eagle
Rock H.S., Arizona State University at Tempe, University
of Arizona at Phoenix, and North Texas State University. He
also taught extensively while on tour with various artists in
Sydney, Australia, Tel Aviv, Israel and Wellington, New Zealand.
Mr. Mintz has written two books: Different Drummers, originally
published by Aamsco Music Publishing and Advanced Sticking
and Sight-Reading (BM Publications). He has also had articles
published in Not Just Jazz and Modern Drummer magazines.
Mr. Mintz appears on records by the following artists, among
others: Bill Perkins/James Clay Quintet; Vinny Golia; Fred
Tompkins; The Cryers; Harold Danko; Eddie Daniels; Bobby Shew;
Bob Magnusson; Mike Garson; Art Resnick; Walking Wounded; Kim
Richmond; Clay Jenkins; Ken Filiano; John Woods; Joey Sellars;
Bruce Fowler. In recent years, Mr. Mintz has taken on new roles
as a bandleader and a composer, performing his own compositions
with various ensembles. He also performs solo drumset concerts
with increasing frequency.
For more info on these artists, check out their websites:
Roberta Piket
Eric km Clark
Billy Mintz

Shoko Hikage and Yoko Hirano-Itatani
In Concert
Sunday November 4 at 7:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is honored to present koto virtuosi
Shoko Hikagei and Yoko Hirano-Itatani, along with special
guest artists performing a concert of contemporary Japanese
music. Don't miss this group of world-class artists performing
rarely-heard repertoir in our acoustically-excellent hall.
The Program:
Selected Koto Works of Michio Miyagi (1894-1956) and Tadao Sawai (1937-1997)
Known as the "Father of Modern koto music" Michio Miyagi (1894-1956) was
a great koto performer, composer, and educator who revolutionized koto
music through the utilization of new playing and compositional techniques
and the invention of instruments.
Tadao Sawai (1937-1997) has changed the koto from being a traditional
Japanese instrument to an instrument of universal expressiveness,
furthering the work of the late Michio Miyagi, the forerunner of the "New
Japanese Music" movement.
Recognized as the greatest composer/performer for the koto of the late
twentieth century, Tadao Sawai had the keenest musical sense and most
natural talent for bringing his instrument to life.
Shoko Hikage and Yoko Hirano-Itatani will perform two great contemporary
koto music composers, Michio Miyagi and Tadao Sawai. Compositions will
include Haru no Umi (koto & shakuhachi), Hira (koto, shamisen and
shakuhachi), Hakkafu (koto and bass koto) and more. Guests performers will be
Shirley Muramoto (koto), Brian Mitsuhiro Wong (koto) and Robin Hartshorne
(shakuhachi)
The Instruments:
Koto - Similar to the Chinese gu-zheng, this 13-string plucked zither entered
Japan from the continent in the 7th century. The koto has been part of the
gagaku court ensemble for over one thousand years, and today a varied
repertoire along with a wide range of playing techniques makes the
instrument appealing to audiences the world over.
Players of the koto by tradition are also generally versed in the music of
the shamisen. More recently the jushichigen (bass koto) has also become an
important means for expression.
Shamisen - Having entered Japan from the southern Ryukyu islands (present day
Okinawa), this 3-string long-necked lute is generally played with a large
plectrum. There are basically three different instruments used today, the
distinguishing feature being the size of the neck. The jiuta shamisen
featured here has a neck of medium thickness.
Jushichigen - The 17-string bass koto was developed early in the 20th century by koto
master Miyagi Michio. Originally intended to add depth to ensembles, the
instrument now plays an integral role in contemporary music and as a solo
instrument on concert stages.
Shakuhachi - The shakuhachi is an end-blown Japanese bamboo flute. It was brought from
China to Japan more than a thousand years ago by a Zen priest. During the
Edo period (1615-1868) the shakuhachi was played by wandering monks called
"komuso" or "priests of emptiness and nothingness." Today,
performances of traditional solo meditative "honkyoku" and "sankyoku"
chamber music with koto samisen, are common.
The Artists:
Shoko Hikage studied the koto with Chizuga Kimura, 2nd IEMOTO Seiga
Adachi, 3rd IEMOTO Seiga Adachi of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai. In
1988, she graduated from Takasaki College with a major in koto music, and
was immediately accepted as a special research student in Sawai Koto
School where she subsequently received her master's certificate. In 1992,
she moved to Honolulu to teach at the Sawai Koto Kai Hawaii. There, she
held her first American solo recital at the Honolulu Academy of Arts
Theater as part of the "New Music Across America" series. In 1997, she
moved to San Francisco, where she continues her pursuits in
improvisational dance and music. www.ShokoHikage.com
Yoko Hirano-Itatani was born in Kanagawa, Japan. She has graduated the
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1997, having majored
in Japanese traditional music under the renowned musician, Professor
Masateru Ando. She performed in Young Artist Concert in of 1995 in Chiba,
Japan, and held annual recitals of her musical trio "Sonet" (violin,
piano and Koto) in 1998-2000. She performed the Koto at the Tulip festival
in Ottawa, the Music and People Festival in Montreal, and at several
cultural events at the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Museum
of Civilization, and the Parliament Hill. In Bay Area, she continues her
music activity having several joint concerts and teaching Koto and
Shamisen.
Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto, a native Japanese-American of Oakland,
California, Muramoto learned to play the koto as a child. Koto music
became a part of her family legacy, when during WWII, Muramoto's
grandparents were incarcerated in internment camps. Her grandparents
encouraged their young daughters to take up the koto to keep their minds
occupied in a creative manner, and determined to keep the Japanese culture
alive in their daughters' lives. In 1976, Shirley received her "Shihan"
degree (instructor's license) with "Yushusho" (highest) honors from the
Chikushi School in Fukuoka, Japan, and her "Dai shihan" Master's degree
from the same school in 2000 for her mastery of the koto. Muramoto is also
the director of the world jazz fusion group, the Murasaki Ensemble.
Playing the koto for over 40 years, Shirley has the ability to perform in
a variety of genres and styles. She has been teaching students privately
and in koto classes since 1976, including koto classes at UC Berkeley,
Montclair Elementary School and Nihon Gakko Japanese School in Oakland.
Brian Mitsuhiro Wong carries on the musical family tradition inherited
from his mother Shirley Muramoto and grandmother. Wong has played the koto
since the age of 4. In the tenth grade, Wong experienced the most
important musical influence of his young life; a concert performed by one
of the top koto masters in Japan, Madame Kazue Sawai. Wong had the great
fortune to meet Madame Sawai after the concert. She invited Wong to come
to Japan to study the koto with her at her koto conservatory in Tokyo. In
2003, Wong became an 'uchi-deshi', a live-in student at the Sawai
Soukyokuin. Last year, he achieved his "Koshi", or instructor's degree,
winning the top award, or "Grand Prix", with the highest scores. He is the
third generation koto teacher in his family, and also in the U.S. This
spring, he will graduate from California State University, East Bay at
Hayward with a bachelor of arts degree in music composition.

Pandit Anindo Chatterjee
In Concert
Sunday October 28 at 7:30 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club Concert Series is honored to present the
world-famous tabla virtuoso Pandit Anindo Chatterjee
in concert. Don't miss this sublime artist performing in our
acoustically-excellent hall.
The Artist:
Pandit Anindo Chatterjee is a rare phenomenon in art of
tabla playing. Throughout history, few artists stand out in each
generation. They preserve a heritage while defining it anew,
marking its evolution in time . Anindo Chatterjee is one of
those few. The power and speed combined with the total clarity
and sweetness of his playing is unparalleled and speaks of years
of back breaking practice; his vast knowledge of repertoire and
ability to improvise in every style of tabla playing make him an
invaluable asset to Indian music and a reference for its scholars;
the spontaneity and intuitiveness of both his accompaniment and
his solo improvisations speak of the depth of his artistry and
leave his audiences speechless. Anindo Chatterjee is one of the
great musicians of our time.
The guiding force of Anindoji's amazing musical journey was
his beloved uncle Biswanath Chatterjee. His family was full
of music and from the beginning Anindo was groomed to become
a tabla player. Early childhood lessons were received from his
uncle Amarnath Chatterjee. After receiving first prize in the
all India Children's Music Competition at the young age of 6,
he was accepted his technique and learned the rich repertoire
of traditional tabla. He also received two years of taleem from
Ustad Afaq Hussain Khan (1964-66) of Lucknow Gharana. Anindoji's
tabla solo debut was at age 10. He has since developed one of the
most dynamic and rich table solo performances of his generation.
Infused with the legacy of the Farukhabad gharana yet
enriched with aspects of all gharanas, his performances are
unpredictable and extraordinarily diverse. With technical and
artistic brilliance he presents some of the rarest and most
difficult material in the tabla repertoire: this at extreme speeds
with uncompromised clarity and beauty. In addition to his vast
traditional repertoire, He himself is the composer of countless
compositions, through which he explores the edge of possible and
makes his timeless contribution to the art from. For the tabla
lovers around the world his playing is the pinnacle. No Jawab.
As an accompanist, Anindoji made his world debut in 1975 with
one of the greatest musicians in the history of Indian Music,
Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Anindoji's musical sensitivity and
technical genius, combined with his majestic stage presence make
him the favorite accompanist to all the preeminent musicians of
India . He continued to perform with Pandit Nikhil Banerjee till
his death and has shared the stage with the late Ustad Vilayat
Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar khan, Ustad Amjad
Ali Khan, Ustad Raise Khan, Ustad Imrat Khan, Pandit Shiv Kumar
Sharma, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur,
Parveen Sultana, Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Bhimsen Jhoshi, Pandit
Jasraj, Pandit Ram Narayan, Dr. L. Subramanium, Dr. Balmuruli
Krishna and many others. In addition to performing on the
great stages of over 60 countries, Anindoji had the honor of
performing as a delegate for the Government of India in Japan ,
Mongolia , and Russia and in 1990 was the youngest tabla player
ever to perform at the House of Commons in London . Anindoji has
made countless recordings for both National and International
recording houses touching the world with his music.
As a guru and a teacher Anindoji is equally accomplished. He
has taught at the American Center for the Performing Arts in 1978
in Berkley (USA), Texas University at Austin (USA), Bard College
in New York ( USA ), Pittsburg University (USA), Smithsonian
Museum in Washington DC , Ritburg Museum in Zurich Switzerland ,
Leeds University in the UK , and Rabindra Bharati University in
Kolkata. From years of dedicated teaching Anindoji has many very
promising disciples making their way to the stage as stalwarts
of the next generation. Among them are his only son Anubrata,
who is making his mark as one of the finest tabla players of
his generation, and several talented foreign students who are
performing both in their countries and in India.
From the very beginning, great musicians, scholars, and music
lovers have appreciated and praised Anindoji's music. In honor of
a lifetime of effort and achievement, Anindoji has received many
awards and honors. Included among them are a Gold Medal at the All
India Radio Music Competition at the tender age of 16, "Talsamrat"
from Ustad Amir Hussain Khan Memorial Foundation of Bombay in
1991, the "Shiromoni Award" by Asian Paints of Kolkata in 1995,
"Best Performer of the Year" in 1997 from the All India Critics
Association, "Tala Rishi Samman" by Aurangabad State Academy in
1997, the "Guru Kelucharan Award" from the government of Orissa in
2003, "Swarsagar Puraskar" by the Maharastra Municipal Corporation
in 2005, and the prestigious "Sangeet Natak Akademi Award"
by the honorable President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in 2002.

martha and monica is...
Monica Scott, cello and Hadley McCarroll, piano
martha and monica
In Concert
Friday, 26 October at 8:00 pm
martha & monica embark on their second concert season and
the Hillside Club Concerts Series is delighted to host the return of
these two superbly talented artists in our wonderful hall.
The Program:
On October 26th, 2007, the duo launches a brand-new program
entitled Voyages - a journey traversing a wide stylistic
territory while crossing new frontiers. The program sets off
with songs from Banalites, Fetes Galantes and other cycles
(transcribed by martha & monica) composed by Francis Poulenc and
Claude Debussy, both masters of mood - always with the lightest
of touches - balancing perfectly crafted phrasing and sensitive poetic
nuance.
Two works for solo piano and cello, respectively, show off
some singular qualities of each instrument. Ondine,
by Maurice Ravel, is from a larger suite for the piano
entitled Gaspard de la Nuit. Ingeniously, the work
creates a sublime reverie by conjuring an aural equivalent to
"mist" by exploring the qualities in the tuning of the piano
itself. Invece, by Pascal Dusapin was composed
with the idea of trying out novel techniques on the cello that
were not only unusual, but also breaking many of the composers'
own conventions. The Italian word invece translates as "instead
of", or "on the contrary". Stemming from a period in which
Dusapin composed a series of solo works for various intruments,
all beginning with the letter "i", Invece is an energetic tour
de force.
Nadia Boulanger was one of the most influential
French musicians of the twentiethy century: teacher, composer and
pianist, she counted Elliott Carter, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland
and Philip Glass among her many famous American students. 3
pieces for cello and piano offer a glimpse into Boulanger's
musical soul.
The journey ends with the great Sonata, Op. 65 by Frédéric
Chopin. Despite requesting his heart be sent back to his
native Poland after his death, that heart remained French to its
core! His compositional aesthetic embodied all that was distinctly
Parisian: elegance, embellishment, taste and refinement - all
coupled with exquisite technical mastery. Chopin's friendship with
the notable cellist Franchomme inspired him to write numerous
works for cello, the only instrument besides piano for which
he did compose solo works. The Sonata is a major work in four
movements, exploiting the richness and depth of the cello's
singing qualities, arabesquing around a beautiful, delicate
yet forceful piano part. A performance featuring the Sonata,
with Chopin at the piano and Franchomme on cello, was the last
public concert Chopin ever gave!
The Artists:
Offering a rewarding and eye-opening experience, pianist
Hadley McCarroll and cellist Monica Scott share an
intense and passionate desire to communicate through music. As
martha & monica, Ms. McCarroll and Ms. Scott come together
to perform music from eras, styles, and cultures that run the
gamut, their own curiosity leading them in repertoire choices
and interpretation. Both artists have extensive chamber music and
solo performing experiences, both in the U.S. and abroad. martha
& monica is an affiliate of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber
Music, and is generously supported by the Bay Area community. The
2007-08 season includes concerts in San Francisco, Berkeley,
and Point Reyes.
Monica Scotta, cellist, [monica] has had a varied career
of solo, chamber music and orchestral work on both sides of the
Atlantic. After completing her studies at the Oberlin Conservatory
of Music, she received her soloist's diploma from the Sweelinck
Conservatorium in Amsterdam. Ms. Scott has played at numerous
festivals in Germany and Switzerland, as well as in Prussia Cove,
England, and Sarasota, Florida. After an artist residency at
the Banff Centre, Monica performed for four seasons with the
Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa in Portugal, a position which
included performing over 50 concerts per year with the Alcantara
Quartet. During this time she was also a featured soloist with the
Orquestra Metropolitana, performing concertos under the baton of
Eduardo Alonzo Crespo, with whom she has also performed Dvorák
and Haydn concertos in Argentina. Since moving to the Bay Area
in 1997, Ms. Scott has concentrated on the presentation of little
known twentieth century repertoire, and programming mixed recitals
both on modern and baroque cello. Formerly the cellist in the Del
Sol String Quartet, Monica performed countless premieres in that
capacity, helping to develop an artistic vision for the ensemble
which led to two consecutive Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards
for Adventurous Programming. Monica has performed with Composer's
Inc and the Composer's Alliance, is a member of the sfsoundGroup,
and also has a duo with her mother, pianist Irene Schreier. She
teaches cello both privately and in the Preparatory Division of
the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Hailed for her "...lively and exhilarating..." pianism (San
Francisco Classical Voice), Pianist Hadley McCarroll
[martha] appears regularly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area,
United States, and internationally as a solo and collaborative
artist and opera coach. Ms. McCarroll enjoys collaborations with
local companies San Francisco Opera and Opera Center, Festival
Opera, Opera San José, Berkeley Opera, North Bay Opera, West
Bay Opera. Ms. McCarroll also serves on the music staff of the
Royal Danish Opera, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Under the baton of
maestro Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, she has
served as musical preparer for concert performances of operas
by Elliott Carter and Phillip Manoury. In the spring of 2007
she assisted in preparing Unsuk Chin's work Sopranica Cantatrix,
a chamber work for two sopranos and countertenor. In addition to
directing her own private piano and coaching studios in Oakland,
she has served on the piano faculty of the Community Music Center
since 1997. Ms. McCarroll has received an individual artist
grant from the City of Oakland to perform concertos for piano
and chamber wind ensemble. As a member of the acclaimed Bay Area
vocalinstrumental trio The Mirage Ensemble, she has presented
chamber music masterclasses and concerts at the Northwestern
University School of Music.

Kurt Ribak Ensemble
with Special Guests
In Concert
Friday October 12 at 8:00 pm
The Berkeley Hillside Club is pleased to present
the Kurt Ribak Ensemble in concert.
Don't miss this talented group performing in our
acoustically-excellent hall.
The Ensemble:
The Kurt Ribak Ensemble definitely qualifies as a
local treasure; bassist Ribak and his group have been delighting
Bay Area audiences for almost a decade. While their repertoir
has a firm grounding in jazz standards and the Great American
Songbook, much of the ensemble's performance features Kurt's
original compositions. For this date the ensemble features
Kurt's long-time collaborator, pianist Greg Sankovich,
and the superb Bay Area drummer Bryan Bowman. Featured
guest artists will include vocalist Sheilani Alix, and
Johannes Mager on trombone.
The Artists:
Kurt Ribak grew up in Berkeley, CA. Early musical
experiences included singing in the San Francisco Boys Chorus. In
grade school Kurt began studying the cello. Kurt later studied
with major cellists, including Bonnie Hampton, Susie Napper,
and Elisabeth LeGuin.
While a student at UC Berkeley Kurt began playing electric
bass, buying his first good bass with money made working as a
janitor. At Cal he continued to play classical music and studied
jazz under Neal Heidler and Jeremy Cohen while playing in the
UC Jazz Ensembles, where he met and first played with pianist
Greg Sankovich. Kurt also studied West African drumming with
C.K. Ladzekpo and spent summers teaching at Cazadero Music Camp,
where he played with trombonist Julian Priester, guitarist /
composer Paul Dresher, and steel drummer Andy Narell, as well
as working in the local early music scene.
Kurt subsequently earned a scholarship to Berklee College
of Music, after a bout with tendinitis. He graduated with top
honors, studying bass with Whit Browne, Bruce Gertz, and John
Repucci. Kurt spent many hours transcribing and absorbing the
styles of bassists Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, and Charles Mingus,
but also spent hours dissecting the compositions and arrangements
of African bandleader Fela Kuti and R&B giant James Brown.
Kurt first learned of his love of composition while at
Berklee College of Music. His early tunes often reflected a
strong Thelonious Monk influence, while others reflect his love
of the great bassists/composer/bandleader Charles Mingus, whose
music he studied intensively at Berklee. Later tunes bring to
mind the South African composer Abdullah Ibrahim a.k.a. Dollar
Brand, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, and Cannonball Adderley.
After graduation from Berklee Kurt returned to the San
Francisco Bay area. Drummer Bryan Melvin, formerly with the
great electric bassist Jaco Pastorius, said Kurt plays bass
"the way it should be played." R&B legend Johnny Otis sought
him out to say Kurt's playing reminded Otis of the late bassist
Curtis Counce, a favorite sideman of Otis.
Kurt has played with many prominent musicians. Among them are
jazz/blues vocalist Faye Carol, new music composer Paul Dresher,
Broadway singer Lillias Brooks, JC Hopkins (writer and former
bandleader for Norah Jones), guitarist Adam Levy, sideman with
Tracy Chapman and Norah Jones, and with Ralph Carney, best known
for his work with Tom Waits. Kurt's also played with prominent
non-jazz musicians, including Danny Carnahan of Wake the Dead and
Eric and Suzy Thompson, who have received international acclaim
for their performances of bluegrass and Cajun music. Kurt also
appeared as an actor in commercial videos and films, including
Erica Jordan's "In the Wake" (released in 2001) and Rob Nilsson's
upcoming release "Scheme." He also contributed music to both
films.
In 2001 Kurt started his own group, the Kurt Ribak Trio, which
has been his primary musical focus. In 2003 he re-connected
with UC Jazz Ensembles bandmate Greg Sankovich, the trio's
pianist. The Kurt Ribak Trio features Kurt's own compositions but
includes select jazz standards and under-appreciated tunes from
the Great American Songbook. The Kurt Ribak Trio's second CD,
"more," featuring his compositions, has just been released on
Rodia Records.
Greg Sankovich has been performing on keyboards and
producing music since he was twelve years old. He began with
classical studies when he was five years old. Later he studied
with some of the finest jazz and Latin pianists and educators in
the Bay Area. His musical inspirations included Herbie Hancock,
Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, and Keith Jarrett.
Greg attended University of California, Berkeley, where he
was active in the UC Berkeley Jazz Ensembles, touring Japan,
Northern Europe, Poland, and Scandinavia. After graduation from
UC Berkeley, Greg moved to Japan with a UCB inspired jazz-fusion
band, Taikun. Greg lived in Japan over ten years, performing
and composing for a long line of top Japanese artists.
Greg, a Bay Area native, returned to the san Francisco area
in the mid-1990s and has since contributed to an eclectic range
of musical projects from jazz to house to hiphop to pop. He
has worked with many talented artists including Terry Francis,
Brenda Boykin, H-Foundation, Onions, and Doc Martin. He has
contributed music to over 20 record labels including Warner,
Columbia, Siesta, Tango, and Yoshitoshi. Greg's music can also
be found in the soundtrack for "Groove," a Sony Classics film.
Greg produces dance music and performs regularly in the SF Bay
Area. Greg has produced dance music currently in Europe's Top
Ten. He performs with many groups, including bassist/composer
Kurt Ribak's original groups, jazz-funk band Times 4 featuring
sensational saxophonist Lincoln Adler, jam band Ten Ton Chicken,
R&B band Blue Sky Band, and various jazz projects. Times 4 has
appeared at the JVC Jazz Festival, Pearl's in San Francisco,
and Yoshi's in Oakland.
Born in Los Angeles, Bryan Bowman was surrounded by music from an
early age. His Father Robert is a classical pianist and music
professor at Chico State University and his mother plays the cello and
is an international folk dancer. These influences guided his musical
journey toward the study of classical, jazz, rock, Balkan and North
Indian classical music.
He has performed and recorded with numerous jazz and rock artists including:
Deron Johnson (Miles Davis, David Sandborn, Marcus Miller, Stanley
Clark), Mike Zilber, Dayna Stevens, Thomas Morgan, Sam Bevan, Bob
Kenmotsu, Mike Abraham, Jeff Massanari, Randy Vincent, John Stowell,
John Wiitala, Ben Stolorow, Mark Levine, John Shifflet, Andre Bush,
Ken French, Clairdee, Harvey Winapel, Dahveed Behroozi, Betty Fu,
Sarah Manning, Mario Guaneri, Jessica Neighbor, Loose Wig, Anton
Schwartz, and Brian Kane.
Bryan recorded and toured the United States with RCA recording artists
Behan/Johnson. He has also recorded and performed in the international
music arena which such groups as Ivan Milev and Bulgarika, Edessa,
Trio Mopmu with Lily Storm, Late Cift, Members of Kitka and Aleph
Null.
Bryan studied music formally at The Berklee College of Music in
Boston, CSU Long Beach and CSU Chico. He is currently a free lance
performer and composer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Antonio Jorge Gonçalves and Gino Robair:
Improvised Light Painting with Skronky Music
Tuesday October 2 |