Performers

Soprano Ann Moss enjoys an active career in opera, oratorio and chamber music, specializing in the performance of modern and contemporary repertoire. She holds a Post Graduate Degree in Voice from San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2005), a Master of Music in Voice from Longy School of Music (2002), and a Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College (1999). Ann's stage roles include Blonde (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Seraglio) Nannetta (Falstaff), Despina (Cosi fan tutte), Le Feu/La princesse/Le rossignol (L'enfant et les sortileges) and Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel). She has performed in Master Classes with esteemed artists including Jose Van Dam, Nathan Gunn, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Jake Heggie, John Harbison, Craig Smith, and Barbara Kilduff. Her teachers include Sheri Greenawald, Wendy Hillhouse, Anna Gabriali and Rodney Gisick, and she has received coaching from Steven Bailey, Brian Moll, Paul Hersh, Wayman Chen, Brenda Miller, and Tim Bach, among others. Ann was born in Lincoln MA, and resides and teaches in Richmond, CA.

Recognized as a champion of contemporary vocal music, Ms. Moss is frequently sought out by composers to co-create new works, and takes immense pleasure in the construction of first performances. She has collaborated with acclaimed composers Jake Heggie, John Harbison, Aaron Jay Kernis, Eric Sawyer, and Vartan Aghababian, as well as with students of Howard Frazin, Paul Brust, David Conte, and Eleanor Armer. Recent engagements include the premiere of Pulitzer winner Wayne Peterson's Freedom and Love for Soprano and Percussion with Earplay, an encore performance at the Sacramento Festival of New Music, and a presentation of Pulitzer winner Aaron Jay Kernis' song cycle Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby (2006) with Axel Strauss, David Tannenbaum, and the composer at the piano. This March, Ann will perform Samuel Barber's 3 Songs (1974) and solos in John Rutter's Requiem with Martin Morley, two recent compositions of Dieter Schnebel at Other Minds Festival 13, and a work by Erik Jekabson at the Switchboard Music Festival. April finds her taking a step back in time to perform Schubert's second-to-last song, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, at Noe Valley Chamber Music. In May she will join Berkeley Opera for their production of Ravel's 1925 opera, L'enfant et les sortilèges.


The Yeager String Quartet is made up of Paul Yeager and Steph Bibbo, violins, Alexa Beattie, viola, and Charlie Akert, cello. This emerging ensemble's debut performance took place in November of 2007 at the SF Conservatory of Music, featuring the Schnittke Piano Quintet with Ian Scarfe. They have recorded music for a theatre piece and soon-to-be-released DVD film entitled "Down from the Mountaintop" directed by Calvin Levels. The members hail from diverse geographic backgrounds; Paul Yeager from the Bay Area, mostly, Steph Bibbo from Massachusetts, Alexa Beattie from Scotland, and Charlie Akert from Alaska and Switzerland. Besides their common musical interests, they engage an uncannily overlapping set of holistic practices and routines, including yoga, massage therapy, and prolonged Master Cleanse fasts.

Steven Bailey is a pianist of wide versatility, performing in and outside the San Francisco Bay Area as soloist, chamber and collaborative keyboardist. He accompanied mezzo-soprano Elza van den Heever at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC as part of the Center’s “Conservatory Project”. Their performance can be seen on webcast at the Kennedy Center website. Steven Bailey has performed as concerto soloist with the Diablo Symphony, UC-Davis Symphony, San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, and Magnificat Baroque Orchestra. He is a regular guest as fortepianist on original period instruments at the American Bach Soloists’ Summerfest chamber music performances, and performed with ABS in March as co-harpsichordist. He has collaborated with members of the Alexander, Arlekin and Sausalito quartets. He provided live musical accompaniment for SMUIN Ballet’s production of “Stravinsky Piano Pieces” and was featured on the San Francisco variety program “Mornings on Two” on the FOX Network. He is the regular continuo player for the San Francisco Bach Choir. Steven Bailey’s first solo CD recording, “The Art of the Opera Transcription”, features seven virtuosic operatic fantasies and paraphrases composed by the master Franz Liszt. He was recording producer and musical editor of the San Francisco Bach Choir’s latest CD offering, “Ceremonies and Celebrations”, released in December 2002. Mr. Bailey holds a Master of Music degree in Piano performance from Boston University. He teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Harpist Kristal Schwartz has been performing professionally for over 10 years. She is a recent graduate of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she was awarded her Masters in Performance with Honors. Alongside work with several up and coming composers, she is currently in the process of recording an album, preparing for solo concerts, and performing for many Bay Area private events, weddings and parties. When she is not performing she is a nanny for 4 kids and pursuing a research project in
                                    musical aesthetics and cultural studies.

       Composers

Vartan Aghababian began piano studies at the age of eight and soon after started composing.  His grammar school years of music study were infused with Orff Schulwerke and Dalcroze Eurhythmics; in the years which followed, his private studies were augmented to include the recorder, the oboe and English horn, voice and dance.  His experience includes performances in choirs, orchestras, wind ensembles as well as many solo and chamber performances.  He studied with William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett during his undergraduate years at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and afterwards with James Hartway of Wayne State University (Detroit).  After receiving a diploma in film scoring from the Berklee College of Music (Boston), he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a film music editor with Warner Brothers Studios. Following the two years in southern California, he returned to Boston to work as a freelance composer, scoring short documentary films and composing on commission.  He completed his master's degree in composition at the Longy School of Music (Cambridge, MA) in 2002 studying with Eric  Sawyer.  His music has been performed across the United States, in east Asia and Europe. Currently, Mr. Aghababian is the Composer in Residence for the vocal ensemble Recuerdo (Cambridge, MA) a position which he has held for six years.  He teaches music theory and composition privately; he also teaches at the Longy  School of Music, Boston University and the Winchester Community Music School.  He is in his fourth year of his doctoral studies in composition at Boston University studying with Samuel Headrick and continues to compose on commission.

An open-hearted yet tough romantic, Samuel Barber (b. 1910, d. 1981) was one of the few twentieth century American composers to fight for the primacy of lyricism. In his last decades he seemed to be losing the battle, but by the end of the century Barber had posthumously become one of America's most widely performed and recorded composers. Barber entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924, where he met future opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti; the two would become lifelong lovers. Barber was an able pianist and a baritone of some talent, but he was an even more precocious composer. His 1933 Curtis graduation piece, the spirited School for Scandal Overture, has become a beloved concert opener. Barber developed into America's most enduring composer of art songs; most popular is his tender setting for soprano and chamber orchestra of James Agee's Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Barber had unerring taste in texts, and his literary interests led him to compose some allusive short orchestral pieces. Yet he was particularly adept at writing abstract works; many of these are in large forms: two symphonies, one string quartet, an ambitious piano sonata, and one concerto each for violin, cello, and piano. While following traditional formats, they are propelled by a dramatic expressivity that hadn't been fashionable since Sibelius. Barber would have seemed an ideal composer for the stage, but he had limited success in that realm. Medea, a 1947 dance score for Martha Graham, has found greater longevity in orchestral excerpts. His 1958 Vanessa garnered him the first of two Pulitzer Prizes (the second was for his Piano Concerto), but, like most other American operas, it quickly dropped out of sight. Barber wrote Anthony and Cleopatra to open the new Metropolitan Opera House in 1966, but critical reaction was so hostile that he produced very little during his remaining 15 years. Barber was too conservative to be fashionable; his harmony could be astringent, but his tonality remained secure, his rhythms were strong and clear, and he was not above writing a good melody. ~ James Reel, AMG

Jacob Bertrand has been playing violin and piano since childhood. He began his formal training in music as an undergraduate at Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) where he was a music and biology double major. He graduated from the music department with honors and has continued his studies in composition and theory with Berkeley-based composer and pianist JooWan Kim. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California San Francisco, where he studies virulence mechanisms of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Jacob lives in San Francisco with his partner, the physician and poet C. Dale Young.

JooWan Kim was born in Pusan, South Korea, 1978. Despite his natural talent for music, JooWan did not pursue music seriously until 1997. Prior to that, he had was one of the top academic students at An-Yang high school. In the fall of 1997, Kim met professor Hun Sunwoo at Kang-Nam University and started his initial training in harmony and composition. As his family wasn't able to afford lessons from a college professor, JooWan planned to work to pay for his lessons. However, after listening to his improvisations on the piano, professor Sunwoo started giving lessons free of charge. In 1998 JooWan came to San Francisco, and about a year later received a scholarship for composition and piano performance from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, where he graduated with honor (summa cum laude) in 2003. While attending the Berklee College of Music, JooWan began to practice Sundo(Korean Taoist Internal Alchemy) and Traditional Rinzai Zen at the Sixth Patriarch Zen Center in Berkeley, where he resided from 1998 to 2004, under the guidance of Venerable Hyunoong Sunim. This experience made a huge influence on JooWan's personal and musical development. In 2004, he conceived the "Book of Mik Nawooj (2004-2005)", a musical Taoist mythology which depicts the main character's pursuit of the ultimate power. The suite consists of 5 pieces that are varied in styles, genres and instrumentation. It includes a string orchestra, fusion octet with a rapper, duet with electronics, and two chamber orchestras. From 2004-2006, JooWan attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a scholarship in composition, earning a Masters Degree. While at the Conservatory, he composed for various soloists, ensembles and orchestras. In 2005, he formed Ensemble Mik Nawooj, which consists of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, drum set, bass and an emcee. It was for this ensemble that Kim wrote the "Great Integration", the next chapter for "Book of Mik Nawooj". Upon graduation, JooWan signed a management contract with the Jazz Legend Ahmad Jamal. Joowan's genuine love for classical, hip-hop, jazz, film score and many other genres, in conjunction with his training in traditional Western European composition and Taoist Buddhist spiritual disciplines, creates a unique sound that separates him from most other musicians. Kim believes that the world is going through a profound alchemical change right now, and his music reflects this "Great Integration". JooWan lives in Berkeley, CA and can be found at local fine tea shops, drinking tea, meditating, or composing. JooWan Kim is a Steinway Artist.

 
As a young man, Liam Wade was exposed to the world of classical music by some of the great bass teachers of our time: Francois Rabbath, Stuart Sankey, Lucas Drew and Kevin Mauldin. He performed with the SW Florida Symphony, Palm Beach Opera and the National Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. In the summers he participated in festivals at Brevard Music Center in North Carolina and Domaine Forget in Quebec. At the age of 19, Liam composed a quartet entitled Highlander: Rabbath in Canada. As Liam tells it, "Rabbath was brought to tears, embraced me, and instructed me that I had found my calling."  The themes from that quartet would be used to construct  his Symphony #1 for Cello and Orchestra. A recording of the HARID Conservatory Philharmonia with cello soloist Rebecca Wenham then fell into the hands of Dr. Philip Lasser at the Juilliard School who spent the next year and a half showing Liam the imitative and invertible counterpoint used by the great composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, Liam received scholarship to study for three summers at La Schola Cantorum in Paris with Dr. Lasser and Narcis Bonet. At the Schola, he learned harmony, counterpoint and analysis. He also worked with composers Samuel Adler, Lucas Foss and Michel Merlet. In 2002, Liam moved to Cambridge, MA to study composition at the Longy School of Music under composer Howard Frazin. Liam's works have been played by some of the top performers in the Boston area: Ann Moss, Shoko Baba, Sara Bielanski, Andrew Eng, Yoko Hagino, Fabrizio Mazzetta, Philip Steudlin and Quartet X. He also organized the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, a Mothers of Invention inspired performance group at the Zeitgeist gallery. His current projects, along with the 4 Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, include a Trio for Flute, Harp and Percussion. Liam lives in San Diego and is a member of BMI -Broadcast Music Incorporated.

Pianist and Arranger Patrick Lawrence has worked as a solo pianist, accompanist and vocal coach in Australia, Vienna and the in the United States where he gained a Masters Degree in vocal accompanying from the University of Cincinnati.  His favorite gigs since returning to Australia in 2002 include two national tours with OzOpera’s “La Bohème” and another with Prunella Scales (aka Sybill Fawlty from Fawlty Towers) and Ian Partridge in the theatre piece “An Evening with Queen Victoria.” Patrick’s work with singers, study of languages and love of theatre have all fueled his fascination with the expressive power of the human voice.  He is a keen supporter of contemporary music and enjoys experimenting with the recital format, particularly in combination with vocalists. Patrick also moonlights as a social worker of sorts with refugees and I.V. drug users.