Board, Staff, and Writers
Advisory Board
The role of the Advisory Board is to provide oversight for San Francisco Classical Voice on behalf of the board of the CIF of the San Francisco Foundation, SFCV's fiscal sponsor. The members are:
Thomas Watrous (chairperson), retired attorney, Gordon, Watrous, Ryan, Langley, Bruno, and Paltenghi in Martinez, California; arts patron; singer with UC Berkeley Alumni Chorus.
Marie Bertillion Collins (nominating committee chair), judge (retired). Board member: Cal Performances, Merola Opera Program, and San Francisco Early Music Society; founding board member and past president: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the UC Berkeley Committee for the Berkeley Early Music Festival.
Mary C. Falvey (finance chair), management consultant and investor in early-stage companies. Member, Board of Governors, San Francisco Symphony; vice chair, Board of Advisors, Smithsonian Institution Libraries; trustee emeritus and presidential councillor, Cornell University; former board chair: San Francisco Performances and Saint Francis Hospital Foundation; former trustee: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Gordon Getty, composer and philanthropist.
Patrick Beaudan, principal and founder of Sophia Capital, an institutional distributor of alternative investment funds. Former managing director of Equity Capital Network with offices in New York, Paris, and London. Former Head of European Strategy and Business Development for Lehman Brothers in London and New York. Former McKinsey consultant. Author of several scientific papers, guest lecturer at H.E.C.'s Department of Finance in France. BS, MS State University of New York, PhD Stanford University.
Taek Kwon, operating partner, TPG Growth, a private equity firm. Former CEO of Friendster.com; former executive at Citysearch and Hotwire.
Kim Maxwell, retired Silicon Valley entrepreneur, now literary critic. Past president, California Bach Society; past member, Board of Governors, San Francisco Symphony.
Howard Mel, professor emeritus of biophysics, UC Berkeley. Former board member, Oakland Symphony; former director: UC Education Abroad Program and Lawrence Hall of Science; former chairman, UC Berkeley Graduate Group in Biophysics; former board member, UC Berkeley Faculty Club.
Marina Nelson, associate, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Thomas Z. Reicher, partner in the law firm Cooley, Godward, and Kronish. Specializes in employee benefit plans, equity compensation plans and executive compensation. Board member: East Bay Community Law Center, Historic Brass Society. Former Board member: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Greenwood Music Camp, Hartford Conservatory of Music and Dance, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. BA, Amherst College; MA UC Berkeley; JD Stanford Law School. Has performed as a hornist with Berkeley Symphony, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Hartford Symphony, San Jose Symphony, and Carmel Bach Festival.
Peter Winkelstein, emeritus principal, architecture firm SMWM (Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein Moris). Founding board member: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (1980-1993). Board member: SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, 1998-present); Planning Association for the Richmond (1995-present); Citizens Advisory Committee, Laguna Honda Hospital (1999-present).
Staff
Catherine Getches, managing editor (catherine@sfcv.org). Catherine edits the Music News, Listening Ahead, Listeners' Box, and the Performance Calendar, and Article Index, and manages production. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, and Salon.
Michael Zwiebach, associate editor (michael@sfcv.org). Michael assigns and edits reviews, and writes regularly for SFCV. He has a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
Mark Woodworth, associate editor. Mark edits reviews. A freelance book editor, he has written cover stories for Dance Magazine and was dance and theater critic for San Francisco Sentinel. He has sung in many choruses, as well as conducted and arranged music.
Robert P. Commanday, founding editor. Bob regularly advises and writes for SFCV. He was the chief music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle from 1965 to 1993, and before that a conductor and lecturer at UC Berkeley.
Writers
Rebekah Ahrendt holds the artist's diploma in viola da gamba and historical performance practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Currently, she is a graduate student in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.
Mark Alburger is an award-winning ASCAP composer of concert music published by New Music, editor-publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal, oboist, pianist, vocalist, and music critic.
John Bender is director of the Stanford Humanities Center and professor of English and comparative literature at Stanford University. He has reviewed the San Francisco Opera for Opera Canada for many years.
David Bratman is a librarian based in the South Bay.
Vera Breheda is a Bay Area pianist who has concertized in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, as well as in Europe and Japan. Her Brahms CD was selected as best classical solo album from the 2006 Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
Thomas Busse is the music director of San Francisco's City Concert Opera and a freelance professional singer.
Brett Campbell writes for The Wall Street Journal, NewMusicBox, and many other publications. He and Bill Alves are working on a biography of Lou Harrison.
Scott Cmiel is a guitarist on the faculties of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and UC Berkeley.
Clifford [Kip] Cranna is musical administrator of the San Francisco Opera and lectures frequently on music appreciation.
Peter Danner is editor of Soundboard, a quarterly magazine for classical guitarists, and past president of the Lute Society of America.
Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculty of UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University lecturer emerita, and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.
Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.
Scott Edwards is a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley studying 16th- and 17th-century music
Aaron Einbond is a Ph.D. candidate in music composition at UC Berkeley.
Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.
Stephanie Friedman, mezzo-soprano, is retired from more than three decades of singing in opera and concerts in the U.S. and abroad.
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) writes the Music News column and regularly covers a wide range of concerts for SFCV.
Heather Hadlock is associate professor of music at Stanford University.
Lisa Hirsch is a technical writer. She studied music at Brandeis and SUNY/Stony Brook.
D. Kern Holoman is Barbara K. Jackson Professor of Music at UC Davis, where he conducts the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. His most recent book is a history of the Paris Conservatory Orchestra: The Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, 1828-1967 (University of California Press, 2004).
Lisa Houston is a mezzo-soprano from Berkeley, where she teaches voice. She has performed as a soloist with Golden Gate Opera, Pacific Repertory Opera, and the Kensington Symphony.
Alexander Kahn is a Ph.D. candidate in music history and literature at UC Berkeley, where his research is focused on the Hollywood émigrés. He is also the assistant conductor of the Oakland Civic and the UC Berkeley symphony orchestras.
James Keolker is a frequent writer and lecturer on opera, as well as a professor of opera studies at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of the award-winning book Last Acts: The Operas of Puccini and His Italian Contemporaries.
Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College.
Bruce Lamott is director of the Philharmonia Chorale, the professional chorus of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and was formerly choral director of the Carmel Bach Festival. He teaches music history at San Francisco University High School and the S.F. Conservatory of Music.
Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who lives in the East Bay.
Jonathan Rhodes Lee studied harpsichord in New York, San Francisco, and the Netherlands. He is currently enrolled in the graduate program in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.
Anatole Leikin is professor of music at UC Santa Cruz. His articles have appeared in various musicological journals and essay collections. He has recorded piano music of Chopin and Scriabin. Professor Leikin also serves as an editor for The Complete Chopin — A New Critical Edition (Peters Edition, London) and is writing a book about Scriabin's performing style for Ashgate Publishing.
Marianne Lipanovich is a Bay Area-based writer and editor. A gardening expert, she is a lifelong music lover, having learned to read music before she learned to read.
John Lutterman is a cellist and musicologist. He holds a D.M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook and a Ph.D. in historical musicology from UC Davis.
Scott MacClelland has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose, since 1978. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College. In recent years he has contributed articles to Strings magazine.
Lindy Li Mark, Ph.D., is professor emerita and former chair of the department of anthropology at California State University, Hayward. She also studied ethnomusicology for her M.A. degree.
John McCarthy is a pianist and teacher. He is director of preparatory and extension divisions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Michael McDonagh is a San Francisco-based poet and arts writer whose work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Review of Books, The Threepenny Review, and The Bay Area Reporter.
Kathryn Miller is a mezzo-soprano and holds degrees in singing from London's Royal Academy of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Beeri Moalem is a violist, teacher, writer, and composer.
Kaneez Munjee is a singer, writer, and editor. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in musicology from Stanford University and is the media and publications director at Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Edward Ortiz writes for The Sacramento Bee and has written for The Boston Globe, the Berkshire Eagle, and The Providence Journal.
Laura Stanfield Prichard is an active vocalist, conductor, teacher, and music librarian in the Bay Area. She is on the faculty at California State University, Hayward, and gives frequent lectures for the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera.
William Quillen is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.
Renato Rodolfo-Sioson has a master's degree in musicology from UC Berkeley. He also received the licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in piano performance while studying in India.
Jeff Rosenfeld is an oboist with the Kensington Symphony, West County Winds, and Pacific Wind Ensemble. He is a freelance science journalist and author of the recent book Eye of the Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards.
Jonathan Russell is a professor of musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and music director at First Congregational Church in San Francisco. He is active in the Bay Area as a clarinetist, bass clarinetist, and composer.
Joseph Sargent is a doctoral candidate in musicology at Stanford University, a professional writer and editor, as well as a performer, conductor, and scholar of early music.
Jason Victor Serinus writes about music for such publications as Opera News, Stereophile, San Francisco Magazine, East Bay Express, and Bay Area Reporter.
Olivia Stapp is an opera director, formerly artistic director of Festival Opera 1995-2001, and has had a major international career as a soprano.
Michelle Dulak Thomson is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and The New York Times.
Heuwell Tircuit is a composer, performer, and writer who was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for The San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote previously for Chicago's American and The Asahi Evening News.
Chloe Veltman is the chief theater critic for S.F. Weekly, and has contributed articles about theater, music, and other art forms to such publications as The Guardian, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Believer. She also plays oboe and sings contralto with a number of Bay Area-based music ensembles, including Redwood Winds and San Francisco Renaissance Voices.
Noel Verzosa is a graduate student in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.
Beverly Wilcox, a natural hornist, is a graduate student in music history at UC Davis.
William Wellborn is a pianist who performs and lectures in the United States and Europe, and from 1995 to 1997 was host of the program "Piano Legacy" on San Francisco radio station KDFC. He is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory, where he teaches courses in piano, piano history, and opera.