About Us.
The evocative and embracing resonance of the natural world is a pervasive theme in the music of Ann Callaway, a contributing director of Sonic Harvest. Her works have been premiered by the Seattle (Concerto for Bass Clarinet) and St. Louis (Amethyst for soprano & orchestra) Symphony Orchestras, the New York New Music Ensemble, and Earplay. She has been composer in residence for Bella Musica and was the inaugural composer for Voci’s New Works Project, which commissioned On Music and Nature: Three Hopkins Settings (2015). The Peninsula Women’s Chorus recently performed Silvery Blue (2003, on her own poem on a local butterfly). Her 2020 project was Clamavi de tribulatione mea, a setting for double chorus of Jonah’s hymn of deliverance from the whale’s belly. Callaway is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has held residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Leighton Artist Colony in Banff. Her music is published by Subito Music Corp.
|
Monica Chew (she/her) is an Oakland pianist and composer. In 2017 she released her first solo album Tender and Strange, featuring works by Bartók, Janáček, Messiaen, Takemitsu, and Scriabin. A “gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression” (Whole Note), she has been featured on radio stations worldwide. She started composing in 2017 and couldn’t be happier about it. Prior to 2015, she worked nearly a decade as a principal software engineer on security and privacy at Mozilla and Google. She lives in Oakland with her husband, an 1899 Steinway B, a clavichord, and a disused violin. Monica is Sonic Harvest's guest composer for 2023. . |
Peter Josheff (composer and clarinetist) has been on the front lines of the northern California new music scene for more than 30 years. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is a co-founder of Earplay and of Sonic Harvest, a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Empyrean Ensemble (UC Davis), Eco Ensemble (UC Berkeley), and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He performs frequently with Opera Parallèle and West Edge Opera. He is an Instructor of Clarinet at the University of California, Berkeley. Peter’s music has been performed by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the Farallon Quintet, Earplay, Sonic Harvest, the Laurel Ensemble, the Bernal Hill Players, Empyrean Ensemble, and many soloists. Recent works include: Same Old Sadness (2020) for solo violin; On the Way to the Day (2020) for solo cello; Dewy not, Dewy got (2020) for solo bassoon; Warped Oracle (2019) and Images from the Past (2018) for spoken voice and piano; and The Dream Mechanic (2016), for woman’s spoken voice, tenor, and chamber orchestra. In his spare time Peter is an amateur guitarist/singer/songwriter. |
Alden Jenks's music has been performed in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world. He attended Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, and studied composition with Darius Milhaud, Ben Weber, Andrew Imbrie, and Karlheinz Stockhausen; he worked closely with Stockhausen, David Tudor and John Cage in several performance presentations. His work includes music for live performers as well as electronic music for recorded media alone and with live performers. His most recent work includes a poetry+music theatre piece, "Triplets” (text by AJ), an opera, “Afterworld” (libretto by AJ), songs on texts by Yosano Akiko, and “Josie Baby”. He is privileged to be married to pianist/composer/artist Mikako Endo, and to have a son, mathematician/cellist Jesse. Examples of more of his music and writings are available at www.aldenjenks.com.
|
Bass Richard Mix made his singing debut as Truelove in Berkeley Contemporary Opera's 1992 production of The Rake's Progress and went on to the Darmstädter Sommerferienkurse für neue Musik, where he was awarded a Patenring grant. He appears with many Bay Area opera companies singing a repertoire that embraces Wagner, Monteverdi and Stockhausen.
|
Composer Allen Shearer has been honored with the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship, the Aaron Copland Award, residencies at the MacDowell Colony, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His opera The Dawn Makers, on a libretto by Claudia Stevens, was premiered at Herbst Theatre by Composers, Inc. The Dawn Makers was selected as a finalist in the National Opera Association’s Dominick Argento Chamber Opera Competition 2015. His Three Lyrics, a work written at the Copland House, won the Sylvia Goldstein Award. The premiere production of his opera Middlemarch in Spring was named one of the Ten Best Operatic Events of 2015 by the San Francisco Examiner, and one of the year’s notable events in classical music worldwide by the Encyclopedia Brittanica. His opera Howards End, America premiered in San Francisco in 2019, and Prospero’s Island, on a libretto by Claudia Stevens after Shakespeare’s The Tempest, premiered in March of this year at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco. Allen Shearer is a Contributing Director of Sonic Harvest.
|
Jonathan Smucker's repertoire spans more than forty roles, ranging from baroque to contemporary and encompassing opera, oratorio, operetta, and musical theater, including leading roles by Mozart, Handel, Rossini, Britten, and Gilbert & Sullivan. His most recent credits include the title part in Candide with Pasadena Opera, The Muir for Mark Morris Dance Group at Cal Performances, and debuts at Lincoln Center and the Tanglewood Music Festival in Handel’s Teseo with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. He has sung roles for Aspen Opera Theater Center, San Francisco Opera Guild, Festival Opera, Opera San Jose, Opera San Luis Obispo, Lamplighters Music Theatre, Townsend Opera, Livermore Valley Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera Festival, among others. This season he sings Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with Pocket Opera, Anfinomo in ll ritorno d’Ulisse in patria with West Edge Opera, and Older Brother in Dead Man Walking with Opera Parallèle.
|
Claudia Stevens’ creative works for her interdisciplinary solo performance have been recognized by grants from the NEA (“New Forms”) and Virginia Commission for the Arts, as well as artist residencies including the MacDowell Colony, RS9 Szinhaz in Budapest, Baltimore Theater Project, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Gitameit Art Center in Burma and numerous colleges and universities. Two of her solo plays and her libretto for A Very Large Mole appear in the avant-garde poetry journal Exquisite Corpse. She is the librettist of a number of operas in collaboration with Allen Shearer, including Middlemarch in Spring and Howards End, America, which premiered in 2019 at Z Space in San Francisco. Recent operas in collaboration with Shearer are Jackie at Vassar and Prospero’s Island. Claudia Stevens is a Contributing Director of Sonic Harvest.
|
Acclaimed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as "a commanding solo player, the most supportive of accompanists, and a leader in chamber music," pianist Jeffrey Sykes has performed across four continents and collaborates regularly with leading instrumentalists and singers. In 2018 he gave a recital on Chicago’s prestigious Dame Myra Hess concert series, and he recently returned from a tour of France that culminated in performances of French solo and chamber music at the Musée des Impressionismes in Giverny. With violinist Axel Strauss and cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Sykes is a founding member of the San Francisco Piano Trio, and is co-founder and artistic co-director of Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society of Wisconsin
|
Brenda Tom Vahur‘s diverse career reflects her versatility as a soloist and chamber musician. A strong advocate for new works, she is the pianist for Earplay, the celebrated new music ensemble in San Francisco, and regularly premieres new pieces. Brenda has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra, I Solisti di Oakland, Fort Collins Symphony, California Symphony, and Sacramento Symphony. Her performance of Tchaikovsky’s B-flat concerto was highly praised. As a chamber musician she has collaborated with luminaries including Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Dennis Russell Davies, Zuill Bailey, Phil Myers, and Gary Karr. For many years she was a member of the Sacramento Chamber Music Society and Music/Now. Brenda has recorded for PianoDisc, China Recording Company, Klavier Records, IMG Media, and most recently, Snow Leopard Music – featuring compositions by Howard Hersh. She received her training at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music studying under Mack McCray and Beatrice Beauregard.
|