ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
NMW ENSEMBLE
FEATURED COMPOSERS
FEATURED ARTISTS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ADIVSORY BOARD
PRODUCTION TEAM
CYNTHIA BAEHR, Violinist, is Concertmaster of Opera San Jose, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra and a member of the New Music Works Ensemble. She has also performed with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Midsummer Mozart and Stratos Chamber Orchestras. Before moving to California, Cynthia lived and performed in Europe with the Lucerne Chamber Soloists and the Wurttembergisches Chamber Orchestra in Germany. Prior to that time she was the Assistant Concertmaster of the Caracas Philharmonic in Venezuela and a member of the Quartetto Filarmonica.
JENNIFER CASS, harp, holds Master's degrees in both music and mathematics. She has performed with UCSC faculty and ensembles, New Music Works, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Cabrillo Stage, and Ensemble Monterey and with local symphonies. Jennifer teaches mathematics at Cabrillo College in her spare time.
ARIA DI SALVIO, Cellist, has performed with a wide variety of ensembles including the Monterey Symphony, the Bay Shore Lyric Opera Company, the Santa Clara Chorale and with Jazz artists such as Roy Hargrove, Michael Brecker and Charlie Haden at the Monterey and Big Sur Jazz Festivals.
TIMB HARRIS, Violinist and Trumpet for a variety of settings. He performs, records, and tours the US and internationally with avant-rock ensembles Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3. His focus on contemporary music has resulted in a wide variety of performing and recording with artists such as William Winant, Eyvind Kang, Roy Malan, Mr. Bungle, New Music Works and many others. His recordings can be found on The End Records, Web of Mimicry, and John Zorn's Tzadik label.
LARS JOHANNESSON, flute, is an active performer in the San Francisco, Carmel and Monterey Bay areas. This season he has engagements with San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Jubilate!, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Ensemble Monterey, Bay Shore Lyric Opera Company, New Music Works, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, and Santa Cruz Chamber Players. Lars graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a degree in orchestral flute. He pursued post-graduate studies in Baroque flute with Wilbert Hazelzet at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Holland. In addition to "classical" music, Lars also enjoys and performs Irish and other traditional music. As a studio musician, Lars has recorded for numerous releases, including many on the Gourd Music label, and several UCSC productions. Lars lives in Santa Cruz with his musical wife and twin sons, and works a day job in the IT industry.
CHAD KALTINGER, Violist, studied at the University of Illinois and at the Aspen Music Festival where he received an Orchestral Fellowship and placed 1st in the E. Nakamichi Viola Concerto Competition. Chad is currently Principal Violist with the Santa Cruz County Symphony, the Musica Vitale Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Monterey and also plays with Opera San Jose, San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre, Monterey Symphony, and the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra.
JIM KASSIS, is our percussion player since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1987 to study with San Francisco Symphony percussionist Anthony Cirone, Jim has been teaching and performing both drum set and classical percussion throughout northern California. Jim serves on the faculty at Santa Clara University and the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View. He has played with New Music Works Ensemble since 2002.
ANN LAVIN, Clarinetist, received her BA from DePaul University and her MA fromNorthwestern University. She studied in Chicago with Larry Combs and Robert Marcellus. In May 2005 she earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Charles Neidich and Daniel Gilbert. Ann was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and was privileged to play under Maestros Boulez, Barenboim, Solti and Mehta.She has performed chamber and orchestral concerts in the US, Russia, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, and Austria. Currently, Ann plays with the orchestras of Vallejo, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Monterey as well as the Sarasota Opera and Utah Festival Opera.
MICHAEL MCGUSHIN, keyboards, is a professor of music at Cabrillo College in Aptos, and coach/accompanist for the UCSC Music Department. He is well known in the Santa Cruz area as a pianist, composer, and conductor. He has served as Music Director for productions with Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Cabrillo Stage and the UCSC Opera Theater. Michael has performed regularly with New Music Works since 1985.
TERESA OROZCO-PETERSEN, flute, received her degree at San José State University, where she studied with Isabelle Chapius-Starr. She performs with the Monterey County Symphony Orchestra, Bayshore Lyric Opera, and with many symphonies and chamber ensembles, including San Francisco Western Opera Theatre, Opera San José, and the Rome Festival Orchestra.
STAN POPLIN, double bass. Stan Poplin is a founding member of New Music Works Ensemble, and has played with the Cabrillo Music Festival and other ensembles. In 1990 he began a five-year period in Oslo, where he studied, recorded and toured throughout Norway. Mr. Poplin has made many recordings of jazz and blues as well as classical music.
SHEILA WILLEY, Soprano, is working toward her MM at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she studies voice with Patrice Maginnis. An Iowa native, Miss Willey has Bachelors degrees from the Peabody Conservatory—where she studied with Deidra Palmour—in voice and music education. She has performed in Weill’s Street Scene at UCSC and debuted the roll of Julia in David Evan Jones’ one act opera The Rehearsal and also performed as Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone.
WILLIAM WINANT Described as "one of the best avant-garde percussionists working today" according to Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times, William has collaborated with some of the most innovative and creative musicians of our time, including John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Braxton, James Tenney, Cecil Taylor, Steve Reich, the Kronos String Quartet, and Frank Zappa, among others. He has made over 100 recordings, covering a wide variety of genres, and many important composers have written works for him. He has appeared as percussion soloist with major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Mavericks series. He teaches at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and is an Artist-In-Residence at Mills College
DALE WOLFORD, a saxophone and Yamaha Performing Artist and an internationally recognized performer on the saxophone and Yamaha WX-5 Wind Controller. He has performed to critical acclaim in Europe and the western United States. With pianist Ivan Rosenblum, as the Wolford/Rosenblum Duo, Dale has premiered many new works including the Sonata for Saxophone & Piano by Gunther Schuller. The Duo has released two compact discs. Dale is a member of the Premiere Saxophone Quartet. He has also performed with Philip Glass, the Morosco Saxophone Quartet, the San Francisco Saxophone Quartet and the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra, with whom he has made two recordings. He is a frequent guest soloist with area orchestras and bands; and has performed with the San Francisco and San Jose Symphonies. His teachers included Sigurd Rascher, William Trimble and Victor Morosco. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Saxophone Performance from San Jose State University and a Master of Arts degree in Saxophone Performance from California State University, Hayward. Dale is currently on the faculty of San Jose State University and California State University, Stanislaus. He has also taught at University of the Pacific, California State University, East Bay and Chabot College.
IRENE HERRMANN, concertina and cello, has been performing with New Music Works for ten years. She is an active chamber music performer in the area and presently accompanies choirs at both UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College. Her particular field of interest is chamber music and piano literature of the 20th century, and she worked extensively with the late composer/writer Paul Bowles.
DAVID TANENBAUM Recognized internationally as an outstanding performing and recording artist, a charismatic educator, and a transcriber and editor of both taste and intelligence, David Tanenbaum is one of the most admired classical guitarists of his generation. He has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, the former Soviet Union and Asia. He has been soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, the Oakland Symphony, Vienna's ORF orchestra, with such eminent conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano and John Adams.
David Tanenbaum has been a featured soloist at many international festivals, including those of Bath, Luzern, Frankfurt, Barcelona and Vienna as well as numerous guitar festivals. In 1989, as President of the Second American Classical Guitar Congress, he commissioned five new works, including Rosewood by Henry Brant for a large guitar orchestra. He has subsequently conducted Rosewood more than a dozen times on four continents.
While his repertoire encompasses diverse styles, David Tanenbaum is recognized as one of today's most eloquent proponents of new guitar repertoire. Among the many works written for him is Hans Werner Henze's guitar concerto An Eine Äolsharfe, which he premiered throughout Europe and recorded with the composer conducting, Terry Riley's first guitar piece, Ascención, four works by 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis, two pieces by Roberto Sierra, and a suite by Lou Harrison. He is currently working with Terry Riley on a series of 24 guitar pieces. He has toured extensively with Steve Reich and Musicians, was invited to Japan in 1991 by Toru Takemitsu, and has had a long association with the Ensemble Modern.
David Tanenbaum's three dozen recordings, which reflect his broad repertoire interests, can be found on New Albion, EMI, Nonesuch, Ars Musici, Rhino, GSP, Albany, Audiofon, Bayer, Acoustic Music Records, Bridge, Stradivarius and others. His 2002 recording as soloist with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adam's Naive and Sentimental Music was nominated for a Grammy as the Best New Composition.
David Tanenbaum is currently Chair of the Guitar Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the 1995 Oustanding Professor Award, and he has been Artist-In-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music. He is in demand for master classes worldwide. Mr. Tanenbaum's students have won many international competitions, and his former students hold teaching positions internationally.
David Tanenbaum studied guitar with Rolando Valdez-Blain, Aaron Shearer and Michael Lorimer, attending the San Francisco Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory. Further studies included work with pianist Jeanne Stark-Iochmans and harpsichordist Laurette Goldberg. He participated in the 1981 New York master class with Andres Segovia.
