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Duo Melis is a classical guitar duo consisting of Alexis Muzurakis and Susana Prieto.
Guitarists Alexis Muzurakis and Susana Prieto, the Duo Melis, have a stellar reputation in Europe and are beginning to extend their reach into North America. Their Bay Area debut… revealed an ensemble notable for sensitive musicianship, virtuosic panache, and stylish performances of music.
— Scott Cmiel (18 December 2007). "The Passion of the Guitar". San Francisco Classical Voice. San Francisco, California.
I heard [Duo Melis] just two summers ago at the Nurtingen Festival. I was amazed to see a young duo headlining an evening concert at that major festival, but more amazed to hear them. The ensemble was precise, the musicianship truly compelling.
Susana Prieto of Spain and Alexis Muzurakis of Greece have been performing internationally together since 1999 and been married since 1996. They bring to their music a remarkable like-minded sensibility, like hearing a single guitar being played by four sensitive, compassionate hands… But more than anything, it was the couple's astounding sense of intimate communication in the slower, more passionate passages that could almost make one weep. With their eyes closed and heads gently swaying, it was clear they were not just playing Granados' Valses Poeticos (Poetic Waltzes), they were dancing together, lost in their own world.
— Steve Siegel (7 June 2010). "Duo Melis show intimate communication in guitar festival concert". The Morning Call . Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as "the world's foremost composer of Tango music".
Big Brother and the Holding Company are an American rock band that was formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2024, it had more than 440 students.
David Tanenbaum is an American classical guitarist.
The San Francisco Girls Chorus, established in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling, is a regional center for music education and performance for girls and young women, ages 4–18, based in San Francisco. Each year, more than 300 singers from 45 Bay Area cities participate in SFGC's programs. The organization consists of a professional-level performance, recording, and touring ensemble and a six-level Chorus School training program.
Those Darn Accordions, commonly abbreviated as TDA, are an American accordion band from San Francisco, California, originally formed in 1989 by Linda "Big Lou" Seekins.
Bryan Johanson is an American classical guitarist and composer.
Sérgio Assad is a Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger who often performs with his brother, Odair, in the guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad, commonly referred to as the Assad Brothers or Duo Assad. Their younger sister Badi is also a guitarist. Assad is the father of composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad. He is married to Angela Olinto.
Michael Holt is an American musician based in Truro, Massachusetts. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1968, and raised in New York City, where he learned to play the piano as a child.
Giuseppe "Peppino" D'Agostino is an Italian-American guitarist. His first two albums, Bluerba and Silk and Steel were recorded in Italy. D'Agostino moved to America in 1985. Starting out by performing in the streets and on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, he graduated to playing in restaurants then clubs, and finally, concert halls and festivals after a fellow musician introduced D’Agostino to a booking agent. He made his American recording debut in 1987 with Acoustic Spirit on Shanachie Records.
Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger, singer, and educator from Rio de Janeiro. She is influenced by popular Brazilian culture, Romanticism, world music, and jazz. She comes from a musical family, which includes her father, guitarist Sergio Assad, her uncle, guitarist Odair Assad, and her aunt, singer-songwriter Badi Assad.
Andor John Toth was an American classical violinist, conductor and educator with a musical career spanning over six decades. Toth played his violin on the World War II battlefields of Aachen, Germany; performed with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini in 1943 at age 18; and formed several chamber music ensembles, including the Oberlin String Quartet, the New Hungarian Quartet, and the Stanford String Quartet. For 15 years he was the violinist in the Alma Trio. Toth conducted orchestras in Cleveland, Denver and Houston. In 1969, he was the founding concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Neville Marriner. Toth taught at five important colleges and universities, and recorded for Vox, Decca Records and Eclectra Records.
The North Sea Radio Orchestra (NSRO) is an English contemporary music ensemble and cross-disciplinary chamber orchestra. Formed in 2002, the NSRO was set up mainly as a vehicle for the compositions of its musical director, Craig Fortnam, but has also performed works by William D. Drake and James Larcombe. The ensemble is notable for its post-modern fusion of Romantic music and later twentieth-century forms, and for its bridging of the worlds of contemporary classical music, British folk music, London art rock and poetry.
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) is a performing arts organization and unionized chamber orchestra that commissions, performs, and records innovative new music from across cultures and stylistic traditions. SFCMP incorporated in 1974 to give voice to the burgeoning genre of contemporary chamber music in the Bay Area. They are solely devoted to contemporary repertoire, particularly the work of living composers and large ensemble works. The current Artistic Director is Eric Dudley.
Israel Tanenbaum-Rivera is an American pianist, music producer, composer, arranger and audio engineer who has produced more than 50 albums and participated in over 100 recordings.
The Bratislava Chamber Guitar festival is a guitar festival hosted in Bratislava, Slovakia since 2005. The festival is held every year in April and lasts between 4 and 5 days.
Dr. Shahab Paranj is an Iranian-American composer and instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. He is considered one of the pioneers among his generation of composers whose composition style integrates Persian and Western composition techniques. Known as a tombak virtuoso, he has performed, recorded and collaborated with some of the most celebrated artists worldwid! Paranj is a founder and artistic director of “Du Vert à L’infini” a contemporary music festival in the Franche-Comte region of France. He currently serves as a faculty member at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
Kevin Kwan Loucks is a Korean–American classical pianist, arts entrepreneur, and nonprofit executive. In September 2021, he was appointed chief executive officer of Chamber Music America in New York City. He previously served as Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, a presenting organization in residence at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, and also served as Director of Innovation and Program Development at Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. He co-founded Chamber Music | OC, an arts organization headquartered in Lake Forest, California, and is a founding member and current pianist of the award-winning piano trio, Trio Céleste.
Edward "Teddy" Paul Maxwell Abrams is an American conductor, pianist, clarinetist, and composer. He is currently Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and previously led the Britt Festival Orchestra.
Benjamin Verdery is an American classical guitarist, composer and teacher. Verdery has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, and Wigmore Hall (London). He has played and recorded with a wide range of classical and other musicians, including guitarists William Coulter, Leo Kottke, Paco Peña, Andy Summers and John Williams, vocalist Hermann Prey, composer Anthony Newman, and his wife, flutist Rie Schmidt. New York Times classical music critic Allan Kozinn described Verdery as "one of the guitar’s grand individualists" and "an iconoclastic player," known as much for his devotion to new music and transcriptions of Jimi Hendrix songs as for inventive interpretations of Bach. As of 2021, Verdery had released 19 albums and been featured on several others. He has taught at the Yale School of Music since 1985.