San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St at Van Ness, SF 94102 (Map)(Tickets)
A small number tickets donated by those who could not attend will be available at the box office.
BARS will start to add additional performances for some concerts next season.
Dawn Harms, guest conductor
Assad - Brazilian Fanfare
Elgar - Cello Concerto
Emil Miland, cello
Saint-Saëns - Symphony #3 'Organ'
Part of BARS' LGBTQ Composer and Performing Artist Series, which strives to redefine perceptions of LGBTQ music and increase awareness of the beauty, talents, and accomplishments of fellow LGBTQ individuals and groups.
About Dawn Harms, guest conductor
Dawn Harms’ diverse career ranges from playing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at a Giants game with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, to playing on her cousin Tom Waits' CD's, Alice, Blood Money, and Bad as Me. A member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and associate concertmaster of the critically acclaimed New Century Chamber Orchestra, Dawn also performs as co-concertmaster with the Oakland East Bay Symphony.
Dawn was chosen to be one of the fellows at the exclusive American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, where she worked with some of the top conductors of the world. She is co-founder and Music Director of the Music at Kirkwood chamber music festival and currently serves on the music faculty at Stanford University.
As a strong advocate for children's music education, Dawn was conductor and music director of the Amarillo Youth Orchestra and continues to design and perform educational concerts throughout the United States. She recently performed her one-woman family show with the Lincoln Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, Berkeley Symphony and the Napa Youth Symphony.
Dawn was featured in a concert at the Guggenheim Museum, premiering works by Jake Heggie and Gordon Getty, where she collaborated with Frederica von Stade, Zheng Cao, Eugenia Zukerman, and Matt Haimowitz.
Another highlight of her career was a performance at the GLAAD awards in San Francisco, with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, in which Suze Orman had the honor of introducing them for the first time to a very diverse audience.
After returning from a highly successful two and a half week east coast tour with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Dawn had an even busier schedule this Spring. She was invited to conduct the Tennessee honors youth orchestra, in Chattanooga Tennessee, in February. She then conducted the Livermore-Amador Symphony in April, and played the first movement of the Barber Violin Concerto as well as a world premiere by Peter B. Allen with the Folsom Symphony in May.
About Emil Miland, cello
Cellist Emil Miland is acclaimed internationally for his performances of new and traditional repertoire as a soloist and chamber musician. The San Francisco Classical Voice states, "Emil Miland is a unique phenomenon. There is just something about the way he connects the qualities of style, grace, virtuosity and real soul that remind one of no other cellist."
He made his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony at 16, the same year he was selected to perform for Mstislav Rostropovich in master classes held at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Chamber Music America.
He has been a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra since 1988. Often collaborating in recital with singers he has appeared with Zheng Cao, Joyce di Donato, Susan Graham, Marilyn Horne, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, and Frederica von Stade. In 2010 Ms. von Stade invited him to accompany her at her farewell recital in Carnegie Hall.
Many composers have written and dedicated new works for him including Ernst Bacon, David Conte, David Carlson, Shinji Eshima, Jake Heggie, Andrew Imbrie, Lou Harrison, Richard Hervig, James Meredith and Dwight Okamura. In 2013 he will premiere and record David Conte's Piano Trio with violinist Kay Stern and pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
His recordings include David Carlson's Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Utah Symphony on New World Records and his Sonata for Cello and Piano with pianist David Korevaar on MSR Classics.He appears on many of Jake Heggie's recordings beginning with the RCA Red Seal CD, "The Faces of Love: The Songs of Jake Heggie." Most recently he collaborated with Heggie on his upcoming CD, " The Songs of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer", scheduled for release in 2013.
Mr. Miland is featured in 3 recent films. In "The Heart of a Bell", by Eric Theirmann and Aleksandra Wolska, he performs James Meredith's "Smirti", a haunting elegy for cello, Tibetan chimes and bells with the Sonos Handbell Ensemble. He performs in the 2012 documentary, "Lou Harrison - A World in Music", by Eva Soltes.He can also be seen playing with Lua Hadar in her 2012 cabaret concert DVD, " Like a Bridge."
In December of 2012 Miland joined James Meredith and Sonos as soloist in their nine-city tour of Japan and will travel with them throughout the Pacific Northwest in April of 2013. In July Emil travels to Paris to present a solo recital that includes David Conte's Sonata for Cello and Piano under the auspices of the European American Musical Alliance at The Schola Cantorum.
About Clarice Assad, composer
Versatile, sophisticated, and accomplished, Clarice Assad is a sought after composer, pianist, and vocalist of musical depth and ability. Her music embraces a wide variety of styles, including her own original musical concepts.
Summer 2012 highlights included the world premieres of festival commissions by Ms. Assad for the internationally renowned Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado; a world premiere for the celebrated Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, California, as part of the Hidden World of Girls Symphonic Project; and performances by Ms. Assad in New York, Belgium, France and Brazil. Commission premieres continue in the 2012-2013 season. In October 2012, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio presents the world premiere of Ms. Assad’s concerto commission, Album de Retratos; in March 2013, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra presents an evening devoted to works written by Clarice, including the premiere of a PANDEMONIUM for string orchestra and string quartet.
A mini-residency in April 2013 at The Iolani School in Hawaii will include the performance of a new arrangement by Ms. Assad of Bartok’s Rumanian Dances. Assad will also be the composer-in-residence for the Albany Symphony during the 2013/2014 season. More highlights include the premiere of her new piece for orchestra, entitled SARAVÁ, commissioned by the Orquestra Sinfônica of São Paulo (OSESP). The new work will be premiered in São Paulo, Brail in October 2013. Following performances will take place during their two week European tour.
Ms. Assad is the recipient of such awards as the Aaron Copland Award, several ASCAP awards, Meet The Composer's Van Lier Fellowship as well as recognition from the Latin Grammy and the Grammy Foundation, the Franklin Honor Society, American Composers Forum and has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Fundação OSESP, the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Concordia Chamber Players and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. She is the principal staff arranger for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and is responsible for most of the orchestra’s musical arrangements, such as the highly praised chamber orchestra version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Clarice Assad has also written for theater and ballet. Works include Ópera das Pedras, written and directed by Brazilian visual artist Denise Milan and co-directed by Mabou Mine's co-founder and director Lee Breuer; an original soundtrack for the play A Lição de Anatomia by Argentinian playwright Carlos Mathus, the ballet Steps to Grace, by choreographer Lou Fancher and Essentials of Flor by Kristi Spessard. Assad's Impressions, a suite for chamber orchestra, was choreographed by Steve Rooks for the Masterworks Festival in Winona Lake, Indiana. A native of Rio de Janeiro, Clarice Assad was born into one of Brazil’s most famous musical families (she is the daughter of Sergio Assad, one of today’s preeminent guitarists and composers), and has performed professionally since the age of seven. Formal piano studies began with Sheila Zagury in Brazil; she then studied with Natalie Fortin in Paris and had additional instruction in Jazz and Brazilian piano under the tutelage of Leandro Braga. Clarice continued her classical piano studies in the United States with Ed Bedner (Berklee School of Music) and then Bruce Berr at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Composition studies have been with Ilya Levinson, Stacy Garrop, David Rakowski, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Claude Baker. Clarice studied voice with Susan Botti and Judy Blazer. Ms. Assad Holds a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and a Masters of Music in Composition from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.