Martha Stoddard, conductor

Jimmy Chan, timpani

Bacewicz…………………..Overture                                           

Mahler/ arr. Britten…...…What the Wildflowers Tell Me                

Cardona-Ospina………...Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra [US Premiere]

Sibelius…………………….Symphony No 3         

Martha Stoddard enjoys a multi-faceted musical career as conductor, composer and flutist. She assumed the leadership of the Oakland Civic Orchestra in 1997 and began her 28th season as Music Director in August 2024. Praised for her clarity, generosity and vision, she continues to guide  this 85-piece orchestra to new heights, and has earned accolades and multiple American Prizes in orchestral performance, programming and chamber music. Under her leadership the orchestra also provides conducting opportunities for emerging conductors, many of whom have gone on to enjoy careers on the podium. 

Stoddard is also the Music Director of the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra and a popular guest conductor of the Awesome Orchestra. Previous conducting positions include the Community Women’s Orchestra, Holy Names University Community Orchestra, San Francisco Composers’ Chamber Orchestra, and Enriching Lives Through Music. She also held the position of Program Director for the John Adams Young Composers Program at the Crowden Music Center for three years and was Director of Instrumental Music at Lick-Wilmerding High School from 1991 - 2021, where she also served as Performing Arts Department Chair and JV Tennis Coach.  

In 2023 and 2024 she was selected as a Conducting Fellow for professional workshops in Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute. In 2024 she also enjoyed her debut  with Verismo Opera in Vallejo, conducting Verdi’s La traviata.

A strong advocate for living and women composers, recent performances include premieres by Alexis Alrich, Jessica Krash, Monica Chew and Niko Umar Durr, as well as seldom heard works by Ruth Gipps, Naomi Dodd, Doreen Carwithen, Germaine Tailleferre, Grace Williams, Florence Price and Louise Farrenc. In 2019  Stoddard brought the Oakland Civic Orchestra into the final round of the Ernst Bacon Prize for the Performance of American Music and in 2020 she was a finalist in the American Prize Competition for Conductors, Community Orchestra Division. Originally trained as a flutist, she continues her freelance performance practice and serves as principal flute for the Handel Opera Project and Piedmont Chamber Players. Her flute music is published by Tetractys in the UK.  In her free time she enjoys composing, chamber music and tennis. 

Jimmy Chan, originally from Hong Kong, is a versatile solo, chamber, and orchestral percussionist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He regularly performs with prominent ensembles, including the San Francisco Symphony, California Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Marin Symphony, Oakland Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, and Stockton Symphony. Previously, he served as Associate Percussionist with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has performed under renowned conductors such as Stéphane Denève, Sir Neville Marriner, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Williams, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

A Marimba One Artist, Chan has performed across three continents on prestigious stages such as Royal Albert Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall. His engagements include performing as a concerto soloist with the Billings Symphony and Colburn Orchestra, as well as being a guest artist at the Bellingham Festival of Music Residency and Stanford University. In chamber music, he serves as percussionist and timpanist with One Found Sound, a conductorless chamber orchestra based in the Bay Area.

Showcasing his versatility in pop and rock music, he collaborated and performed “Don’t Stop Believin’” alongside Neal Schon, co-founder and lead guitarist of Journey.

Chan was recently appointed Percussion Faculty at California State University, East Bay. In addition to his university teaching, he maintains a private studio at the International School of San Francisco and serves as a Teaching Artist with the Oakland Symphony. Through this role, he coaches young musicians in the Oakland School District and the Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Chan holds degrees from the Royal College of Music in London, Colburn Conservatory, and San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied under distinguished instructors Sam Walton, Ted Atkatz, Jack Van Geem, and Jacob Nissly.

Jimmy is thrilled to perform with BARS as the soloist in the U.S. premiere of Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra by Juan Sebastián Cardona-Ospina. He strives to convey joy and peace through music, inspiring audiences to appreciate and engage with it

John Kendall Bailey, conductor

• 🏳️‍🌈 BENJAMIN BRITTEN: THE YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO THE ORCHESTRA

• KURT ATTERBERG: SUITE NO. 3 for violin, viola, and strings

  • 🏳️‍🌈Michael Long, violin

  • 🏳️‍🌈Ivo Bokulic, viola

• AVRIL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR: SUSSEX LANDSCAPE West Coast premiere

• 🏳️‍🌈 MAURICE RAVEL: DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ, SUITE NO. 2

John Kendall Bailey is currently Music Director of the Mozart to Mendelssohn Orchestra, Artistic Director of Chora Nova, and Principal Conductor of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. 

In 1994, he founded the Berkeley Lyric Opera and served as its Music Director and Conductor until 2001. Since then, he has held positions including Music Director of Mesopotamia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of Trinity Lyric Opera, and Guest Conductor with Oakland Symphony, Oakland Ballet, Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, Palo Alto Philharmonic, Folsom Lake Symphony, Sonoma County Philharmonic, Diablo Symphony Orchestra, Magik*Magik Orchestra, San Francisco Civic Symphony, San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, Santa Rosa Junior College, and has conducted productions for Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, West Bay Opera, North Bay Opera, Pocket Opera, Mission City Opera, Cinnabar Theater, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Crowden School, Oakland School for the Arts, and Dominican University, among others. He has also been a cover/rehearsal conductor for several orchestras including Berkeley Symphony, Modesto Symphony, Oakland Symphony, and Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Bailey has taught conducting at the University of California-Davis and Notre Dame de Namur University.

As a choral director, Mr. Bailey has served as Music Director of Voices of Musica Sacra, Chorus Master for Festival Opera of Walnut Creek and Opera San Jose, and has been guest conductor for the University of California-Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the University of California-Davis Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Alumni Chorus, Contra Costa Chorale, and the Berkeley Broadway Singers.

As a composer, Mr. Bailey’s works have been performed and commissioned in the Bay Area and abroad, including arrangements for Carlos Santana and Oakland Symphony performed in 2010. Mr. Bailey is also a baritone, oboist, and pianist, and has performed with the San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Marin, Oakland, Berkeley, Napa, Sacramento, Redding, Prometheus, and UC Davis symphonies, American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, the Midsummer Mozart and West Marin music festivals, San Francisco Bach Choir, Volti, Coro Hispano de San Francisco, Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Sacred and Profane, Masterworks Chorale of San Mateo, Marin Baroque, the Mark Morris and Merce Cunningham dance companies, the Berkeley, Golden Gate, and Oakland Lyric Opera companies, and many more. He has recorded for the Harmonia Mundi, Koch International, Pro Musica, Wildboar, Centaur, and Angelus Music labels. He has been a pre-performance lecturer for Oakland Symphony, San Francisco Opera, American Bach Soloists, Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, and Gold Coast Chamber Players, and is a regular lecturer for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Cal State University (East Bay, and Chanel Islands) and Santa Clara University. He has also been a critic for the San Francisco Classical Voice, and a writer of real-time commentary for the Concert Companion.

Croatian-American violist Ivo Bokulic is a highly sought-after musician, celebrated for his artistry in the Bay Area and beyond. He is Principal Violist of the San José Chamber Orchestra, and holds additional positions in Opera San José, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and One Found Sound. Ivo also performs with distinguished ensembles such as the New Century Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Opera.

In addition to opera and orchestra, Ivo has toured, recorded, and shared the stage with renowned musicians such as Beck, Andrea Bocelli, Death Cab for Cutie, The Eagles, Father John Misty, Smokey Robinson, and Sting. He also regularly records music for video games, television, and films at Skywalker Ranch. Ivo can also be seen performing at Fever's Candlelight Concerts in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, & San José.

Notably, Ivo has appeared as soloist, performing Martinů’s Rhapsody-Concerto with the Eureka Symphony, and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante alongside violinist Liana Bérubé and the San José Chamber Orchestra.

A recipient of both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Jodi Levitz, Ivo plays a viola crafted in 1999 by Hiroshi Iizuka. When he’s not making music, Ivo enjoys cultivating his mostly monochromatic aesthetic, indulging in fine dining, and indie music exploration. He also loves sharing and receiving copious amounts of cat memes, and polishing the day off with a glass of vino.

BARS concertmaster, Michael Long, is a dedicated pedagogue, active soloist and chamber musician, and busy organizer of community music-making. He studied with Levon Ambartsumian, Valerie Gardner, Shakhida Azimkhodjaeva, and Nancy Bargerstock.

Recent and upcoming solo engagements include concertos with Camerata Bach y la Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Rubén Darío in Nicaragua, Mozart 2 Mendelssohn Orchestra, Sonoma County Philharmonic, and Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.

Michael is a passionate and curious chamber musician. During the lockdown when musicians found themselves without stages upon which to share their music, many took to giving smaller outdoor concerts. Michael teamed up with members of the SF Opera and Ballet Orchestras during that time, and from that collaboration was born the Cecilia String Quartet, for which Michael plays 2nd violin.

Michael also organizes a chamber music series with his duo partner, Sung Choi (cello) at CMC. These concerts explore hidden (or sometimes not so hidden) gems for various configurations of strings+, each time curated around a unifying theme.

An advocate for new music, Michael serves as concertmaster for the SF Composers Chamber Orchestra. He has performed and recorded works for NACUSA as well as individual Bay Area composers.

In addition to teaching in his private studio, Michael is on faculty at the Community Music Center (where he teaches violin, viola, ensemble, and theory) and Hamlin School for Girls. He also teaches afterschool group classes through the Harmony Project.