Experience the luminous sound of four cellists—Robert Howard, Angela Lee, Emil Miland and Tanya Tomkins—performing beloved works of J. S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi and David Popper.
Program:
Antonio Vivaldi—Concerto Grosso, Op 3 No. 11 (arr. Laszlo Varga)
David Popper—Elfentanz, Op 39 (arr. Edward Laut)
J. S. Bach—Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor BWV 1004 (arr. Laszlo Varga)
David Popper—Hungarian Rhapsody Op. 68 (arr. Edward Laut)
Robert Howard
A native of Atlanta, GA, Robert Howard began studying cello at age 12. A graduate of Rice University and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has studied and performed at festivals such as Tanglewood, Spoleto, Verbier, the Accademia Chigiana and the Sandor Vegh Academy in Prague. Robert won first prize in the Rome Festival Competition and has received grants from the Maggini and Virtu Foundations. He has performed in the Festival Internacional de Musica in Costa Rica, the Festival de Guadarrama in Spain and at the Mostly Mozart series in Lincoln Center. He has performed with American Bach Soloists, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque and the San Francisco Symphony.
A regular guest on many Bay Area chamber music series, Robert has also made concerto appearances with BARS Orchestra and Stanford Symphony. He has worked directly with composers such as Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Frank, George Perle, George Benjamin and Jonathan Berger. Robert runs his own house concert series, concertsbythesquare.org, which combine thematically linked chamber music programs with food and short lecture presentations. A passionate teacher, he has made two trips to Kenya, where he taught and performed. He has coached at San Francisco Conservatory, Stanford University, San Jose State University, San Francisco State University and the Conservatorio Superior Coruña in Spain
Angela Lee
Since giving her Carnegie Hall debut in 1994, Angela Lee's "amazing finesse, control and coloration" [San Francisco Chronicle] has been celebrated with recitals in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and Victor Borge Hall in New York, Chicago's Cultural Center, The Phillip's Collection and Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Copenhagen's Nationalmuseet and the Purcell Room at South Bank Centre in London. Her festival appearances include Mahler-Jihlava, St. Petersburg's Revelations, International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, La Musica, Marlboro, Chautauqua, Chelsea, Mainly Mozart and Music Mountain. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, she is a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to study in London with William Pleeth, a grant from the Foundation for American Musicians in Europe, the Jury Prize in the Naumburg International Cello Competition and a cello performance fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. With her two sisters, Angela tours internationally as The Lee Trio, appearing in major venues in New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Kiev, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Toronto. The Trio's world premiere recording of Jane Antonia Cornish's piano trio, Duende, was released on Delos in spring 2014. Ms. Lee plays on a 1762 Nicolo Gagliano cello from Naples.
Emil Miland
Cellist Emil Miland performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician and is a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. He made his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony at 16, the same year he was selected to perform at the Rostropovich Master Classes held at the University of California at Berkeley. He has collaborated with some of the world's finest singers in recital including Jamie Barton, Zheng Cao, Joyce di Donato, Susan Graham and Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson. In 2010, Frederica von Stade asked Miland to play for her farewell recital in Carnegie Hall. He currently plays in the Joshua Trio with soprano Ann Moss and harpist Meredith Clark. Many composers have written and dedicated new works for him including Ernst Bacon, David Carlson, Eric Choate, David Conte, Shinji Eshima, Brian Fitzsousa, Candace Forest, John Grimmett, Lou Harrison, Jake Heggie, Richard Hervig, Andrew Imbrie, James Meredith and Dwight Okamura. Miland can be heard on premiere recordings from Avie, Americus, BMG/RCA Victor, PentaTone Classics, New World, MSR and Albany Records. David Conte's Sonata for Violoncello and Piano was written for Miland and in July of 2018 he premiered Conte's new Concerto for Cello and Orchestra with Michael Morgan conducting the Bear Valley Music Festival Orchestra. He performs on a cello made by Giovanni Grancino in Milan, 1718.
Tanya Tomkins
Artistic Director and co-founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed in many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, "Great Performances" at Lincoln Center and the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal. She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York's Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society and The Library of Congress.
Tanya is one of the principal cellists in San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Portland Baroque Orchestra. She is also a member of several groups including Voices of Music and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio (with Monica Huggett and Eric Zivian). On modern cello, she is a long-time participant at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Music in the Vineyards in Napa and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. As an educator, Tanya has given master classes at Yale, Juilliard and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and is devoted to mentoring the next generation of chamber musicians through the Apprenticeship Program at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival.