In small, hands-on programs, our resident artists—guitarists Peter and Zoltán Katona, vocalist Luciana Souza, composer Jeeyoung Kim and the Alexander String Quartet—work directly with students and teachers in public schools around the Bay Area. Our artists-in-residence program provides arts education in schools and community centers, builds new audiences, and furthers the careers of talented artists by providing the time and freedom necessary to explore new ideas and develop new works. The scope of SFP’s work in the community reflects the commitment to making the arts an essential part of everyone’s life—a central part of SFP’s mission since our founding.
Visit our photo gallery of SFP’s Resident Artists in action.
History
In 1989, San Francisco Performances created its first (and ongoing) artist residency program with the Alexander String Quartet. Working in partnership with San Francisco State University, the Quartet created a chamber music curriculum entitled “The Story of the String Quartet” for high school students in the San Francisco Unified School District. In 1997, with the support of the Wallace Readers Digest Foundation, San Francisco Performances expanded the residency model and created three new residencies in jazz, guitar and contemporary dance. These residencies, which continued over a four-year period, helped expand audiences for the organization and helped to develop strong collaborations with new community partners.
Resident artists’ consistent presence in the Bay Area over several years gives both school students and adult audiences the opportunity to form a close bond with the artists. By making the performing arts accessible across economic and generational boundaries, San Francisco Performances helps all community members build a deep personal connection to the performing arts.
The Alexander String Quartet (Zakarias Grafilo and Fred Lifsitz,violins; Paul Yarbrough, viola; Sandy Wilson, cello), in joint residence with San Francisco Performances and San Francisco State since 1989, helped create the popular school series, The Story of the String Quartet. The curriculum was written by San Francisco Performances for non-music students. Rather than experience an isolated one-time performance, these students are introduced over time to music as a powerful voice for cultural expression.
The Alexander String Quartet captured international attention in 1985 as the first American Quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury’s highest award and the Audience Prize. Debut concerts in New York City and London, followed by rave reviews, established the Quartet as one of chamber music's most compelling ensembles.
Since 1989, they have directed the chamber music studies program at San Francisco State University. They also teach at Baruch College of the City University of New York, St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, and Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. In May of 1995, Allegheny College awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees to the members of the Quartet in recognition of their unique contribution to the arts. The Alexander’s annual calendar of concerts continues to include performances at major halls throughout North America and Europe. When they are not on tour, the members of the Quartet live in San Francisco with their families. The Alexander Quartet has recorded the complete Beethoven quartet cycle for BMG's Arte Nova Classics. They have also made recordings of Brahms and Mozart clarinet quintets and Schumann and Dvorák string quartets. Other recent recordings include sur pointe, a CD of contemporary compositions produced by Foghorn Records.
Robert Greenberg, historian/lecturer, received his Ph.D. in music composition, With Distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley, where his principal teachers were Andrew Imbrie and Olly Wilson in composition and Richard Felciano in analysis.
Greenberg’s compositions for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles have received numerous honors, including commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress and San Francisco Performances. Recent performances of his works have taken place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy and The Netherlands.
In May 1993, Greenberg taped a forty-eight lecture course entitled “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” for the Teaching Company/SuperStar Teachers Program. The course was named by Inc. Magazine (1996) as one of “The Nine Leadership Classics You've Never Read,” and lead to the development of ten further courses, among them “The Symphonies of Beethoven”, “How to Listen to and Understand Opera”, and “The Chamber Music of Mozart”, totaling over 500 lectures.
Greenberg has performed, taught and lectured extensively across North America and Europe. He is currently a faculty member of the Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and he has served on the faculties of the University of California at Berkeley, California State University at Hayward, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Greenberg has lectured for some of the most prestigious arts organizations in the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony (where for ten years he was host and lecturer for the Symphony’s nationally acclaimed “Discovery Series”), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia Festival, and the Chautauqua Institute. In addition, Greenberg is a sought after lecturer for businesses and business schools, and has recently spoken for such diverse organizations as S.C. Johnson, Deutsches Bank, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School Publishing, and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. Greenberg has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the University of California Alumni Magazine, Princeton Alumni Weekly, and Diablo Magazine.
In February, 2003, The Bangor Daily News (Maine) called Greenberg “the Elvis of music history and appreciation”, an appraisal that has given more pleasure than any other.
The Hungarian born Katona Twins, Peter and Zoltán, have given recitals throughout the world including performances at the Carnegie Hall in New York; the Purcell Room of the Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall in London; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus in Vienna; the Suntory Hall in Tokyo; the Forbidden City in Beijing; the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and the Philharmonie in Cologne.
The twins have won numerous prizes, both individually and together. In 2004 they were awarded, with the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni prize, the first guitarist in the trust's history. In 1998 they won the Concert Artists Guild Competition held in New York thereby securing management throughout the USA; tours soon followed as did their Carnegie Hall debut. In 1997 they were winners at the Young Concert Artist Trust auditions in London and that brought with it London based worldwide management; in the same year they successfully auditioned for the Park Lane contemporary music group. Earlier in their careers the twins won the S.T. Johnson Foundation prize in 1995 and The Laura Ashley prize in 1996. In 1993 they won first prize at the most prestigious guitar duo competition in Montelimar, France. In the same year Peter & Zoltán won first prize at the international guitar duo competition held in Bubenreuth, Germany and were awarded the Cultural Prize of the City of Kassel, Germany.
The wide repertoire of the duo spans from Scarlatti to Piazzolla’s tango music. Their programmes also include concertos for two guitars and orchestra by Rodrigo, Vivaldi, Piazzolla and Tedesco. Michael Berkeley, Judith Bingham, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and several other contemporary composers have written for and dedicated works to the Katona Twins.
From the age of ten the twins have studied both individually and as a guitar duo in Budapest, Frankfurt and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. During their studies they benefited from classes with Julian Bream and John Williams.
The Katona Twins have been invited on numerous occasions to record for the BBC and other international television and radio stations. Their CD releases include music by Scarlatti and Handel; Rodrigo; Albéniz and pieces by Piazzolla, Granados, de Falla and Mozart.
As a Korean-born composer who was educated in Korea and the United States, “Jacqueline” Jeeyoung Kim’s music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects from Eastern and Western traditions.
Ms. Kim is currently a composer-in-residence for San Francisco Performances, and held the same position with Chanticleer in 2003-2004. Most recently, she was commissioned by the Silk Road Ensemble which is led by Yo-Yo Ma; Tryst, a trio for cello, oboe, and kayagum (Korean zither) was performed by Mr. Ma and the Ensemble in the United States and Europe, and published by G. Schirmer in 2003. In 2001-2002, she was awarded a Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University, where she composed and researched Asian music and philosophy.
Ms. Kim has won awards and recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University (Bunting Fellowship), ASCAP, International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), National Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA), Meet the Composer, SCI/ASCAP, Britten-on the Bay competition, Dale Warland Singers New Music Competition, American Music Center, Seattle Creative Orchestra Commissioning Competition, Jerome Foundation, Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Aspen Music Festival, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
In addition, she has received numerous commissions and her music has been performed by many chamber orchestras and ensembles in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including the Seattle Symphony, Su-Won Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea, Seattle Creative Orchestra, Yale Concert Band, Oberlin Winter Orchestra, Dale Warland Singers, Su-Won Civic Choir, De ereprijs in the Netherlands, Ethos Percussion Group, the ISCM International Summer Course for Young Composers in Poland, AUROS Group for New Music, 4 Plus Percussion Group in Korea, the American Composers Forum, and Wu Man.
Ms. Kim studied composition at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, receiving a Bachelor of Music. She received her Master of Music degree at Indiana University, and in May 2001, Ms. Kim received the Doctor of Musical Arts from Yale University.
Three-time Grammy nominee Luciana Souza was raised in São Paulo, Brazil, where she grew up in a family of Bossa Nova composers. A respected composer and vocalist, she defies categories bringing her outstanding musicianship and unique sound to any project. The New York Times has called her “an impressive singer” and a “quite serious composer”. Whether performing works by Osvaldo Golijov and Manuel de Falla, singing with the big bands with Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler, or performing in small jazz groups, Souza brings something to the music that has been called “transcendental.”
As a leader, Souza recorded six acclaimed records. Particularly successful were her two duet records, Brazilian Duos, and Duos II, both Grammy contenders. In the classical realm, she has been a constant presence in Osvaldo Golijov’s music since 1996, serving as muse to his Passion According to St. Mark, and also his cantata Oceana. She has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The New York Philharmonic, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2006 she toured extensively with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.
Souza received a degree in jazz composition from Berklee College of Music, and a master’s degree from New England Conservatory. In addition to her three Grammy nominations (2002, 2003, 2005), she was named Top Rising Female Vocalist in Downbeat Magazine’s Critics Poll in 2004, 2005, and 2006. She was awarded Female Jazz Singer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2005. She has taught at Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music.