When Wanda and Vivian Warkentin were in the fourth grade in Reedley, California, Vivienne told the orchestra teacher she wanted to play violin. The teacher looked at Wanda and announced, “You look like a cellist.” This was a good thing, says Wanda, looking back on her musical beginnings: “If we’d both played the violin it would have been a drag. When you’re a twin you struggle for your own identity. I always felt like I had to be unique.”
Wanda’s father was a dairy farmer, and her grandfather was a fruit farmer. Growing up in Reedley the twins and their younger sister, Lenora, a flutist, studied music privately and performed all over the area. When her father moved his dairy operation to El Monte, near Los Angeles, the high school didn’t have a music program. But there were lots of good musicians, and the sisters continued to play in a local orchestra, the All California Orchestra, and elsewhere.
When Wanda went on to UC Berkeley, she entered as an art major. But music continued to speak to her, and she soon switched to music and began studying with Margaret Rowell. A Bay Area legend, Rowell inspired many young cellists and would hold Sunday morning gatherings at which her students played cello ensembles together and performed solo works for one other.
After graduating from UC, Wanda won positions in the San Jose Symphony and Midsummer Mozart orchestra and played in these groups for five years before moving to New York, where she would spend another five years studying and gigging. But she says she always knew she was a “California person,” and she returned to the Bay Area, won the principal cello position in the Santa Rosa Symphony, joined the Berkeley Symphony, and rejoined the Midsummer Mozart Orchestra.
Wanda concedes that she hasn’t always been a fan of contemporary music, but she says she enjoys playing it with the Berkeley Symphony because of the way the Berkeley audience responds. “I like talking to the audience after a concert,” she remarks. “It always surprises me how much they listen and the questions they ask. With the Elliott Carter Piano Concerto we just played, people made this huge effort to give it a chance and listen to it and find good things in it.”
In addition to playing with the Berkeley Symphony and Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, Wanda continues as principal cello of the Santa Rosa Symphony and as a member of the Midsummer Mozart Orchestra, and she plays frequently with the California Symphony, Napa Symphony, and various chamber ensembles.
Like many musicians, she has had repetitive strain injuries. But Wanda attacked the problem head on by studying bodywork, first massage, then Thai yoga. When she began doing massage work she found that the work itself was causing physical stress. With the Thai approach, she says, “you use your whole body. It’s brilliantly designed for the person who’s doing it to not get injured and to become strong. And the good posture and efficient use of the body that are essential to the technique have had very positive effects on my cello playing as well. “
Wanda is now a certified Thai yoga therapist and works at that along with her playing and private teaching. An avid bicycler, she pedals all over Berkeley, and on Saturday mornings you’re likely to find her at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market in search of the best fruits and vegetables she can find. When she’s ready to have some fun, she heads for a dance floor, frequenting establishments like Two Left Feet in Danville, Allegro in Emeryville, and Berkeley’s Ashkenaz. Her favorite dances are swing and salsa.
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