Paul Dresher is a multi-talented composer known for weaving contemporary classical, pop, minimalist, and South and Southeast Asian musical styles together into his own distinctive personal style. He creates in a myriad of different genres, including experimental theater, contemporary opera, acoustic and electronic chamber music, orchestral compositions, dance scores, and musical instrument invention. Learn more…

Sam Reider is an American accordionist, pianist, composer, and educator. Originally trained as a jazz pianist, Reider has spent many years exploring and interpreting folk music from around the world on the accordion. His original compositions frequently combine jazz improvisation, folk instruments and grooves, and classical structure. Learn more…

Oboist Deborah Shidler received her M. M. degree from Yale University and B.M.E. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the principal oboist with Berkeley Symphony as well as Festival Opera. Deborah currently serves on the faculty of California State Universities, Sacramento and East Bay. 

Bassoonist Shawn Jones, is a graduate of the Juilliard School and Rice University. In addition to his position with Berkeley Symphony, Shawn has performed as a member of the Colorado, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies. He is also a nationally certified massage therapist and black belt in kung fu. Learn more…

Carol has been principal cellist of Berkeley Symphony since 1982. She also performs with Symphony Silicon Valley and a variety of other groups around the Bay Area. In addition to her performance activities, Carol serves as vice president of Villa Sinfonia Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to music education. Learn more…

Tom Hornig is widely regarded as a consummate freelance trombonist and dedicated music educator. He has performed with every major orchestra in the Bay Area, including over 1,000 concerts with the San Francisco Symphony. He maintains a steady performance schedule with the Berkeley, Oakland, California, and Modesto Symphonies.

Recently named a Guggenheim Fellow, Samuel Adams is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His work has been hailed as “mesmerizing” and “music of a composer with a personal voice and keen imagination” by the New York Times, “canny and assured” by the Chicago Tribune, and “wondrously alluring” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Read More…

Born in Berkeley to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, composer Gabriela Lena Frank ardently explores her multicultural heritage in her works. Frank’s pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. Read More…

Pianist and keyboardist Myra Melford pursues a creative vision that is both wholly distinctive and all-embracing. Composition and improvisation interact seamlessly and ingeniously in her work, with each side strengthening the other. Guided by that same compelling spirit, divergent idioms and eras coalesce—from jazz, blues, and global folk styles to various corners of the classical tradition and the avant-garde. Read More…

Olly Wilson was a renowned composer, an indefatigable advocate for diversity in the arts, and a prominent member of the UC Berkeley Music Department faculty for over 30 years. Wilson’s richly varied musical background included not only the traditional composition and academic disciplines, but also professional experience as a jazz and orchestral musician, work in electronic media, and studies of African music. Read More…

Award-winning (and Berkeley-based!) composer Jimmy López has been called “one of the most interesting young composers anywhere today” (Chicago Sun-Times). López has created works performed by leading orchestras around the world and in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Kennedy Center, and Vienna’s Musikverein. Read More…

Brian Raphael Nabors is a composer of emotionally enriching music that tells exciting narratives with its vibrant themes and colorful harmonic language. With an eclectic musical palate and crafty compositional technique to match, Nabors’ music draws from combinations of jazz, funk, R&B, and gospel, with the modern flair of contemporary classical music. Read More…

Berkeley Symphony flutist Stacey Pelinka is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber ensemble and a founding member of Eco Ensemble. She has performed contemporary chamber music at the San Francisco Symphony’s Mavericks Festival, as well as with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, and the Silk Road ensemble, among others. Read More…

Praised by the New York Times for his “outrageous fiddling,” Berkeley Symphony violinist Matthew Szemela crosses musical genres with ease. He has performed as soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician in renowned concert halls both domestically (Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, Kennedy Center), and abroad (Japan, China, Korea, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, Italy).