Update on April 2nd concert: a Birthday Party for Rachmaninov, featuring Viola and Piano!

Sunday April 2nd will be our Notes for Nourishment concert #13 in Alameda California! Celebrating the start of our 2nd year of monthly concerts, the program was originally scheduled to feature Rachmaninov's rarely performed Piano Sonata No.1 in d minor, telling the story of Faust through three movements (one for each of the main characters in the famous legend) on the piano, and played by NFN artistic director and host, Donna Stoering (www.donnastoering.com) in honor of the composer's birthday on April 1st. 

BUT.....due to unforseen circumstances (ie, Donna tore/separated a muscle in her right shoulder in recent days and has been ordered to minimize piano playing to let her arm/shoulder heal), the original planned program has been changed: 
Internationally active viola soloist and coach, Ruth Ellen Kahn has kindly agreed to come play a potpourri of viola and piano pieces with Donna's longtime friend Irine Jacobson as her accompanist. Their FREE one-hour, family-friendly program will still include some lovely Russian pieces (including one by Rachmaninov himself) along with a wide variety of other composers and styles, from early music and Baroque to romantic and beyond. 

This promises to be a great program and we are hoping you will come, and support the beneficiary organization for this month, which is now the educational community programs and youth scholarships of Musica Marin, an nonprofit that serves the musicians and music programs of the greater SF Bay Area. 

At the start of the 3pm program, NFN host Donna Stoering will also present a check to SJB.org, the beneficiary organization of last month's concert where a good-sized crowd seemed to especially love the Rachmaninov Piano Trio that concluded the program, performed by The Carpenter's Trio (Tom Stone, violin, Amy Leung, cello, and Donna on piano). 

Interested in a bio of Ruth Ellen Kahn, the featured performer for April 2nd? See below! And hope to see you there! 

PS if you miss any particular NFN concert and want to hear audio, watch video, or enjoy some beautiful photos taken live by our generous professional-photographer volunteer, Jim Carolan, you might visit his website at www.carolan-imagery.com and look for the Notes for Nourishment folder! We'll also be launching some audio/video links from this concert series on a new YouTube channel soon. 

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Ruth Ellen Kahn, violist, is a graduate of The Juilliard School and native of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her teachers have included Karen Tuttle, Paul Doktor, Heiichiro Ohyama, Louis Kievman, and the world-renowned violist, William Primrose.

Ms. Kahn has performed on every important concert stage in this country including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, among others. Her extensive chamber music experience includes performing with such eminent artists as Cynthia Phelps, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Maurice Bourgue, the Miro String Quartet, the Colorado String Quartet and West End Chamber Players. She has received numerous awards, prizes and critical acclaim, as well as invitations to perform for such organizations as the New York Viola Society and the Hertz Hall in Berkeley, California. She has also performed as soloist with the Mexico City Philharmonic and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. Ruth has been artistic director of two chamber music series in both New York and New Jersey, one of which resulted in a recital in Carnegie Recital Hall as a recipient of the Artist's International Competition Award. Among the many orchestras with which she has played are the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York City Opera Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, the Carmel Bach Festival, the San Francisco Opera, and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Ruth is also an accomplished violinist, and is co-concertmaster of The Russian Chamber Orchestra of the Bay Area.

Ruth has toured with the New England Symphonic and New York Chamber Ensembles to Morocco, Israel and Jordan, where they performed for the Royal Families. In addition, she has been invited numerous times to perform at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.

Ms. Kahn is very active in the area of viola pedagogy and has been the assistant to Paul Doktor at The Juilliard School, taught master classes and has maintained a private studio in both the New York metropolitan and San Francisco Bay areas. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Musica Marin, a Bay Area-based nonprofit organization that “preserves music for the future” through live concerts and educational programs.  She is also currently on the faculty of InterHarmony Music Festival in Italy.

“The viola recital by Ruth Kahn showed off the naturally rich sound of her instrument..Kahn let loose with a welter of secure technical passages and produced double-stops that were vibrantly in tune, Kahn sunk into the dark sound of her viola and pulled the harmonies out with full color.” -Paul Somers, Classical New Jersey