Allan Pollack has served as the Music Director and Conductor for Symphony of the Redwoods for the last twenty years. A prominent musician in the Bay Area, he has taught at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, the San Francisco Conservatory, and the San Francisco Community Music Center.

He currently teaches woodwinds and chamber music at UC Berkeley and has a full studio of private students.

A highlight of his musical education was five years of study with Boston Symphony clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo. He earned his Ph.D. in Composition from UC Berkeley in 1984, has received recognition as a composer, conductor, and clarinetist, and plays a mean jazz saxophone.

One of the founders of the Mendocino Music Festival, he has served as its Artistic Director and conductor for the last fifteen years. His commitment to excellence has inspired musicians and audiences alike and has been an invaluable contribution to the music community of the north coast.

Pianist Richard Cionco - praised by Donal Henahan of the New York Times for his “sensitive pianism” has performed performed with many orchestras including the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, and with the Seijo Symphony of Tokyo in a Washington, D.C. concert that commemorated Japan’s admission to the United Nations.  He has also performed with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Las Cruces Symphony (NM), the Merced Symphony, the new Folsom Lake Symphony (CA), the Auburn Symphony (CA), the Saratoga Symphony (CA), the Oakland Civic Symphony, and has been featured with the Lawton Philharmonic in Oklahoma as a winner in the Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition.  In Europe, he has performed concerti with the Czech State Chamber Orchestra, and in Prague’s Smetana Hall with the North Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra as a winner in the Prague Spring International Music Competition.  Mr. Cionco has traveled three times to Denmark, performing in recital and master class; the Danish press called his most recent performance “dazzling”  (Fredericia Dagblad).  In 1996 he performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 seven times on tour in Japan and Taiwan with the California Youth Symphony; the performance in Osaka was broadcast on Japan Television and has been released as a live and unedited CD.

He has performed in recital in nearly every major U.S. city and his performances of Liszt’s complete 12 Transcendental Etudes have brought him rave reviews. Ed Roberts of the Washington Post wrote: “I have rarely heard as fine a piano recital as the one Richard Cionco gave on Sunday.  The program (Liszt Etudes) was difficult and unusual.  Cionco’s virtuosity was impressive and he drew beautifully varied tone colors from the instrument.” Another Washington Post review acknowledged “Richard Cionco is not just a terrific pianist.  He is that rarest of artists: a champion of twentieth century music.  Throughout his recital at the Phillips Collection Sunday, his coloristic sense and attention to structural clarity rendered even the thorniest of recent works accessible.”

A Steinway Artist, Mr. Cionco is a graduate of the University of Maryland and The Juilliard School.  Important performances include those at New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall and Carnegie’s Isaac Stern Auditorium, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall and Steinway Hall, as well as The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Chicago Cultural Center.  Mr. Cionco was a Teaching Fellow for David Dubal at The Juilliard School for four years and is presently Professor of Piano at California State University, Sacramento.

Recent master classes and recitals Mr. Cionco has given include those in China and Hong Kong, Italy, and at New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, Kent State University, Florida State University, University of Alberta in Canada, the University of Florida, San Jose State University, the Chicago College of Performing Arts, the Great Music in Scarborough Series in New York, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Nevada Reno, Tulane University in New Orleans, and in Anchorage, AK.  He has also recorded music by Daniel Kingman for innova records and his newest CD, Latin American Music for Solo Piano (CRC 2606 Centaur Records) has received rave reviews, notably by the American Record Guide.  Each summer Mr. Cionco serves each summer on the artist faculty of the Schlern International Music Festival and Competition in Northern Italy (www.schlernmusicfestival.org).

SPRING CONCERT

William Klingelhoffer, one of two Co-Principal Horns in San Francisco’s Opera Orchestra, studied in Chicago with Stu Liechti, Nancy Fako, Frank Brouk, and Dale Clevenger.

He began playing professionally with the Chicago Lyric Opera at the age of 19. In the 40 + years since he has played Principal Horn for the Opera Companies of Chicago, Houston, and Santa Fe, played extra and toured with the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, played for Films, Radio/TV commercials, and Musical Shows, toured and recorded with the Summit Brass Ensemble, appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. He has  given Master classes at International Brassfests held at Indiana University and Long Beach, California; University of Victoria, Canada; and at Sacramento State University.  Bill was a Guest Artist at the International Horn Conference in Macomb, Illinois in June, 2009.

Bill is a member of San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and has also performed and recorded with cabaret singer Wesla Whitfield. He plays on her album Livin' on Love with Klingelhorn colleagues Eric Achen, Alicia Telford, and Keith Green.

A MUSICAL FAMILY - His wife Jill Brindel is a cellist with San Francisco Symphony and the Navarro Trio. Daughter Sarah Brindell teaches at Berklee College of Music in Boston, sings, and composes.  He  has two sons, Louis and Jacob. His son Louis also sings and composes and son Jacob attends UC Santa Cruz with a major in History. Bill's sister Mary Stolper plays Principal flute for Chicago's Grant Park Orchestra.  

WINTER CONCERT

David McCarroll has performed as a soloist with the London Mozart Players, Santa Rosa Symphony, Marin Symphony, Longwood Symphony, North State Symphony, Symphony of the Redwoods, and the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra. He has appeared in many venues throughout the U.K. including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St. Johns, Smith Square, and Fairfield Halls. Silver medalist at the 2007 Klein International Competition, he has received numerous prizes and awards and given performances in Switzerland, Tunisia, Thailand, England, Wales, Scotland, and the United States. An active chamber musician, he has played in many chamber ensembles with musicians including Miriam Fried, Ida Levin, Anthony Marwood, Paul Katz, Bonnie Hampton, Natasha Brofsky, Atar Arad, Katherine Murdock, Maria Lambros, and Seth Knopp. He has performed at festivals including Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor’s Rising Stars Series, Prussia Cove’s Open Chamber Music (England), Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival (US), Windsor Festival (England), Gstaad (Switzerland), Gower (Wales), Manchester Quartetfest (England), Wyastone (Wales), and Spittalfields (London) festivals.

David was born in Santa Rosa, California in 1986 and began studying the violin with Helen Payne Sloat at the age of 4. At 8, he attended the Crowden School of Music in Berkeley studying with Anne Crowden. When David was 13, he received an invitation to join an international group of 60 young music students at the Yehudi Menuhin School outside London where he studied for five years with Simon Fischer. David is continuing his studies with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston..

In addition to music, David maintains an active interest in social concerns including the needs of those impacted by the AIDS pandemic and is currently working on projects of the Starcross Community to help AIDS orphans in Africa. He has played in programs encouraging world peace promoted by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and has given benefit concerts for Doctors Without Borders. With other members of his family, David has worked to get strings to young music students in Cuba where such items are very difficult to obtain. David plays a 1761 violin made by A & J Gagliano.