Featuring
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Erin Finkelstein
Clarinet
Clarinetist Erin Finkelstein is in demand as an orchestral and chamber musician. She performs frequently with The Phoenix Symphony and Arizona Opera, and has been featured on the Phoenix Downtown Chamber Series. In the summer, Erin performs with the world-class Carmel Bach Festival. Prior to moving to Arizona, Erin performed regularly with most of the professional orchestras and opera companies in Northern California. She has participated in summer festivals at the National Orchestral Institute, Domaine Forget Festival, and the Bear Valley Festival.
As an advocate for chamber music, Erin has been involved in building local chamber ensembles wherever she has resided. As a member of Urban Nocturnes, she enjoys celebrating the repertoire combination provided with the unique instrumentation. Erin has performed with the Mill Ave Chamber Players where she performed on two CD’s, and the 50 year-old Pacific Arts Woodwind Quintet.
As a passionate educator, Erin is currently an adjunct music lecturer and Feldenkrais Practitioner® at Phoenix College and runs a pre-college studio in clarinet and piano. She has held teaching positions at the University of the Pacific and California State University. Erin holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of the Pacific and Arizona State University and continued studies at Mannes College of Music in New York City.
In addition to her musical live, Erin Finkelstein is a guild certified Feldenkrais Practitioner with 15 years’ experience in helping people to move, sense, feel, and think with more ease and grace. Her in-person Feldenkrais practice at Sound Movement Services LLC encompasses helping and educating a wide range of people; from children with Cerebral Palsy, to professional Musicians, the aging population, and everyone in-between. With her online practice, you can find access to classes and a learning library with over 120 Awareness Through Movement lessons on her website, or find her collaborations with MIGSE, the Musicians’ International Group for Somatic Education.
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Meg Eldridge
Viola
Meg studied at the University of Michigan, the Manhattan School of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She performs with the Marin Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and Philharmonia Healdsburg. She also plays violin with the Archangeli Baroque Strings, Marin Baroque of the Marin String Quartet, which gives concerts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Meg plays on a viola that was made by Bronek Cison in Chicago in 2007, as well as on a French viola made in Mirecourt in the late 1800’s. She teaches violin and viola at the Marin Waldorf School and at the Branson School.
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Dawn Loree Walker
Flute
Celebrated flutist Dawn Walker is principal flute of the Monterey Symphony and a member of the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra. She has performed with the San Francisco Opera and Ballet orchestras for more than 25 years. Ms. Walker toured the United States for two years as principal flute with the SF Opera’s touring group, the Western Opera Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, the Monterey Symphony and the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra. She was on the flute faculty of the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View and has taught classes at San Jose State University. Ms. Walker has been an adjudicator for the California Music Teachers Association and University of the Pacific.
Ms. Walker received her Master of Music degree with distinction in performance and academic honors from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She has studied with Julius Baker, Frances Blaisdell, Keith Underwood and Claude Monteux.
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Elizabeth Stoppels Girko
Violin
Elizabeth has been a participant of the Carmel Bach Festival since 1992. During the year, she performs with the San Antonio Symphony and the Austin Symphony. Elizabeth is originally from Grand Rapids, MI, and received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and the Eastman School of music (MM). Elizabeth’s major teachers were Marilyn McDonald and Peter Salaff.
In addition to her orchestral work, Elizabeth is on the faculty at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. Elizabeth also maintains a private violin studio at her home. She enjoys collecting art and pets. Currently, Elizabeth has five miniature dachshunds and two cats.
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Ann Kaefer Duggan
Violin
A graduate of Roosevelt University and The University of Michigan, Ann performs with the Haymarket Opera Company, Carmel Bach Festival, Bella Voce, Music of the Baroque, Callipygian Players, and Third Coast Baroque. She teaches violin and viola at Trinity International University as well as a private studio. Ann has been a past member of Joffrey Ballet Orchestra, Da Corneto Opera, Sarasota Opera, Key West Symphony, and Spoleto Opera Festival as well as 10 years of teaching at the Music Institute of Chicago.
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Paul Rhodes
Cello
Paul Rhodes, Cello, received the Bachelor of Arts in Music from Dominican College, where he studied with Margaret Rowell, and the Master of Music from the University of Texas at Austin after studies with Paul Olefsky. Paul is a member of the Oakland Symphony and, in the summer, the Carmel Bach Festival. Locally, he has worked with the symphonies of Berkeley, Marin, California, Sacramento and San Jose as well as with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and Earplay. Outside the area he has appeared with the San Antonio Symphony, Brandywine Baroque, Orchestra of Santa Fe, Reinische Philharmonie, and the Jugend im Musik festival in Vienna.
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Elisabeth Axtell
Horn
Elisabeth Axtell delights in sharing the period instrument ethos with audiences across the country. Her regular engagements include Handel & Haydn Society, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Opera Neo, Austin Philharmonie, La Speranza, North Carolina Baroque, Arpeggione, Opera Lafayette, Three Notch’d Road, Boston Baroque, Staunton Music Festival, Connecticut Early Music, Big Moose Bach Festival, Portland Bach Experience, and more.
Off stage, Elisabeth is an entrepreneur of unconventional ensembles; founding projects include Grand Harmonie, a wind-led period instrument orchestra, and Conica, a natural horn quartet. She has proudly supported community music organizations through service as a board member of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony and as a president of New England Brass Band. Elisabeth teaches natural horn at New England Conservatory and, as a recovering English major, operates a thriving editorial and content creation business. Born in Montana, raised in the Pacific Northwest, and educated in Minnesota, she now splits her time between Boston, Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and the road.
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Jesse Barrett
Associate Principal Oboe
Jesse Barrett is a San Francisco Bay Area native who grew up in Pleasant Hill, CA. He currently plays oboe and English horn for the Santa Rosa Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, One Found Sound, Symphony Napa Valley, California Symphony, and has played as principal oboist for West Edge Opera, Opera Modesto, and Merced Symphony where he has been a soloist on multiple occasions since 2010. Mr. Barrett has played with San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, New Century Chamber Orchestra, most of the orchestras in Northern California and Nevada.
In 2016, he played in the inaugural season of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico. As a soloist, Mr. Barrett has appeared with a number of Bay Area ensembles, performing a wide range of repertoire from Handel’s G Minor concerto, to Copland’s Quiet City, to the Costa Rican composer Benjamin Gutiérrez’s Sketches for Oboe and Strings, to the recent commission by Sahba Aminikia, Shahmaran, where he also narrated.
Mr. Barrett is an avid chamber musician, new music enthusiast and teacher of students of all ages throughout Northern California. He has been on faculty at San José State University, California State University Stanislaus and Dominican University. He frequently gets involved in musical start-ups like San Francisco’s conductor-less chamber orchestra One Found Sound, and is the developmental director of the Bay Area’s premier wind octet Nomad Session. Mr. Barrett regularly enjoys teaching at music camps, recording new music, making school visits, and collaborating on solo and chamber concerts. He is also a passionate singer, often performing at his favorite piano bar, cabaret venues, and has hosted numerous events as an emcee, oboist, singer, and actor. He has shared the stage with a wide variety of performers, including but not limited to Dave Brubeck, Andrea Bocelli, Chicago and Third Eye Blind.
Mr. Barrett studied with Thomas Nugent at University of the Pacific where he was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and thereafter obtained a Master of Music from Boston University where he studied with Laura Ahlbeck and was inducted as a member of Pi Kappa Lambda. He currently teaches at University of the Pacific.
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Sue Yelanjian
Double bass
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Suzanne Mudge
Tenor Trombone
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Wayne Solomon
Bass Trombone
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