Private Instructor

Scott Amendola

Drummer/Composer/Bandleader/Educator

Los Angeles Times

“If Scott Amendola didn’t exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” 
Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian
“Amendola has complete mastery of every piece of his drumset and the ability to create a plethora of sounds using sticks, brushes, mallets, and even his hands.”Steven Raphael, Modern Drummer

“…drummer/signal-treater Scott Amendola is both a tyrant of heavy rhythm and an electric-haired antenna for outworldly messages (not a standard combination).” Greg Burk, LA Weekly

For...

Hrabba Atladottir

Icelandic violinist Hrabba Atladottir studied in Berlin, Germany with professor Axel Gerhardt and professor Tomasz Tomaszewski. After finishing her studies, Hrabba worked as a freelancing violinist in Berlin for five years, regularly playing with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Oper, and Deutsche Symphonieorchester. Hrabba also participated in a world tour with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, and a Germany tour with violinist Nigel Kennedy. Joshua Kosman, music critic of San Francisco Chronicle, praised her performance of Vivaldi’s “Spring”, and called her...

Louise Bidwell

Louise Brugger Bidwell teaches piano in the Music 168C program in the UCB Music Department. She is trained as a pianist and composer and enjoys playing a variety of keyboard instruments in the UC Berkeley Music Department. Louise’s areas of enthusiasm in piano teaching include the traditional Romantic music, and she particularly enjoys teaching contemporary music. She works with students to develop a warm, expressive tone and a convincing musical interpretation, In addition to concentrating on issues relating to piano performance, Louise encourages her students...

Christine Brandes

Following a distinguished international singing career during which she was acclaimed for her radiant, crystalline voice and superb musicianship across a broad repertoire, Christine Brandes takes to the podium as conductor and garners praise for performances in the opera house and on the symphony stage.

A 2021-22 fellow of the Dallas Opera Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Christine Brandes has led productions of Gluck’s Orfeo et Eurydice and Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto with West Edge Opera. With Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville,...

Kyle Bruckmann

Oboist Kyle Bruckmann tramples genre boundaries in widely ranging work as a composer/performer, educator, classical freelancer and new music specialist. His creative output – extending from conservatory-trained foundations into gray areas encompassing electro-acoustics, free jazz, post-punk rock, and the noise underground – can be heard on more than 80 recordings from labels including New World, Hat Art, Carrier, New Focus, Entr’acte, Clean Feed, Another Timbre, and Sick Room. His ensemble affiliations include Splinter Reeds, sfSound, San Francisco...

Jenny Q Chai

An artist of singular vision, pianist Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for her ability to illuminate musical connections throughout the centuries. With radical joie de vivre and razor-sharp intention, Chai creates layered multimedia programs which explore and unite elements of science, nature, fashion, and art. The New Yorker describes Chai as “a pianist whose dazzling facility is matched by her deep musicality.”

Based in both Shanghai and San Francisco, Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a deep grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for...

Jacqueline Chew

MM, SUNY-Binghamton; BM, San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Studied with Leonard Shure, Paul Hersh and Walter Ponce. Coached with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen and Roger Muraro in Paris. Recorded Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l-Enfant-Jesus and John Jacob Niles’ Sweet Irrational Worship: The Niles-Merton Songs (MSR Classics), available on cdbaby.com. Other Messiaen works she performs are Oiseaux Exotiques for piano solo and orchestra, Quatour pour la fin du temps, Visions de l’Amen and Piano Preludes. Samples of birdsong from her live performance appear on the webpage,...

Jeff Davis

Jeff Davis was appointed University Carillonist in July of 2000. He began carillon studies in 1984 with Berkeley’s first University Carillonist Ronald Barnes. Prior to his tenure at Berkeley, Davis was University Carillonist at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Davis passed the professional examination of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in 1988 and has since served that organization as a juror on the Johan Franco composition committee, the Carillonneur Examination Committee, and as President of the GCNA from 1996-...

Antoine van Dongen

Antoine van Dongen, Dutch violinist, pianist and conductor, has been on the faculty of Wellesley College, New England Conservatory, MIT, and the Walnut Hill School of Arts between 2005-2011.

Mr. van Dongen had a distinguished career serving as a first violinist with the world famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam from 1989 to 2004 and worked closely with Leonard Bernstein, Antal Dorati, Carlo Maria Giulini, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Ricardo Chailly and Mariss Jansons.

Between...

Kai Eckhardt

Kai Eckhardt began to play bass guitar in 1976 at age 15. His first major undertaking came in 1985 when European guitar prodigy Torsten de Winkel asked him to join his recording ensemble with Michael Brecker and Alphonse Mouzon, making quite a splash in the European scene, and later his touring band with Ernie Watts and Steve Smith, leading to an invitation to Eckhardt and Torsten to join Smith’s US-based group Vital Information. The two German musicians also appeared together in a TV production with Randy Brecker and Simon Phillips in Swiss National Television....