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Arts & Entertainment

Clarinet and Piano Recital with Mara Plotkin, Clarinet and Miles Graber, piano

Clarinet and Piano Recital with Mara Plotkin, Clarinet and Miles Graber, piano

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 7:00pm
$10 for adults and $5 for students, seniors and children under 12

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Leonard Bernstein
Five Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi
Concerto No. 2 in Eb Major for Clarinet by C.M. von Weber
Fantasie for Clarinet Solo by Jorg Widmann
Broadway, Jazz, and Klezmer standards

Clarinetist Mara Plotkin 

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Mara Plotkin performs extensively as an orchestral and chamber musician in Toronto and the San Francisco Bay Area.  She also enjoys teaching private and group clarinet lessons. Mara has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Massey Hall and cultural institutes throughoutNorth America. She performs regularly with the Ontario Philharmonic, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Sinfonietta and most recently played in the Bolshoi Ballet Company production of Swan Lake in Toronto. As an active contemporary music performer, Mara played in a live CBC broadcast of the duet for Violin and Clarinet by Anders Hillborg and also performed Gnarly Buttons in the Soundstreams and Toronto Symphony Orchestra New Creations Festival. She has attended international music festivals including the National Academy Orchestra in the Boris Brott Music Festival, Orford Academy Orchestra, Banff Music Centre, Las Vegas Music Festival, Bowdoin Interna- tional Music Festival and Domaine Forget.

Ms. Plotkin was a soloist with New York City-based Ensemble 212 in 2009 where she performed Weber’s Concertino as well as a soloist with the Mannes Orchestra where she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto as finalist in the 2006 Mannes Concerto Competition.

Mara began her musical studies on piano, clarinet and viola in elementary school. In addition, she took jazz improvisation lessons. Mara credits her training in ballet, jazz, modern, and tap dance as a constant inspiration for her music. Mara Plotkin received a Master of Music degree and Professional Studies Diploma from Mannes College of Music where she studied with Stephen Williamson and David Krakauer, a Bachelor of Music degree from the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific where she studied with Patricia Shands, and is currently studying at the University of Toronto on full scholarship to pursue a Doctorate in Musical Arts degree in clarinet performance where she studies with Joaquin Valdepeñas, principal clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Mara holds the Ontario Graduate Scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year.

In addition to her passion for music, Mara has a budding interest in international affairs and public health. She completed the International Leadership Program at the International House in New York City in 2008. This program included training in cultural sensitivity, communication skills, conflict res- olution and public speaking. In addition, Mara is certified in First Aid by the Canadian Red Cross.


 Pianist Miles Graber

Miles Graber received his musical training at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Anne Hull, Phyllis Kreuter, Hugh Aitken, and Louise Behrend. He has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1971, where he has developed a wide reputation as an accompanist and collaborative pianist for instrumentalists and singers. He has performed with numerous solo artists, including Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang Lin, Camilla Wicks, Axel Strauss, Mimi Stillman, and Judith LeClair. Mr. Graber currently performs frequently with violinists Christina Mok and Mariya Borozina, flutists Gary Woodward, Amy Likar, and Ai Goldsmith, and clarinettist Tom Rose.  He is a member of the chamber groups Trio Concertino, MusicAEterna, and Sor Ensemble, as well as the new music group Sounds New. 

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Mr. Graber has been associated with such ensembles as the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Midsummer Mozart, the Oakland-East Bay Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, the California Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Oakland Lyric Opera, Berkeley Opera, and Opera San Jose. He has accompanied master classes by such artists as Midori, Joseph Silverstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Pamela Frank, Alexander Barantchik, James Galway, Lynn Harrell, and Yo-Yo Ma. He has been a frequent performance accompanist and chamber player with members of San Francisco Symphony, San Jose Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, California Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Oakland-East Bay Youth Orchestra, and  UC Berkeley Symphony. He is active as a teacher and chamber music coach, and he is on the faculties of The Crowden School in Berkeley and San Domenico Conservatory in San Anselmo. In addition, he regularly coaches and accompanies students of the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley. He is currently a staff accompanist and chamber music coach in the Preparatory Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he is a regular staff accompanist at Northern California Flute Camp in Carmel Valley.

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