Month: December 2015

Holiday Greetings–Save the dates for BACAHS events on January 31 and February 6, 2016

Holiday greetings to all our BACAHS members and friends! Before the month and year get away from us, we want to remind you of two upcoming Chapter events that you don’t want to miss.

By now you probably have our ever popular annual Winter Potluck gathering on your calendar for January 31. We’ll be graciously hosted by Malcolm McAfee, 30 Commonwealth Avenue, San Francisco at 4 pm. Oakland’s Destiny Muhammed, the Harpist from the ‘Hood, will perform and there will be a music swap. Please start deciding what dish you will share and RSVP to ayothers@yahoo.com.

Then hot on its heels — and not to be missed — February 6 is the concert, Classical Flamenco, by the Pacific Arts Trio, featuring Natalie Cox, harp, Alice Lenaghan, flute, and Dan Reiter, cello. They will perform at Harps Etc. at 7:30 pm. Ticket information to follow.

See the program below:cox trio

The Adoration of the Maji from Botticelli Tryptich by Ottorino Respighi
Sonatas K 146 / K 27 / K 491 by Domenico Scarlatti
Pescodd Time by William Byrd
Malagueña by Isaac Albeniz
Aragonaisse from Carmen by Bizet
Passacaglia by Luigi Boccherini
Sonatas K 208 & 209 by Domenico Scarlatti
East Meets West by Ravi Shankar
Three Largos by Antonio Vivaldi

All arrangements by Dan Reiter

Since everyone is so busy at this time of year, we have just a little bit of member news to share. We’ll send a more comprehensive newsletter in mid-January. We love hearing from our members and sharing their activities with the group! Please submit any news or messages to ayothers@yahoo.com by January 10 of upcoming plans or experiences you may have had that would be of interest to us. And anyone who has a listing on our Classifieds page, please let us know if anything has changed with it, or if the ad should be removed.

Everyone keep safe, warm and dry, and we hope to see you in the New Year!

Alice Yothers
Susie Spiwak


Member News

The new CD, “Lyric Flute and Harp Musical Offerings” featuring Olga Ortenberg-Rakitchenkov, harp, and Dawn Walker-Schrock, flute is available on iTunes, Amazon and CDBaby. The music includes the harp solo, “The Lark” by Glinka-Balakirev with the original 20th century transcription for harp done for Olga by her teacher, the world famous harpist, Vera Dulova. Olga was the first harpist in Russia to perform this piece with its several chromatic passages that were quite challenging to play as they came directly from the piano score.

olgaIn her role as Principal Harp for the San Francisco opera, Olga recently performed “Lucia de Lammermoor” by Donizetti. There is a big harp solo in the first Act, and flute solo in the “mad scene” in the second Act. The Music Director, Nicola Luisotti, invited Principal flutist, Julie McKenzie and Olga to the stage for curtain final bow with the singers, Olga is seen in the photo holding a toy harp, so people in the audience would recognize the harpist.

Olga can be heard in concert in early 2016:
February 26, 2016–Berkeley City Club with flutist Dawn Walker and pianist Arkady Serper
March 6, 2016–First Episcopal Church on Hopkins and Alameda in Berkeley
April 2016 (date TBD)—Old First Church, San Francisco


Dr. Diana Rowan has 2 upcoming online trainings for the new year:

FLOW Harp Technique starts Jan 12. Learn to play with power, expression and healthy technique for life! Based on Salzedo classical harp technique combined with body-honoring arts such as yoga, tango, belly dance, Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais, FLOWHT is designed for today’s harpist working in a uniquely demanding world. All live training sessions will be recorded, so harpists can also learn via videos if they can’t attend live online. We’ll also have a private Facebook community for the duration of the course for further support! More info & registration: http://dianarowan.com/flow-harp-technique-starts-jan-12

Performance Mastery starts Jan 14. I had such a bad case of stage fright I gave up music completely for 4 years. Now I perform and teach worldwide. This journey has taught me what really works when learning to manage performance energy. If you have stage fright, you CAN get over it, and much faster than you might think. Read the inspiring results of the latest group of Performance Mastery graduates plus my guarantee here (registration also at this link) http://dianarowan.com/performance-mastery-live-online-training-starts-jan-14. Attendance is limited to 7 total and live participation online is required so you can finally learn to love performing!

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