LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
Eos Ensemble
“Classically Folk”
Piano Trios of Haydn and Dvorak
Craig Reiss, Associate Principal 2nd Violinist with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and member of the SF Opera Orchestra brings his Eos Ensemble to the piano store. Along with Evan Kahn, Principal Cellist of the San Francisco Opera, and internationally renowned pianist Elizabeth Dorman, they will present a varied program of Piano Trios by Haydn and Dvorak. Dvorak’s expressive Trio in F minor showcases the exuberant rustic style for which he is most famous as well as the anguish of the recent death of his mother. Haydn titled his Trio in E flat minor “Jacob’s Dream” referring to the biblical story of the ladder ascending to heaven, and it imbues his inimitable classical style with elements of Austrian folk song.
$25 General Admission / $15 Student Admission
We are offering a limited number of tickets to attend this performance in person. Advance purchase is recommended. Masking is encouraged but not required.
CRAIG REISS
Craig Reiss is a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Associate Principal 2nd Violin of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. He has been a featured soloist with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the Carmel Bach Festival, the Oakland Civic Orchestra, the Nova Vista Symphony, and the Vallejo Symphony. He has taught chamber music at the Blackburn Music Academy in Napa and the Marin Academy and participated in festivals at Tanglewood, Spoleto and the Colorado Music Festival.
He is also the director of the Eos Ensemble, an exciting chamber music group comprised mainly of members of the San Francisco Opera orchestra. The goal of the group is to present concerts of wide ranging musical styles and instrumental combinations. Audiences throughout the Bay Area have been thrilled to experience the artistry normally reserved for the grand canvas of opera transformed to the intimacy of chamber music. The Eos Ensemble has received grants from Music Performance Trust Fund and KIDDO! to present educational concerts in the Mill Valley schools. They also recently performed on the national radio broadcast “West Coast Live.” San Francisco Classical Voice said, “Every little detail was perfectly in place and meticulously balanced… They played with genuine depth and power.”
EVAN KAHN
California-based cellist Evan Kahn has been praised as “a cellist deserved of serious listening” for bringing his “electrifying … nuanced and colorful” style to all of his collaborations, from concerti to chamber music to contemporary performances. He has commissioned and premiered over 60 works by composers from around the world, including his father’s Cello Concerto.
Evan holds principal positions in four orchestras — San Francisco Opera, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Opera San Jose, and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. Dedicated to the orchestral craft, he has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, LA Opera, San Francisco Symphony, and as acting principal cellist with the Britt Music and Arts Festival. In April/May 2018, he served as Artist-in-Residence with Performance Today at NPR, sharing some of his favorite works for cello and his philosophies on music and life. In February 2019, he was named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month. He is resident cellist for a number of Bay Area small ensembles, including Ninth Planet, After Everything, and the Farallon Quintet.
Evan attended Aspen Music Festival on a fellowship for four summers, where he studied with Darrett Adkins and played co-principal in the Aspen Academy of Conducting Orchestra, the Aspen Philharmonic as an Orchestral Leadership Fellow, and as a fellow in the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. Other summers were spent playing chamber music at the Taos School of Music, as resident cellist at the Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar, where he served as principal cellist.
Evan received a Master’s in Chamber Music at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying with Jennifer Culp. He graduated with college and university honors from Carnegie Mellon University, studying with David Premo. Before college, he took lessons in Los Angeles with John Walz, Timothy Loo, and Karen Patch. Other important mentors include Paul Hersh, Thomas Loewenheim, Amos Yang, Mark Kosower, Robert DeMaine, and Bonnie Hampton.
In addition to performing and teaching, Evan enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons and watching British television. He plays on a cello by Italian luthier Carlo Carletti, c. 1900, and a bow made for cellist Lynn Harrell by archetier Paul Martin Siefried.
ELIZABETH DORMAN
Praised by Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle for her “elegance and verve,” pianist Elizabeth Dorman enjoys performing music both new and old as a soloist and chamber musician.
A finalist of the 2018 Leipzig International Bach Competition, Elizabeth has been widely recognized as a leading performer for her inquisitive interpretations of Bach’s music on the modern piano. Elizabeth has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Louisville Orchestra, the Leipzig Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Folsom Lake Symphony, the Stanford Summer Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, as a soloist for interdisciplinary projects at New World Symphony, and as a keyboardist at the San Francisco Symphony. She can be heard on Delos records as a concerto soloist with Santa Rosa Symphony’s new album celebrating the music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and this season will perform as a soloist with California Symphony and Vallejo Symphony.
She has been presented as a soloist and chamber musician at venues including the Kennedy Center, Davies Symphony Hall, Herbst Theater, Merkin Hall, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Leipzig’s Hochschule für Musik, and her live solo performances have been nationally broadcast on NPR and public radio. Elizabeth is the Assistant Artistic Director at the Archipelago Collective, a chamber music festival in the San Juan Islands, and has appeared at other festivals including Tanglewood, Britt, Sarasota, Aspen, Toronto Summer Music, Icicle Creek, and the Banff Centre.
Working with the Bridge Arts Ensemble, Stony Brook University, and as a board member of the Ross McKee Foundation, Elizabeth has produced concerts, lectures, and workshops for music students and was honored with the Father Merlet Award from Pro Musicis for her work training high school music students in community engagement.
Elizabeth and was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University in 2019 where she studied with Gilbert Kalish and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.