About the artist

ROBIN SUTHERLAND
Born: March 5, 1951 – Greeley, Colorado, USA
Died: December 18, 2020 – San Francisco, California, USA

Robin Sutherland studied with Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard School and with Paul Hersh at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. While still an undergraduate, he was appointed principal pianist of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (SFS) by Seiji Ozawa. The recipient of numerous awards, Sutherland was selected at 17 to be sole participant from the USA at the International Bach Festival, held at Lincoln Center. He was a finalist in the International Bach Competition in Washington DC and performed all of J.S. Bach’s keyboard works.

An avid chamber musician, Robin Sutherland was the co-director of the Telluride Players and a regular performer at the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine. Many composers have dedicated works to him, and among the world premieres in which he has participated was that of John Adams’s Grand Pianola Music, with members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

A frequent soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Robin performed Leonard Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting in San Francisco and on tour. Recently, he was featured in Martin’s Petite Symphonie concertante. In 1996, his recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) was released on the d’Note label.

Christopher Basso’s piano performances have been heralded as “riveting, with a multi-dimensional array of colors and shapes” (San Francisco Classical Voice) an “undeniably extraordinary” (Wilmington News Journal). The Boston Globe writes of his Prokofiev 8th Piano Sonata “Basso used his coruscating virtuosity, his flexible rhythmic spine, and his chameleon colors to communicate the sorrow, the irony, the rage and the compassion of this great score.” His playing has also been described as thoughtful, expressive and above all, deeply moving and engaging.

Basso was named First Place Prizewinner in the Second International Van Cliburn Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Ft. Worth, Texas. National performance venues include recitals at The Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Rockport, Massachusetts, the Shandalee Music Festival in Livingston, New York and The Nicolaï Hall Series in Mill Valley, California.

Basso has performed in the Bay Area with local artists, including violinists Ian Swensen and Krista Bennion Feeney, violist Jodi Levitz, cellists Jennifer Culp and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, pianists Robin Sutherland and Keisuke Nakagoshi, and the Ives Quartet. Christopher has received B.M. and M.M. degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His piano mentors are many, and include Paul Hersh, Mack McCray, Nina Svetlanova, David Brown, and Marcia Spitz. Basso teaches piano at San Francisco Community Music Center.

Britt Day was born in San Francisco, raised in Mill Valley, and attended college in Ohio. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree at the Oberlin Conservatory, he returned to the Bay Area to continue his post graduate studies with Paul Hersh at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he earned a Master’s Degree and a Professional Studies Diploma.

Since graduating, Britt works as a staff accompanist at the SF Conservatory and performs chamber music and recitals with musicians from the San Francisco Symphony, Opera Orchestra, and SF Ballet Orchestra. Recent appearances include performing on the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series in Davies Symphony Hall, Soundbox, the Berkeley Hillside Club chamber series, the Berkeley Symphony and Friends chamber series in Piedmont, and the Eastern Sierra Symphony summer festival.

Working with aspiring musicians is a passion for Britt.Throughout the year, he coaches musicians of all ages, and in the summer he serves on the faculty of the Northern California Flute Camp in Carmel Valley. Britt continues his work as a rehearsal pianist for the San Francisco Ballet company, and he can be found most weekday mornings playing piano for future ballerinas at Miss Tilly’s Ballet School in the Outer Richmond.

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.

Working with the Bridge Arts Ensemble, Stony Brook University, and 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.

A native of San Francisco, Elizabeth began her training in piano and double bass at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Paul Hersh and Stephen Tramontozzi. She was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University where she studied with Gilbert Kalish. Other important mentors in her musical development include Robert Levin, the Emerson String Quartet, Christina Dahl, Wu Han, Mark Sokol, Emmanuel Ax, and Arthur Haas.

Jeffrey LaDeur is known for his for his rare blend of insight, spontaneity, and approachable, communicative stage presence. Having inherited a rich tradition of pianism and interpretation from Annie Sherter, student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot, LaDeur has established himself as a compelling exponent of the French masters in addition to a diverse repertoire of canonical and alternative masterpieces. In March of 2018, LaDeur made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on the centennial of Claude Debussy’s death. LaDeur is the founder and artistic director of the San Francisco International Piano Festival. A chamber musician of distinction, Jeffrey’s acclaimed collaboration with mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich has led to engagements with Lieder Alive! in San Francisco, Neskowin Chamber Music, and the En Blanc et Noir Festival in Lagrasse, France. Their new album, To My Distant Beloved (MSR Classics) features song cycles by Beethoven and Schumann in addition to Schumann’s Fantasie in C, Op. 17 for solo piano.

Since making his Carnegie Hall debut in 1983, Jeffrey Kahane has appeared in recital as well as both as soloist and conductor with major orchestras around the country and the world, as well as appearing regularly at many of the major American music festivals. Mr. Kahane concluded his 20th and final season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in 2017, was the Music Director of the Colorado Symphony from 2005-2010, and Music Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony from 1993-2004. He has received much recognition for his innovative programming and commitment to education and community involvement with all three orchestras and received ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming for his work in both Los Angeles and Denver.

Mr. Kahane is a native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he met Robin during his first week. They went on to become housemates and close friends, appearing many times over the years as a four-hand and two-piano duo. He considers Robin to have been one of the most important musical influences in his life. Hearing Robin play the Goldberg Variations in private in the late 1970’s was a life-changing experience. He still considers that performance among the greatest performances of that work, one which would eventually inspire him to make that work one of the core works of his own repertoire.

Mr. Kahane’s early piano studies were with Howard Weisel and Jakob Gimpel. Grand  Prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and a finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, he was also the recipient of a 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant. An avid linguist who reads widely in a number of ancient and modern languages, Mr. Kahane received a Master’s Degree in Classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011.  He currently is a Professor of Keyboard Studies at University of Southern California, Music Director of the Sarasota Music Festival, and Artistic Advisor to the Sarasota Orchestra.

Keisuke Nakagoshi began his piano studies at the age of ten, arriving in the United States from Japan at the age of 18. Mr. Nakagoshi earned his Bachelors degree in Composition and Masters degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music., where he studied composition with David Conte and piano with Paul Hersh. Graduating as the recipient of multiple top awards, Keisuke was selected to represent the SFCM for the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project, a program featuring the most young musicians from major conservatories across the United States.

Mr. Nakagoshi has performed to acclaim on prestigious concert stages across the United States, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He has received training from some of the most celebrated musicians of our time – Emanuel Ax, Gilbert Kalish, Menahem Pressler, Robert Mann, Paul Hersh, David Zinman – and enjoys collaborating with other accomplished musicians such as Lucy Shelton, Ian Swensen, Jodi Levitz, Robin Sutherland, Lev Polyakin, Axel Strauss, Mark Kosower, Gary Schocker and also conductors such as Alasdair Neale, George Daugherty, Nicole Paiement, Michael Tilson Thomas and Herbert Blomstedt. In 2014, he made a solo debut with San Francisco Symphony on Ingvar Lidholm’s Poesis with Herbert Blomstedt conducting.

In 2009, Keisuke and Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann formed ZOFO, a piano duet team commissioning and performing music for piano four hands and their first CD was nominated for Grammy award for best chamber music/small ensemble in 2013. Mr. Nakagoshi is currently Pianist-in-Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he serves as pianist in the production team for Opera Parallèle.

Marc Shapiro is an acting member of the San Francisco Symphony, principal keyboardist for both the California Symphony and Berkeley Symphony, and an active chamber music performer throughout the Bay Area and beyond.