Clazzical Notes, an adult educational outreach program that showcases the talents of Pasadena Symphony and POPS musicians, presents an online presentation of “Tunes and Tones by Strings,” an all-acoustic strings program, on Thursday.
The show will be live on Clazzical Notes’ Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/
“Tunes and Tones” will feature five accomplished string composers and musicians: California Native pianist William Foster McDaniel, Chinese pipa musician Yihan Chen, pizzicato cellist Stephen Katz, violinist Marisa McCleod, cellist Giovanna Moraga Clayton, and Latin and Classical guitarist Greg Poree.
William Foster McDaniel is a graduate of the Conservatory of Music at Capital University, in Columbus, Ohio and earned his Master of Music degree at Boston University. As a pianist, he appears frequently in solo recitals and chamber concerts featuring his own compositions as well as works from the standard concert repertoire. He is in demand as a conductor in musical theater and has served as musical director for many popular on- and off Broadway shows.
Yihan Chen, an internationally renowned pipa virtuoso and educator, has performed at leading venues in Asia, North America and Europe. She was the resident pipa soloist with the Huaxia Chamber Ensemble in Beijing and Music From China in New York City. She was a prize winner of international accolades such as the 1995 Freedom International Chinese Instrument Competition and the 1989 Art Cup. She graduated from the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1995.
Stephen Katz is a trailblazing cellist and award-winning composer who has charted new territory for the cello with the groundbreaking approach he calls Flying Pizzicato. He has performed his compositions at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and toured internationally as a soloist, and with the Paul Winter Consort, Rachael Sage, Susan Werner, and the Essex String Quartet. He has been featured on American Public Media national broadcasts of Performance Today and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant through the State University of New York/Buffalo Arts in Healthcare Initiative. As a film composer, Katz’s score won the Jury Prize Gold Medal for Best Impact of Music in a Documentary at the Park City Film Music Festival.
Marisa McLeod, a native of Newark, New Jersey received her Bachelor of Music degree at Montclair State University and her Master of Music degree from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. For 10 years, she was a member of the Anderson String Quartet, who are artists in residence and members of the music faculty at Cal State Los Angeles. McLeod studied the art of string quartet playing with the Cleveland Quartet, Juilliard String Quartet, American String Quartet, and William Fitzpatrick of Le Quatuor de Deux Monde, in Fontainebleau, France. As a freelance violinist, she has also performed and recorded for artists like Snoop Dog, Smokey Robinson, En Vogue, Moesha, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, and many others. She presently performs with the California Philharmonic, the Santa Barbara Symphony, and various orchestras in Southern California.
Giovanna Moraga Clayton, the daughter of professional musicians, was born in Toluca, Mexico and raised in Southern California. She has earned several accolades as a young cellist. Making her orchestral solo debut at the age of 14, Clayton has continued to solo with orchestras in the U.S. as well as Central America, while holding tenured positions with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Working in the Los Angeles studio scene for the last 14 years, Clayton has played on countless movie soundtracks, records and television shows. In search of a more creatively challenging project, she became a founding member of the Latin Grammy-nominated group Quattro, now known as Quattrosound.
Greg Porée was born in Chicago and has lived in Southern California since he was 7. His father was from New Orleans, a Creole, and knew a lot of the earlier musicians including Sidney Bechet. His mother was more a fan of Ellington and Basie. Hearing Django Reinhardt and Segovia, he fell in love with the guitar and started playing seriously when he was 15. At 23, Porée got the first break in his career when saxophonist Harold Battiste, one of his mentors, helped him land the position of musical director for Sonny & Cher. Porée has been the guitarist on the BBC hit show “Dancing With The Stars” since its first season.
For more information, visit www.clazzicalnotes.org, contact Jerri Price Gaines at (626) 833-2750 or email clazznotes@gmail.com.
