Fall 2023 Woodwind Chamber Music Concert

Canadian-American saxophonist Jan Berry Baker has performed as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician on many of the world’s great stages. Recent engagements include performances across the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. She has been featured as a concerto soloist with orchestras in Canada, Ukraine, USA, and most recently with the Sinfonica de Oaxaca in Mexico.

An advocate of contemporary music, Jan is Co-Artistic Director and saxophonist with Atlanta-based new music ensemble Bent Frequency. Founded in 2003, Bent Frequency brings the avant-garde to life through adventurous and socially conscious programming, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and community engagement. Committed to exploding marginalized programming in classical music, one of BF’s primary goals is championing music by women, composers of color and LGBTQIA+. In the last few years, she and Co-Artistic Director and percussionist Stuart Gerber have formed the Bent Frequency Duo Project. Together, they have commissioned over 50 new works for saxophone and percussion and have given countless performances of these works across the USA, Mexico, and Europe including their Carnegie Hall debut in 2016. Their work to fund the creation, performance and recording of new music has been supported by numerous national and international grants such as the Copland Foundation, French American Cultural Exchange (FACE), Barlow Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Ditson Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (National Endowment for the Arts/Andrew Mellon Foundation), and Culture Ireland to name a few.

Jan regularly performs with orchestras such as the LA Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Atlanta Opera and Atlanta Ballet and has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Chicago Chamber Players, and American Ballet Theater. She can be heard on American Orchestral Works with Grant Park Orchestra (Cedille), The Golden Ticket with the Atlanta Opera (Albany), The BF Duo Project recording Diamorpha (Centaur), Citizens of Nowhere featuring works for clarinet and saxophone (Albany) and is a featured performer on John Liberatore’s Line Drawings (Albany) and Robert Scott Thompson’s Folio, Vol.1, Vol. 2 and Solace (Aucourant).

As an artist and educator, Jan has held residencies at the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), Nürnberg Tage Aktueller Musik, Sam Houston State New Music Festival (TX), Charlotte New Music Festival, University of Georgia, New Music on the Point (VT) and Dakota Chamber Music Festival. She is highly sought after as a masterclass teacher and speaker, and has given presentations on contemporary music, entrepreneurship, nonprofits and grant writing, community engagement, socially conscious programming, career development and mentoring at major schools of music across the country.

Dr. Baker is Professor of Saxophone and Woodwind Area Head at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA and currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Department of Music and Special Assistant to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring. Prior academic appointments include Georgia State University, Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, Northwestern University and University of Alberta. She studied with Frederick L. Hemke, William H. Street and Barbara Lorenz and earned a Doctor of Music degree in saxophone performance from Northwestern University. She is a founding member of the Committee on Gender Equity in the North American Saxophone Alliance and served as the inaugural leader of the CGE Mentoring Program. Jan Berry Baker is a Selmer Paris, Vandoren, and Key Leaves performing artist.

John Steinmetz teaches bassoon and chamber music at UCLA. As a Los Angels freelance bassoonist, he played everything from Tristan und Isolde to Jurassic Park, from Beethoven symphonies to Family Guy, from Bach’s B-Minor Mass to Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels. He played with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Oregon Bach Festival, Camerata Pacifica, XTET, and festivals including Moab, Skaneateles, Las Vegas, the Colorado Music Festival, and Chamber Music Northwest. He toured with LA Chamber Orchestra, Mladi Wind Quintet, Camerata Pacifica, and the Bill Douglas Trio. He recorded soundtracks for Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, Randy Newman, Danny Elfman, Michael Giacchino, Shirley Walker, and many others. He made classical recordings with the Oregon Bach Festival, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Winds, and LA Philharmonic, and with XTET he recorded Donald Crockett’s Extant for bassoon and chamber ensemble. He premiered works by Arvo Pärt, Don Davis, Arthur Jarvinen, Billy Childs, Kryzstof Penderecki, and other composers, and he premiered his own bassoon concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony. In 2016 he retired from playing to focus on composing and teaching.

Compositions by John Steinmetz have been released on more than a dozen CDs from different performers and ensembles, including Mill Ave Chamber Players’ album What the Birds Said, devoted to his music. His Sonata and Quintet, recorded multiple times, have entered the repertoire for professionals, amateurs, and students. Recent commissions include A Great Treasure for clarinet, violin, and narrator; Sorrow and Celebration for reed quintet and audience; and What’s Going On, commissioned by thirty-three wind quintets and individuals from across the country. Some of his pieces have a part for the audience; others feature young players or singers collaborating with professionals. His comic pieces include What’s Your Musical I.Q.? (A Quiz) and The Monster that Devoured Cleveland.

John Steinmetz taught bassoon at the University of Redlands, Pomona College, UC Santa Barbara, and as a guest teacher at USC and Calarts, before teaching at UCLA. His former UCLA bassoon students now work in performance, college teaching, private instruction, orchestra administration, software design, yoga instruction, and other professions. He has been a frequent guest coach at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and has given master classes and workshops at colleges and conferences. He gave keynote speeches at the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy and at the annual conference of Americans for the Arts. He has led workshops in speaking from the stage for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and for competitors in the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition. A consultant to Naxos Records and to researchers at Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard, and Disney Imagineering, he collaborated on research into technologies of learning and expression, co-wrote a booklet about transfer of learning, edited a collection of musical activities for children, and contributed a chapter on education to a book about a new programming language. His essay Resuscitating Art Music was widely reprinted and discussed in classical music circles; Naxos Records distributes his booklet “How to Enjoy a Live Concert.” His articles and book reviews have appeared in Chamber Music, Symphony, and other publications; some are available at johnsteinmetz.org. He has been a board member of Chamber Music America, Monday Evening Concerts, Pasadena Waldorf School, and Renaissance Arts Academy.

Dr. Jonathan Davis plays regularly with orchestras around Southern California, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, and the San Diego Symphony. He is an active studio player, recording dozens of movies ranging from Spiderman II to Moana and Mulan. He is also a member of the Northwind Quintet, a woodwind quintet that introduces the fun of music to elementary schools. While living in New York, Davis was a member of the New Haven and Hartford Symphonies, and performed with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and as a soloist on NPR’s Performance Today.

Dr. Davis began his musical training as a soprano in the Choir of Men and Boys at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston under the direction of Thomas Murray. He studied oboe with Fred Cohen at New England Conservatory during high school and continued with Ronald Roseman at Yale University, where he received a B.A. (cum laude) in East Asian Studies and the Lustman Prize. He studied with John Ferrillo and Elaine Douvas at Juilliard, where he earned a MM and a DMA and was awarded the first Stephen Alpert Memorial Scholarship.

Dr. Davis’ students have gone on to careers in musicology, music education, music management, and, of course, performance. Among others, they have played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theater, the New World Symphony, the Los Angeles Opera, the Cincinnati Symphony, and on Broadway.