ChamberJazz and Tangos

Produced for DVD Release...

Filmed at historic Herbst Theatre, this concert features Quartet San Francisco, Jeremy Cohen's Violinjazz Quartet, and dancers Sandor and Parissa. Executive Producer/Director: Lauren Speeth. Co-director/Cinematographer: Dan Coplan. The quartet has undergone personnel changes since the time that this film was shot, and the quartet has decided against releasing it. However, footage is being kept for archival purposes.

DVD Highlights

• Jubilee Stomp -- Duke Ellington (1899-1974), arr. Jeremy Cohen
• Strange Meadowlark -- Dave Brubeck (b. 1920), arr. Cohen
• Felicia -- Enrique Saborido (1877-1941), arr. Cohen
• Blue Rondo a la Turk -- Brubeck, arr. Cohen
• Invierno Porteño -- Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), arr. Cohen
• Honeysuckle Rose -- Razaff- Fats Waller (1904-1943), arr. Dix Bruce
• Humoresque -- Dvorak-Venuti (1903?-1978), arr. Larry Dunlap
• Goodbye Pork Pie Hat C. Mingus (1922-1979), arr. Michael Radanovics
• La Cumparcita -- G. M. Rodriguez (1897-1948), arr. Cohen (view videoclip)
• Black Gypsy -- Eddie South (1904-1962), arr. Carl Schroeder
• Manhattan Serenade -- Louis Alter (1902-1980), arr. Larry Dunlap
• The Penguin -- Raymond Scott (1908-1994), arr. Cohen
• Nuevo Tango -- Piazzolla, arr. Cohen
• Satan's Holiday -- Venuti, arr. Schroeder
• Wild Dog -- Venuti, arr. Schroeder
• Gallo Ciego -- Augustin Bardi (1884-1941), arr. Cohen
• Taquito Militar -- Mariano Mores (b. 1918), arr. Cohen
• Verano Porteno -- Piazzolla, arr. Cohen
• Libertango -- Piazzolla, arr. Cohen (view videoclip)

Meet the Performers

Jeremy Cohen, violin - Jeremy Cohen's performances of jazz and classical violin have earned him nationwide accolades and his eclectic style reflects his admiration for violinists ranging from Fritz Kreisler to Joe Venuti. A classically-trained violinist, Cohen's teachers included Itzhak Perlman, Anne Crowden, and Daniel Kobialka. In addition to his own recordings with his ViolinJazz Quartet and Quartet San Francisco, and his work on motion picture and TV soundtracks, Cohen has performed and recorded with a wide variety of artists. On stage he was the solo violinist in Broadway productions including Forever Tango and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He has performed as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras around the country, and has toured with the Turtle Island String Quartet, the Hot Club of San Francisco, the New York Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Cohen is currently Resident Artist and String Coordinator at the Henry Mancini Institute at UCLA and Guest Artist in Residence at Mills College. He is also on the faculty of the Jazz School in Berkeley, California, and is a former faculty member of the Stanford Jazz Workshop. For more information, visit the artist's website at www.violinjazz.com.

Dawn Harms, violin A violinist, violist, chamber musician and conductor, Harms earned degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (studying with Dorothy Delay and Josef Gingold) and State University at Stony Brook, NY. For ten years she was first violinist with the Harrington String Quartet at West Texas A & M. A member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, she also performs as concertmaster with the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra and the Napa Valley Symphony. She is the first violinist of the Harmida Piano Trio and the founding member of the Elixir String Quartet. She recently collaborated with her cousin Tom Waits on his latest recording, released in May 2002. Ms. Harms currently serves on the music faculty at Stanford University.

Emily Onderdonk, viola A San Francisco native, Ms. Onderdonk received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Manhattan School of Music, and continued with post-graduate studies at Boston Univer- sity and the New England Conservatory of Music. Ms. Onderdonk has performed as principal violist with the Lyon National Opera in France, touring with the company to Paris, London and Vienna and recording CDs of Offenbach, Donizetti, Werther, Massenet and Puccini with Kiri Te Kanawa, Dawn Upshaw, Anne Sophie Von Otter and Jerry Hadley. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera, and was principal violist with the New York City National Opera Company and the Berkeley Symphony. She has appeared with chamber ensembles throughout the U.S. and in Mexico and Brazil.

Joel Cohen, cello Joel Cohen had his early musical training in the Bay Area with Irene Sharp and Margaret Rowell. He was co-principal cellist with the Oakland Symphony from 1979 to 1985. Cohen lived in Vienna for the next twelve years, playing and touring Europe, Japan and the U.S. with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra under Philippe Entremont, the Wiener Kammeroper, the Wiener Akademie and Quartett Yggdrasil. Since returning to the U.S. in 1997 he has lived in the Boston area, performing with various orchestras and chamber music groups including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the National Lyric Opera, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Music at Eden's Edge and the Leonora Quartet. He is a founder of the Zephyr Chamber Orchestra, a conductorless ensemble playing unusual repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries. Cohen lives in the Boston area and is the brother of Jeremy and Joshua (violinist and conductor).

Andrea Liguori, piano Holding degrees from Scripps College, Santa Clara University, and the San Francisco Conservatory, Liguori studied with Alice Shapiro, Sharon Mann, Timothy Bach, Paul Hersh, Mack McCray, Sam Sanders and Karl Ulrich Schnabel. An active vocal accompanist and ensemble pianist, she has been with the Bay Area's premier chorus, The Pacific Mozart Ensemble, since 1989. In 1994 Liguori performed the music of Piazzolla in the debut performance of The Diablo Ballet and has collaborated numerous times since then with choreographer Sally Streets.

Michael Burr, bass An Oakland native, Burr began studying violin when he was four. At 14 he was concert- master of Berkeley's Young People's Symphony, and at 15 he played the Bach E major Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony. In the meantime, he was discovering jazz and had taken up the trombone, which he played throughout four years in the Navy where he also discovered the bass. After his discharge, he spent a year on the road as bass player with swing trumpeter Billy Butterfield's band. He moved to New York City, played gigs in bars, supper clubs and jazz clubs, then began studying with Homer Mensch. Maintaining his classical roots, he served in Stokowski's American Symphony Orchestra and the Denver Symphony, won a position in the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in September 1966, and in December of that year joined the San Francisco Symphony.In 2000, after 34 years, Burr retired from the symphony and now performs as a freelancer in both the jazz and classical realms.

Larry Dunlap, piano Pianist, composer and arranger Larry Dunlap is at home in jazz, classical and popular styles of music. He lives in the San Francisco area with his wife Bobbe Norris, a reknowned jazz and cabaret vocalist. Larry has appeared with Cleo Laine and John Dankworth since the early 1980s and has performed extensively with many other well-known musical artists including Mark Murphy, Art Farmer and The Pointer Sisters. He has composed music for small and large jazz groups, chamber and symphonic orchestras and is in demand as an arranger and pianist in a variety of contexts. Larry's recordings include several CDs of music by the Cape Verdian composer Amandio Cabral. With his wife he has a record company which has released several of their recordings, most recently Bobbe Norris' Out of Nowhere.

Dix Bruce, guitar Composer, writer and award-winning guitarist from the San Francisco Bay Area, Bruce was raised in the Midwest. He began playing guitar at age twelve. After college, he relocated to the Bay Area where his interest in hybrid acoustic string music led him to David Grisman's prototype quintet in the mid-1970s. Bruce eventually teamed up with the mandolinist and edited the magazine Mandolin World News from 1978 until 1984. In 1978 Bruce formed the band "Back Up & Push" to explore the emerging possibilities of swing and jazz on acoustic stringed instruments. The band toured the west coast throughout the 1980s and accom- panied Bruce on his release Tuxedo Blues. Dix Bruce does studio work on guitar, mandolin, and banjo, and has recorded two LPs with mandolin legend Frank Wakefield, six big band CDs with the Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, and his own collection of American folk songs entitled My Folk Heart.

Sandor, dancer and choreographer Sandor's entire family performed with the circus and, at the age of eight, he joined them to tour South America. He later performed in theater productions, film, and television. Once involved with tango, Sandor toured in Tango, Tango (1992) and Corazon de Tango (1994) and was in the original cast of the Broadway/London hit, Forever Tango, nominated in 1997 for the Tony Award, Best Choreography. Film credits include the European film Marlene, depicting the life of Marlene Dietrich, The Music Box, and on the small screen the PBS special Tango Magic and the Showtime series Rude Awakening. In 2001 he choreographed the tango film Lighting on Positions. Sandor produces, directs, and performs in his own shows, Tango and Beyond, Tango Bravo, and Tango Vivo!, all of which have toured the U.S., Singapore, and Canada. A sought-after dancer, choreographer, director and teacher, Sandor maintains a diverse career and touring schedule and is based in the Los Angeles area.

Parissa, dancer Parissa spent most of her early childhood in the south of France. Eventually the San Francisco Bay area became her home and it was during this time that she started her dance training with pre- pointe ballet, tap and jazz at Kirkpatrick's School of Dance. She relocated to southern California to pursue her acting career and then discovered her talent for ballroom dance (Latin, swing, smooth, theatre arts, and Argentine tango). Parissa's dance credits include Camerata Tango, Tango & Beyond, Argentina Baila, Tango Bravo, Tango Vivo!, the film Lighting on Positions. Her acting credits include The Heartbreak Café (TV, series regular), Moon Children (film, lead), Hooters (film, lead), and The Power and the Glory (theater, lead).