Natural Harmony
Sunday, August 17th at 2:30pm • Berkeley Piano Club
Drawing from community-based submissions of poems and short stories, ‘Natural Harmony’ will be the culminating event of our week-long summer residency where composers, musicians and visual artists come together to create new works, bringing these stores to life musically and visually. All artists will present and perform their works live at the Berkeley Piano Club.
The Program
Details Coming Soon..
The Musicians
Tanya Tomkins
Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed on many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, “Great Performances” at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances, and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal.
She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society, and The Library of Congress.
Nigel Armstrong
Nigel Armstrong is emerging as a dynamic and creative artist both within and beyond the realm of classical music. From his musical beginnings as a member of "The Little Fiddlers" in Sonoma, CA to collaborations with tango musicians in Argentina he's enjoyed using the violin in a versatile manner throughout his life.
As soloist and chamber musician Nigel has performed with orchestras throughout the world, and feels fortunate to have had the chance to explore great orchestral literature throughout his career.
Nigel also recently had the opportunity to live with and learn from the Plum Village community founded by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, where he spent a year working on their organic farm and taking part in their daily life, an experience for which he continues to be grateful.
Audrey vardanega
Praised as a “[musically] eloquent” (San Francisco Classical Voice) player “with the kind of freedom, authority, and strength…that one expects from the world’s finest pianists” and a “bewitching musical presence” (The Piedmont Post), American pianist and arts entrepreneur Audrey Vardanega (b.1995) has performed as a solo and collaborative pianist across Europe, China, and the United States. In response to her passion for bringing artists together for opportunities for performance, the creation of new work, and interdisciplinary collaboration, Audrey founded Musaics of the Bay in 2019.
The Composers
Karna Mendonza
Karna Mendonca is a freelance composer based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended summer programs at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Interlochen Arts academy, and currently studies both piano and composition with Eric Zivian.Karna participated in both the Stay-at-home Symposium and the Musaics of the Bay Winter Residency, and also helps organize Musaics’ artist gatherings.
Currently, Karna is interested in the intersection between visual art and music, improvisation in the classical tradition, and synthesizing concert music with ideas from jazz, flamenco, and other musical traditions. When he is not writing music, Karna also does research in artificial intelligence at UC Berkeley and plays oboe and English horn in the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra.
Terra Angela Hurtado
"Terra is an instrumental and electronic composer, and she’s thrilled to be working with Musaics for the Musical Lore residency!
Traditional, acoustic music ensembles are her favorite type of sound, and she hopes to enhance and augment that sound through the use of electronics and technology. Music pieces in film, television, and gaming all utilize some combination of technologies, and she believes putting these pieces together is part of the creative process. Her favorite instrument is the viola. Currently, she’s the composer for an unnamed pilot based out of LA, slotted for release in fall of this year."
Skyler Baysa
Skyler Lee Baysa (b. 2004) is a musician and composer living in the California Bay Area. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree and honors in Music and Linguistics. Skyler has been playing the piano since 5 years old (studying with Sharon Lee Kim and Michael Seth Orland), and has been composing since he was 11. Skyler’s compositions have been performed by various professional musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Friction Quartet and players from the SF Symphony. He has received a Morton Gould Young Composer Award Competition Honorable Mention, the 2024 David and Diana Menn Memorial Prize in Music, and won the Oriens Composition Competition 2024. Skyler has also worked on the production of several Musical Theater Prize productions at UC Berkeley, and in 2022 performed in the devised work The After Party directed by Erika Chong Shuch. Skyler has been working with Musaics of the Bay since July 2020 and is happy to be participating in another Musaics residency.
The Berkeley Piano Club
The Berkeley Piano Club, dedicated to the performance and study of music, was founded in 1893 by a group of local women. Early meetings were held in members’ homes and later in a barn at the southwest corner of Piedmont Avenue and Bancroft Way. The clubhouse was built in 1912 to serve as the organization’s permanent home. Architect William L. Woollett, who later designed the Hollywood Bowl, created a building that is domestic in scale and detailing. Its redwood-clad concert hall remains the Club’s home as well as a site for performances by musicians of all ages, enriching the cultural life of the community. The clubhouse was restored in 2005.