Gala Concert Featured Artists
Tiffany Austin
Photo Credit: © Bill Reitzel
Vocalist, composer, lyricist and social activist Tiffany Austin combines classic jazz tradition with a deep love for blues, spirituals and contemporary soul and a storyteller's knack for narrative. She's performed on bandstands internationally including at both Birdland and Dizzy's Den in NYC, Walt Disney Concert Hall in her native Los Angeles and the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco.
Nothing But Soul, Austin's debut album from 2015, earned raves for its bold recasting of Hoagy Carmichael standards. Her sophomore album, Unbroken (2018), was hailed by All About Jazz as a "fully formed masterpiece."
Austin has kept creatively active during the pandemic. In 2020, she helped titanic tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders celebrate his 80th birthday as part of an all-star concert at Zebulon Cafe in Los Angeles. She was organist/Black Jazz Records leader Doug Carn's special guest at the 2021 San Jose Jazz Summer Fest and also launched the Con Alma Music Creative Intellect Scholarship for BIPOC high school students that year. In 2022, she was named a Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Seeds Commissions Artist and the 2022 Healdsburg Freedom Jazz Choir Arranger/Music Director.
A graduate of UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law, Austin decided to forgo a career as a lawyer to focus on music, her true passion, and she's been raising the bar ever since.
Sasha Cooke
Photo Credit: © Stephanie Girard
Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been called a "luminous standout" by the New York Times and "equal parts poise, radiance, and elegant directness" by Opera News. Ms. Cooke has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Seattle Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, among others, and with over 80 symphony orchestras worldwide frequently in the works of Mahler. This season marks Ms. Cooke's appointment at the Music Academy of the West as Co-Director of the Lehrer Vocal Institute.
Ms. Cooke opens the 2022/23 season with a return to Houston Grand Opera in the company's new production of Dame Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers. On the concert stage, she performs in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with Houston Symphony; Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with Wiener Konzerthaus; Michael Tilson Thomas' Meditations on Rilke with the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer; Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; and Mozart's Requiem with the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and later with Nashville Symphony. She debuts with Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Mahler's Symphony No. 3 conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, and the Utah Symphony in Mendelssohn's Elijah, which she later performs with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert. She makes returns to Chicago Symphony for works by Vivaldi, to Philadelphia Orchestra for Handel's Messiah and to Kansas City Symphony for Hindemith. Special collaborations on the recital stage include Jake Heggie's Intonations: Songs for the Violins of Hope with Music of Remembrance; recitals with guitarist Jason Vieaux at San Francisco Performances and Round Top Festival; and a recital at Kaufman Music Center, alongside pianist Kirill Kuzmin featuring how do I find you, a collection of words and music created in 2020 that was recorded and released on the Pentatone label and nominated for a Grammy in 2023 for Best Classical Vocal Solo album.
Zen Wold
Zen Wold began studying piano at the age of 8, with videos borrowed from his local library in his small hometown in Oregon. With a natural aptitude and strong passion for music, Zen's skills grew exponentially, and after moving to San Francisco in 2018, he began formal study at Community Music Center.
In that time, Zen has performed regularly both at CMC and around the city. He was selected to participate in CMC's Piano Master Class with Emanuel Ax after only five months of study and was a featured performer at the SF Botanical Garden's Flower Piano event in 2021. That same year, Zen scored the highest possible rating on Level 7 of the Music Teachers' Association of California's Certificate of Merit exam on his first attempt and was selected for the convention recital.
In the future, Zen hopes to pursue a career in music and has interests in composition and music production in addition to piano. He is currently a student at the highly-selective Ruth Asawa School for the Arts in San Francisco and studies piano at CMC with Matylda Rotkiewicz.
Matylda Rotkiewicz
Matylda Rotkiewicz holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Musique de Versailles, Conservatoire Niedermeyer de Paris, and The Boston Conservatory, where she was a recipient of a full scholarship award. Ms. Rotkiewicz received a Second Prize and the Special Prize for the best performance of contemporary music at the "Milosz Magin International Piano Competition" in Paris, Third Prize at the "Annual Music and Dance International Competition" in Toronto, Canada, and was a winner of "The Boston Conservatory Honors Competition". Her repertoire list covers a wide range of musical styles and tastes, with a special interest in the music of Chopin, Szymanowski, Debussy, and Magin, with whom she studied for ten years while living in France. Matylda has served on the faculty of numerous music schools in the Boston and Houston area, and has been on the CMC faculty since 2008. She combines her two equally rewarding passions: mentoring students and performing.
Afterparty Featured Artist
The Curtis Family C-notes
The Curtis Family C-notes Band is the first family band with the mother, father, and their five children (Mama C, Papa C, Zahara, Nile, Isis, Kiki and Phoenix). The Curtis family is an astonishingly multi-talented and gifted family of seven. The family consists of multi-instrumentalists, vocalists, dancers, composers, and producers. The family released their debut album, "Awaken", June of 2022.
They are also community champions who focus on helping seniors, the youth, and the homeless. The Curtis Family C-Notes have performed for the Golden State Warriors, the San Francisco Giants, America's Got Talent and many others in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. The Curtis Family has the distinction of being named The First Family of San Francisco, in California. The band was sought out by one of the biggest retail giants in the country, JCPenney, to make a 2021 Christmas Holiday commercial which aired for weeks, both nationally and internationally.
Maestro Curtis (Papa C) was a child prodigy, mentored by Maurice White, lead vocalist of Earth, Wind & Fire. As an adult Maestro became a world-renown musician, producer, teacher, and author. Maestro signed to Maurice White's label (Kalimba Records) as a member of the group Xpression where he wrote and produced the album entitled "Power" in which Maurice White was the executive producer.
Additional Performances
Erick Peralta
Erick Peralta is a versatile musician with a special appreciation for all styles of music, permitting him to keep open ears for the development of music, while still keeping in mind tradition and history. From an early age, Erick was exposed to various styles of music thanks to his father, such as Latin-Pop, Afro-Peruvian, and Afro Cuban music. Classically trained from 6 years old, he began playing professionally in the year 2005, at the age of 15, then branching out in the San Francisco Bay Area with various Jazz, Rock, Latin Jazz, and Salsa groups.
Following his studies at the SF Community Music Center and the Jazzschool in Berkeley, he's had jazz studies with late pianist Ray Santisi, Laszlo Gardony, Danilo Perez, Tia Fuller, Ed Tomassi, David Santoro, as well as with Papo Lucca from Sonora Poncena, and Oscar Hernandez of SHO. Now a graduate from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Erick currently resides in the city of San Francisco. Past notable performances include having worked with multi-Grammy winners Alejandro Sanz, Luis Enrique, and Susana Baca; as well has worked with artists such as Pedrito Martinez, John Santos, Juan Medrano "Cotito", La India, Tito Nieves, Bayonics, and Grupo 5, and more.
Erick has taken part performing in various festivals and venues, such as: San Jose Jazz Festival, the Latin Grammy Awards, Fillmore Jazz Festival, the Independent, The Regency Ball Room, The Fillmore, the Blue Note Napa, San Francisco International Salsa Festival, Berklee Performance Center, Boston Convention Center, the Beantown Jazz Festival, and many more.
Along with performing, Erick works in composing and arranging in Jazz, Pop, and Latin music. Currently he is working on several projects, including his own project featuring original jazz compositions for various ensembles.
Always having been a strong advocate for music education, Erick forms part of the faculty at SF Community Music Center, as well serves as a private music teacher in his home studio, teaching piano in styles such as Jazz, Latin, R&B, and Pop, as well as music theory, composition, and arranging.
Aerodynamic
Aerodynamic is made up of San Francisco high school students Ryan Ancheta (trumpet), Sedge Green (bass), Sora Hoshino (guitar), Dominic Labuguen (keyboard), and Zev Vestel (drums). The group came together through their participation in the San Francisco Community Music Center's Young Musicians Program, directed by Scott Foster, and CMC's Teen Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Marcus Shelby. The group has performed at the Autumn Leaves JazzFest at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts; Commonwealth Club Gala; California Community Choice Association Gala; and KQED's Night of Ideas.