July 27th, 2024
Mary Nguyen Jazz Trio
The Mary Nguyen Trio is a Berkeley-based jazz group comprising Mary Nguyen (piano), Chris He (saxophone), and Collin Miller (bass). The three musicians met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they played together at various venues including the Freight and Salvage and Hertz Hall.
Lizzie Burns
Lizzie Burns is a singer-songwriter and vocalist from the Bay Area, where her unique voice and genre-bending style are making waves. With lifelong passion for music, Lizzie’s journey has taken her to some pretty cool institutions, including the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Through her music, Lizzie seeks to transcend genres and connect with listeners on a deeper level. With her captivating voice, poignant lyrics, and undeniable stage presence, she hopes to cultivate listeners who crave something authentic and genuine.
As Lizzie continues to hone her craft and share her gifts with the world, it’s clear that her music is not just a reflection of herself, but a reflection of the world around her – a world that needs more love, more hope, and more beauty.
Justine Sarmiento
Justine is a Filipino-American pianist based in the Bay Area. Raised in a musical family, she spent her childhood in four countries and grew up listening to different styles of music. She began taking piano lessons at age 4 and started teaching in 2017. She has worked with students ages 3 to senior adult and enjoys the opportunity to engage with passionate, curious learners.
In her free time, she also loves to compose her own music and explore other genres, often playing with friends and co-hosting an open mic event series called Fifth House, named after the astrological house of creativity, romance, and pleasure. Justine is currently continuing her piano studies under the instruction of Karl Goldstein.
Justine’s song, Spaghetti Kisses was selected for the Call for Songs initiative and she will be performing the song along with the string orchestra on the Sunday program.
Sofia Magdalena
Sofia Magdalena is a Puerto Rican born, Dominican Republic raised upcoming artist who with her Caribbean roots, love for jazz, roots and soul creates a musical fusion environment that invites you in. She is currently the lead singer of tropical band Bululú and part of the Afro-Puertorican Bomba group Batey Tambó. She is also an educator who believes in the power of art and being bilingual to create a more inclusive community.
Sofia’s song, Al filo was selected for the Call for Songs initiative and she will be performing the song along with the string orchestra on the Sunday program.
Taiko with Cara, Kevin, and Koh!
Join Cara, Kevin, and Koh for a dive into the world of traditional Japanese music including Taiko, Shakuhachi, and Shinobue.
Cara is a Bay Area born and based musician, designer, and barista at The Hidden Cafe. When not serving lattes, you might find them performing with Jiten Daiko, spinning Vietnamese music on Lower Grand Radio, or doing car karaoke while stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge.
Kevin is a student of shakuhachi at the Black Earth Shakuhachi School. Breathing with the mysterious bamboo flute, Kevin has tasted the simple joy of the one sound. He hopes to connect with the eternity of the present moment, accepting the invitation of resonance.
Koh is a Taiko artist, composer, and educator based in Berkeley, CA. Alongside performing around the SF Bay Area and exploring new avenues of creative expression through Taiko, he is an avid Taiko teacher at the Berkeley Buddhist Temple and founder of Club Hachijo, a group focused on practicing the folk art of Taiko found in the island of Hachijo, Japan.
Collective Counterpoint Ensemble
lead by Ryan Villahermosa
Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3 by Ottorino Respighi
The Distance Between Us by Judah Lampkin (Call for Scores Selection)
Triptyque for Strings by Yasushi Akutagawa
About the Call for Scores Selection…
Judah Lampkin
Judah Lampkin is a composer, cellist, vocalist, and vagabond of international notoriety. He hails from the American south, where he became acquainted with the proud traditions of navel-gazing and moonlighting. He subsequently attended Harvard University, where his areas of study expanded to include music, philosophy, astrophysics, religion, and linguistics.
Through his musical compositions, Judah seeks to explore dreamscapes, those subtle intimations that hover at the edge of conscious awareness. He was the recipient of Harvard’s 2023 George Arthur Knight Prize for compositional excellence, and was a semi-finalist in the 2022 Petrichor International Music Competition.
About Distance Between Us
“The Distance Between Us” is my attempt to grapple with the concept of Love. Love is the principle that animate all aspects of being. It is saturated with so much meaning that it extends beyond what is graspable by conceptual frameworks. Love is life, Love is death. Love is the very space between the living and the dead, and that which binds them together. I wanted to paint a picture of Love that leaves room for the paradoxical, for the inexplicable. The music is grounded in familiar tonal landscapes that are seething with uncertainty, writhing under the yoke of Love which aims to bind dissonance with harmony, pleasure with pain, ecstasy with despair.
Summer @ The Hidden Cafe 