Dusan Bogdanovic

A richly gifted composer, improviser and guitarist, Dusan Bogdanovic has explored musical languages that are reflected in his style today- a unique synthesis of classical, jazz and ethnic music. As a soloist and in collaboration with other artists, Bogdanovic has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. His performing and recording activities include work with chamber groups of diverse stylistic orientations including The Falla Guitar Trio and jazz collaborations with James Newton, Milcho Leviev, Charlie Haden, Miroslav Tadic, Mark Nauseef, Anthony Cox and others. He has over fifty published compositions ranging from guitar and piano solo works to chamber and orchestral ensembles (Berben, GSP, Doberman-Yppan et al.), as well as close to twenty recordings ranging from Bach Trio Sonatas to contemporary works (Intuition, GSP, Doberman-Yppan, M.A. Recordings et al.). Among his most recent commissions are a ballet- poeme Crow, premiered by the Pacific Dance Company at the Los Angeles Theater Center; Sevdalinka, written for the Newman- Oltman Guitar Duo with the Turtle Island Quartet, premiered at Merkin Hall, New York; Canticles, composed for the Gruber- Maklar Duo; a mix media piece To Where Does The One Return, for sixteen ceramic gongs in collaboration with sculptor Stephen Freedman, premiered in Hilo, Hawaii; Games, commissioned by the BluePrint Festival and dedicated to David Tanenbaum and Nicole Paiement; Byzantine Theme and Variations, premiered by James Smith with the Armadillo String Quartet, as well as works written for pianist Fabio Luz and numerous solo guitar compositions written for Alvaro Pierri, David Starobin, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant, Eduardo Isaac, James Smith and others.To read more about Dusan, please visit his website.

Miles Graber

Miles Graber received his musical training at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Anne Hull, Phyllis Kreuter, Hugh Aitken, and Louise Behrend. He has lived in the Bay Area since 1971, where he has developed a wide reputation as an accompanist and collaborative pianist for instrumentalists and singers. He has performed with numerous solo artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Camilla Wicks, and Sarah Chang, and he has been associated with such ensembles as San Francisco Chamber Soloists, Midsummer Mozart, the Oakland-East Bay Symphony, the California Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Oakland Lyric Opera, Berkeley Opera, Opera San Jose, and the San Francisco Camerata. He has accompanied master classes by such artists as Midori, Joseph Silverstein, Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, Pamela Frank, and Alexander Barantchik. He has been a frequent performance accompanist and chamber player with members of the San Francisco Symphony, the San Jose Symphony, The Berkeley Symphony, the California Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Oakland-East Bay Youth Orchestra, and the UC Berkeley Symphony. He is principal pianist for the Bay Area chapter of the National Association of Composers USA, an organization that sponsors and promotes performances of new works by contemporary composers. He is active as a teacher and chamber music coach, and he is on the faculties of the Crowden School in Berkeley and the San Domenico Conservatory in San Anselmo. In addition, he regularly coaches and accompanies students of the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley. He is currently a staff accompanist and chamber music coach in the Preparatory Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Dwight Okamura

Dwight Okamura has been the orchestral pianist for the Berkeley Symphony, the California Symphony, the Skywalker Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. He has accompanied various Bay Area vocal ensembles including Chanticleer, Musae, the Bracebridge Singers, the Choral Arts Society, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, the San Francisco City Chorus, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Dwight has composed numerous commissioned works, as well as many commissioned arrangements for the Girls Chorus, the most recent being “Just Imagine...”, written in honor of their 30th Anniversary. Another Girls Chorus commission, “Sakura”, is published by Alliance Music. He is currently the musical director of “The Songbirds”, under the auspices of the San Francisco Children’s Theater. He is also the composer of three musicals: “Grow Up”, produced in 1984 by the New Conservatory Children’s Theater; “Strikers”, produced in 1995 by Doublemask Productions; and “Burning Louise”, currently in workshop stage. He has been involved with a number of theater companies including American Conservatory Theater, Kaliyuga Arts, Theater Flamenco, and the New Music Theater Workshop. Dwight is a keyboardist with the Best of Broadway series, and has played for the pre-Broadway premiers of “Mamma Mia”, “Wicked”, “The Mambo Kings”, “Lestat” and “Legally Blonde”, in addition to “The Lion King”, “Altar Boyz”, Matthew Bourne’s “Edward Scissorhands”, Baz Luhrrman’s La Boheme, and the revival of “A Chorus Line”, where he also played on the cast recording. He is currently back at the Orpheum playing for those iconic witches once again. When not in the pit, he is active as a recital and cabaret pianist, playing for performers ranging from Frederica Von Stade to Bruce Vilanch.

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