San Francisco Chamber Players
Bringing the Best of the Bay Back Together
San Francisco Chamber Players brings both current bay area musicians and those that have called it home back together for supreme music making
SFCP Directors Elizabeth Dorman and Michael James Smith
Meet Our Artists
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Elizabeth Dorman
Piano - Founder and Artistic Director
Praised by Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle for her “elegance and verve,” pianist Elizabeth Dorman is a finalist of the 2018 Leipzig International Bach Competition and has been widely recognized as a leading performer for her inquisitive interpretations of Bach’s music on the modern piano.
Elizabeth has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Louisville Orchestra, the Leipzig Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Folsom Lake Symphony, the Stanford Summer Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, as a soloist for interdisciplinary projects at New World Symphony, and as a keyboardist at the San Francisco Symphony. She can be heard on Delos records as a concerto soloist with Santa Rosa Symphony’s new album celebrating the music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and this season will perform as a soloist with California Symphony and Vallejo Symphony.
She has been presented as a soloist and chamber musician at venues including the Kennedy Center, Davies Symphony Hall, Herbst Theater, Merkin Hall, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Leipzig’s Hochschule für Musik, and her live solo performances have been nationally broadcast on NPR and public radio. Elizabeth is the Assistant Artistic Director at the Archipelago Collective, a chamber music festival in the San Juan Islands, and has appeared at other festivals including Tanglewood, Britt, Sarasota, Aspen, Toronto Summer Music, Icicle Creek, and the Banff Centre.
Elizabeth was awarded a doctorate in Piano from Stony Brook University and was born and raised in the SF's Castro, attending the San Francisco School of the Arts, the SF Youth Orchestra, and the SF Conservatory on Piano and Bass.
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Michael James Smith
Piano - Founder and Operations Director
Pianist Michael James Smith enjoys performing as a soloist as well as collaborating with a wide range of artists within many different musical communities.
He is a former fellow at Ensemble Connect, a program of Carnegie Hall and Juilliard which brings together many facets that Michael is passionate about: performing, teaching, outreach, and developing unique roles as a creator and presenter. Michael has worked with the Bridge Arts Ensemble, the Weill Music Institute, and Stony Brook University to produce concerts,lectures, and workshops that focus on initiating discussion and discovering new musical pathways with audience and performers alike.
Deeply committed to the art of chamber music, Michael has performed throughout New York, the United States, and Europe in a variety of venues, including Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Steinway Hall, Bernard Haitink Hall, Subculture, Merkin Hall, Seiji Ozawa Hall, National Sawdust, and the Mondavi Center. He has appeared at festivals including Music@Menlo, Tanglewood, and Norfolk. His performances have also been featured on WQXR and Wisconsin Public Radio.
An advocate of the music of today, Michael has premiered works by major American composers such as Meredith Monk and Stacy Garrup, and worked with other major composers like Kaija Saariaho, Marc Neikurg, Steven Mackey, and Martin Bresnick. His most recent partnerships include collaborating with composers Gitz Razaz, Timo Andres, Jeremy Flowers, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Michael has worked on the Faculty of the Crowden Music School and at San Francisco State University.
Michael holds a doctorate from Stonybrook University and originates from Davis, CA
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Nathan Chan
Cello
Nathan Chan's multifaceted cello career spans solo, chamber music, and orchestral realms, driven by his belief in music's power to invite camaraderie among musicians and patrons alike. Named a local Forbes 30 Under 30 for Seattle, he has attracted new audiences to classical music by embracing technology and social media with over 35 million views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Nathan has performed as a soloist with renowned orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony and The Royal Philharmonic. He has enthusiastically participated in music festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, where he collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida and Anthony McGill, and embraced growth at Fondation Louis Vuitton's Classe d'Excellence du Violoncelle with Gautier Capuçon. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman praised him for his "profound technical gift and... his mastery of musical narrative." Nathan earned his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Columbia University and his Master of Music with Richard Aaron at The Juilliard School. He currently serves as the Assistant Principal Cello of the Seattle Symphony. Visit him online at nathanchan.com.
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Alina Kobialka
Violin
Praised for her “beautiful tone, effortless precision, and musical maturity beyond her years,” Chinese-American violinist Alina Kobialka became one of the latest additions to the New York Philharmonic in 2022. A “jaw-droppingly assured” soloist whose musical sensibilities make “present and future converge” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Kobialka’s sensitive artistry defines her diverse career as a collaborator and soloist. “Watch for her name. She appears to be bound for greatness” (Las Vegas Review-Journal).
Since joining the New York Philharmonic, Kobialka has worked with numerous lauded artists, including Hilary Hahn, Yo-Yo Ma, and Emanuel Ax, regularly performed in the Philharmonic’s Merkin Hall Chamber Series, and toured internationally in Taiwan and Hong Kong. A three-time artist at the competitive Marlboro Music Festival, Kobialka’s esteemed artistic counterparts include Dame Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, and Kim Kashkashian. An enthusiast of classical and non-classical music alike, her collaborations with Jacob Collier, Chris Thile, and Esperanza Spalding challenged the boundaries of classical, folk, and jazz.
Awarded the second prize at the 2017 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, Kobialka’s accolades include a laureate nomination from the 2016 Irving M. Klein International Competition and Grand Prize recipient at the Mondavi Center National Young Artists Competition.
A San Francisco native, Kobialka launched her career at the age of fourteen with a solo debut at the San Francisco Symphony’s 100th Anniversary Concert in Davies Symphony Hall. She has since returned as a soloist three times, most recently alongside world-renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Additional solo features include the Las Vegas Philharmonic, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and Asheville Symphony.
At the age of five, Kobialka began her violin studies with Li Lin. She continued to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s preparatory program where she studied with Wei He. After leaving San Francisco at sixteen, she attended the Colburn School’s Music Academy in Los Angeles, where she studied with Robert Lipsett and Danielle Belen. Most recently, she graduated with her master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Ilya Kaler.
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Anni Hochhalter
Horn
A maverick French horn player, Anni Hochhalter is a founding member and Executive Director of WindSync. Hochhalter has performed in North America, Panama, the United Kingdom, Italy, Taiwan, and extensively in China. Winner of the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition and the 2016 National Fischoff Chamber Music Competition with WindSync, Anni has worked collaboratively to set a new standard of virtuosic wind performance practice and build a new repertoire for the wind quintet. Outside of WindSync, she is principal horn of the McCall Music Festival and performs on vocals, electronics, and horn with the band Late Aster, praised as a “very cool collision of brass and electronics” (San Francisco Chronicle). Hochhalter studied horn at the University of Southern California with leading studio musicians Rick Todd, James Thatcher, and Kristy Morrell, with additional summer training at Chautauqua Music Festival with Roger Kaza. Based in San Francisco, she enjoys ultra running and backpacking in her spare time.
https://www.windsync.org/
Friends of the Bay Artists
Musicians deeply connected to the Bay Area personally or professional
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Graeme Steele Johnson
Clarinet
Praised as “technically and interpretively impeccable and passionately communicative” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), Graeme Steele Johnson is an artist of uncommon imagination and versatility.
The clarinetist, arranger and “musical detective” (New York Classical Review) recently garnered widespread attention for his rediscovery and reconstruction of a 125-year-old Octet by Charles Martin Loeffler, profiled in a full-page spread by The Washington Post.
Johnson’s recent and upcoming performances include appearances at the Library of Congress, Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia, Emerald City Music, Morgan Library, Harvard Musical Association, and the Bridgehampton, Rockport, Orcas Island and Phoenix Chamber Music Festivals, as well as solo recitals at The Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series. He also appears annually as a core artist at the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, Archipelago Collective Chamber Music Festival and Caroga Lake Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Vienna International Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Caroga Arts Ensemble, Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra and the CME Chamber Orchestra.
Since 2022 he has served as the clarinetist of the award-winning quintet WindSync (MKI Artists), one of only two American wind quintets with a full-time, international touring schedule. Also sought after as a chamber musician outside of that group, Johnson has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Jon Kimura Parker, David Shifrin, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Peter Wiley and Bridget Kibbey, as well as the Miró, Callisto and KASA Quartets, Imani Winds, New York New Music Ensemble and Twelfth Night Ensemble.
In 2020, Johnson discovered the unpublished manuscript to a forgotten, 125-year-old Octet by Charles Martin Loeffler, one of the most performed American composers of his time. After reconstructing the score from the 75-page manuscript, Johnson released the world-premiere recording of the work on his album Forgotten Soundsin the spring of 2024, coinciding with the first present-day performances of the piece at the Library of Congress, Morgan Library, Harvard Musical Association, Phoenix Chamber Music Festival and The Stissing Center. Earning widespread critical acclaim, the project was profiled in a full-page spread by The Washington Post, named one of the best classical albums of 2024 by The Times, Gramophone, Apple Music and Tidal, and drew additional features in The Strad, Musical America, The Boston Musical Intelligencer, New York Classical Review, Performance Today and many others.
Driven by his interest in shedding fresh perspective on familiar music, Johnson gave a TEDx talk comparing Mozart and Seinfeld, and has authored numerous chamber arrangements of repertoire ranging from Mozart and Debussy to Gershwin and Messiaen. In addition to his own performances with such artists as the Miró Quartet, Valerie Coleman and Bridget Kibbey, his arrangements have also been championed by others around the world, including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Australia), Moscow Conservatory, La Jolla Music Society, Krzyżowa Chamber Music Festival (Poland) and multiple commissions from The Happenstancers (Toronto).
Johnson is the winner of the Hellam Young Artists’ Competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition; other recent accolades include CUNY’s Elebash Dissertation Award, Saint Botolph Club Foundation's Emerging Artist Award and the inaugural Lee Memorial Scholarship from the Center for Musical Excellence. He holds an exclusive recording contract with Delos Productions/Outhere Music, and has previously recorded for Hyperion Records, Azica Records, MSR Classics and Musica Solis Productions.
Johnson's writing about music has been published by the international journal The Clarinet, as well as in program booklets by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Northwest, Yale and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and as liner notes accompanying albums by David Shifrin, Ricardo Morales, Lloyd Van't Hoff and the Center for Musical Excellence.
Johnson completed undergraduate study at The University of Texas at Austin under the tutelage of Nathan Williams. He earned graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Shifrin and Ricardo Morales and was twice awarded the school's Alumni Association Prize, followed by doctoral study with Charles Neidich and Kofi Agawu at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
2024-25 Inaugural Season
Stay tuned while we prepare our concert announcements