Elixir

From tangos to Tchaikowsky, bluegrass to Bach, and swing to
Stravinsky, the five-member string ensemble ELIXIR provides a performance to remember. A superlative musical group composed of some of the most accomplished classical, studio, show and jazz players from both coasts, ELIXIR cooks up a delicious brew of music to cure all ills.

Together since 1999, the five musicians--who play violins, viola, cello,
and bass (and often perform with a pianist) all grew up with a wide range of musical influences that they bring into the collective musical mix when they play together. Beatles' tunes, opera excerpts, salsa, swing, improvisation, and Mozart--all in one exhilarating program that can entertain young children while thoroughly satisfying the palates of sophisticated classical enthusiasts and jazz afficionados.

One of the founders of the group is violist Emily Onderdonk, the daughter of Sigi Isham, a local piano teacher and supporter of Twin Cities Music Association and Music in the Mountains. Emily says "we're not snobby--even though we're all classically trained and have played for major opera companies and symphonies around the world--we aim for informal, fun-filled programs that give audiences an edge-of-your-seat kind of musical experience." Emily reveals that growing up with an older brother who played jazz, blues, funk and rock probably created a subconscious musical memory that underscored her more serious training.

"It was when Dawn Harms (who plays both violin and viola), Peter B. Allen (our pianist and arranger) and I began working together on some Big Band arrangements, that, well, our minds met in Nirvana," Emily laughs. "Dawn's amazing background as, not only a major player in the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, but as a solo jazz violinist, was exactly parallel to my interests and those of Michel, who was Principal Bass in the Opera de Lyon for many years and also plays a mean jazz bass. ELIXIR was on its way."

The ensemble's guest violinist, Jeremy Cohen, who joins them for this
concert, also sports a wide-ranging career from private studies with the
great classical soloist Itzhak Perlman to serving on the faculty at the
Stanford Jazz Workshop and Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles. He was the brilliant violin soloist in the Argentine production of "Forever
Tango," and appears on many recordings by Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Melissa Manchester, Aaron Neville, as well as numerous feature film scores. Cohen's first solo CD release was entitled "Jeremy Cohen: Violinjazz."

Emily Onderdonk, violist and native San Franciscan, recieved her M.M. and B.M. degrees at the Manhattan School of Music, and continued with post-graduate studies in both Viola Performance and Music Education at the New England Conservatory of Music and Boston University. Her primary teachers include Raphael Bronstein, James Buswell and Daniel Kobialka. After her schooling in Boston, she performed with the Lyon National Opera of France for two years as their Principal Violist, touring with the company to Paris, London and Vienna. As a member of the Opera she recorded a number of CD's with such notable singers as Dawn upshaw, Kiri Te Kanawa, Anne Sophie von Otter and Jerry Hadley in performances of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann,   Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Massenet's Werther, and selected arias of Puccini as well as various non-operatic works.

Emily has worked with a number of orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey and San Francisco Symphonies and the San Francisco Opera, and is the former Principal Violist of the New York City Opera National Company as well as our own Berkeley Symphony. Emily is currently the Principal Violist with the Sacramento Symphony and the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in New Mexico. She also enjoys working in San Francisco's musical theater, performing in Broadway musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Aida, Ragtime, Les Miserable and many others. Her playing can also be heard on upcoming pop recordings and movie scores.

Emily's rather ecclectic career includes the full gamut of chamber music concerts and events, from performing light classics in convalescent homes, to performing trios, quartets, quintets, and chamber orchestra works in Bay Area venues to contemporary chamber ensemble concerts in Santa Fe to public school concerts of jazz, tango classical and cartoon music. She is an advocate for the reinstitution of music education in schools, and has participated in many music education programs such as the comprehensive Adventures in Music program sponsered by the San Francisco Symphony for which she has performed for over 30,000 elementary school children over the last two years. She has also co-written and coordinated two additional programs, including the Bay Area's Midsummer Mozart Orchestra outreach program. In addition, Emily, who is a former faculty member of both the New England and San Francisco Conservatories of Music, teaches viola privately to a group of delightful students (who are wonderfully flexible when it comes to scheduling).