English 
French As part of the podcast series, “ArtsAbly in Conversation,” Diane Kolin interviewed Dan Flanagan, a solo and orchestral violinist, a concertmaster of two opera orchestras, a composer, and a violin instructor at University of California, Berkeley.
This post presents the resources that Dan Flanagan mentioned during the conversation.
Dan Flanagan
Dan Flanagan has built a multifaceted career as a soloist and orchestral musician, performing concertos with orchestras in California and recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Flanagan currently serves as Concertmaster of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, Concertmaster of West Edge Opera, and Instructor of Violin at University of California, Berkeley. In 2020, he created The Bow and the Brush, an organization that commissions new music inspired by paintings and sculptures. He recently founded Trio Solano, an award-winning ensemble that performs new music and standard repertoire throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and Berkelium String Quartet, focusing on the quartets of Beethoven.
Dan Flanagan’s Page on University of Berkley
“An Animated Street in Autumn” by Dan Flanagan
This exciting farce showcases all the different personalities of people bustling around the busy street. They bump into each other, interact, then go on their merry way, often seeing each other again later on, down the road. Une rue animée à l’automne, 1896 oil on canvas, 26 ½ x 19 ½ inches, shows the busy street of Quai de la Tournelle, just across the Seine from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
Watch the full version of the video “An Animated Street in Autumn”
Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera
Unique and inspiring, the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera has reclaimed its place as one of the region’s leading performing arts organizations. In the past seven years, the SP&O has made tremendous artistic, community, and fiscal strides through a business model that has solidly moved from one of instability to one of stability. Today, the SP&O serves as a vibrant cultural community asset – one that is shaped by Sacramento, whose offerings are uniquely of Sacramento, and whose vision for the future is designed for Sacramento. The SP&O continues its stellar concerts, operas, and community engagement programs that bring the passion of classical music to schools, hospitals, shelters, and more.
Visit Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera’s website
West Edge Opera
West Edge Opera looks at the art form through a new lens: we present early and contemporary works and re-imagine opera tradition to engage and entertain a diverse audience. Now in its 44th season, West Edge Opera has presented 98 complete operas. Repertoire includes new and unusual works as well as favorite and lesser-known works by well-known composers. Formerly known as Berkeley Opera, the company was founded in 1979 by baritone Richard Goodman. As the company grew under General Director Streshinsky and Music Director Khuner, the company was renamed West Edge Opera in 2014. Since then, West Edge Opera has presented world, American, and west coast opera premieres, and commissioned three new operas and several new translations and adaptations of classic works.
Visit West Edge Opera’s website
Trio Solano
Founded during the pandemic shutdown in 2020, Trio Solano performs traditional and new string trio repertoire throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. They received a grant from InterMusic SF in 2021, a Silver Medal from Global Music Awards in 2022, and frequently team up with pianist Miles Graber. With Dan Flanagan (violin), Paul Ehrlich (viola) and Victoria Ehrlich (cello).
Berkelium String Quartet
The Berkelium String Quartet is a new chamber ensemble of celebrated Bay Area musicians, founded in September 2024. While they don’t yet have accolades as the Berkelium String Quartet, the members each have impressive careers. They hold degrees from Yale University, Juilliard School of Music, UC Berkeley, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Bern Conservatory of Music. They perform with SF Symphony, SF Opera, SF Ballet, SF Chamber Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Oakland Symphony, and hold principal positions with Berkeley Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, Santa Rosa Symphony, and West Edge Opera. With Dan Flanagan (violin), Karen Shinozaki Sor (violin), Jacob Hansen-Joseph (viola) and Michael Graham (cello).
Visit Berkelium String Quartet’s website
The Bow and the Brush
Created by violinist/composer Dan Flanagan, The Bow and the Brush integrates the visual arts with new music. Dan commissions and composes new works of music inspired by paintings and sculptures. Images of the artworks that inspired the compositions are projected during the performance. The Bow and the Brush has been performed in New York City, San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento, Oakland, San Diego, Riverside, Eugene, Denton, Houston, Boston, Chicago, Reno, Carson City, Rome, Zagarolo, Perugia, Frosinone, Paris, Bordeaux, and London. Select performances include traditional repertoire paired with period paintings.
Visit The Bow and the Brush’s website
Paul Gibson, painter
Laying a foundation studying architecture at California Polytechnic State University, Paul Gibson received a BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and a full painting scholarship to the National Academy of Design in New York. Gibson has produced sculpture, drawings and paintings out of his San Francisco studio for 30 years and is an avid collector of more than 150 pieces of fine art himself. His work is part of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., the Achenbach Collection in San Francisco, and the Seven Bridges Foundation in Connecticut, among many others. Gibson’s realist paintings appreciate the everyday objects that surround us. His artworks have been exhibited nationwide, from the SF Fine Arts Fair and San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art to the Allan Stone Gallery in New York to Art Basel in Miami.
Shinji Eshima, composer
Shinji Eshima was born in Berkeley, CA, and is a graduate of Stanford University and The Juilliard School. He is a double bassist for San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Eshima is on the faculty at San Francisco State University and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His instrument is the Plumerel bass (1843) featured in the painting The Orchestra of the Opera by Edgar Degas. As a composer, Eshima studied with Heinrich Taube. His music has been commissioned and performed around the world by such artists as Christine Brandes, Sally Munro, Steven Dibner, Carey Bell, Emil Miland, Rufus Olivier, Gary Karr, Frank Proto, Adesso, and the Grammy-nominated The Bay Brass.
Learn more about Shinji Eshima
Nikki Vismara, painter
Nikki SF is an accomplished artist and advocate within San Francisco’s vibrant artistic communities. She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a Master’s Degree in Paleolithic Art from Université Lumière in Lyon, France. While living in France for nearly a decade, she taught English and Art History at one of the country’s top-ranked engineering universities. In addition to exhibiting internationally, she has traveled extensively and engaged in humanitarian work in West Africa. In 2024, Nikki completed a spiritual pilgrimage, walking over 600 miles on the Camino del Norte from Bayonne, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Now based in San Francisco, Nikki works out of her studio at Hunters Point Shipyard, a decommissioned naval base that houses the country’s largest artist community. She serves on the Board of Directors for The Shipyard Trust for the Arts, the nonprofit supporting the 300+ artists at Hunters Point Shipyard. Passionate about environmental justice, she also serves on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Community Steering Committee for Bayview-Hunters Point.
Libby Larsen, composer
Libby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 500 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over 15 operas. Grammy award-winning and widely recorded, including over 50 CDs of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.
Robert Antoine Pinchon, painter
Robert Antoine Pinchon was a French Post-Impressionist landscape painter of the Rouen School (l’École de Rouen) who was born and spent most of his life in France. He was consistent throughout his career in his dedication to painting landscapes en plein air (i.e., outdoors). From the age of nineteen (1905 to 1907) he worked in a Fauve style but never deviated into Cubism, and, unlike others, never found that Post-Impressionism did not fulfill his artistic needs. Claude Monet referred to him as “a surprising touch in the service of a surprising eye”. Among his important works are a series of paintings of the River Seine, mostly around Rouen, and landscapes depicting places in or near Upper Normandy.
Learn more about Robert Antoine Pinchon
Jose Gonzalez Granero, composer
José González Granero (born February 11, 1985) is a Spanish clarinetist and composer. Granero completed undergraduate studies at the Granada Superior Conservatory (Spain) and the Milan Conservatory. In 2007, he moved to Los Angeles to attend the USC Thornton School of Music and the Colburn School for studies with Yehuda Gilad. Since 2010, he is the Principal Clarinet for the San Francisco Opera. Besides his participation with the Opera Orchestra, he has also been invited to perform in guest appearances with the San Francisco Ballet and the San Francisco Symphony. He has also performed as guest principal clarinet with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia and the City of Granada Orchestra among others.
Visit Jose Gonzalez Granero’s website
Camilla Urso
Camilla Urso was a French-born child prodigy violinist, who became an American musician, “recognized as one of the finest violinists of the latter half of the 19th century.”
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was a Moravian-Jewish violinist, violist and composer. He was seen as the outstanding violinist of his time and one of Niccolò Paganini’s greatest successors. He contributed to polyphonic playing and discovered new ways to compose polyphonic violin music. His most famous, and technically difficult, compositions include the sixth of his Polyphonic Studies “Die letzte Rose”, and Grand Caprice on Schubert’s “Erlkönig”.
Learn more about Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst
Henryk Wieniawski
Henryk Wieniawski was a Polish virtuoso violinist, composer and pedagogue, who is regarded amongst the most distinguished violinists in history. His younger brother Józef Wieniawski and nephew Adam Tadeusz Wieniawski were also accomplished musicians, as was his daughter Régine, who became a naturalised British subject upon marrying into the peerage and wrote music under the name Poldowski.
Learn more about Henryk Wieniawski
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.
Learn more about Joseph Joachim
Leonora Jackson
Leonora Jackson McKim was one of the first American women to achieve international acclaim as a concert violinist, and was credited with improving the perception of American artists in Europe: “Leonora Jackson was the first American violinist whom European opinions recognized to equal any of its great artists and who conquered all prejudice as to the supposed inferiority of American talent.”
Learn more about Leonora Jackson
“Ehrlichia,” Rhapsody in Discomfort #6 by Dan Flanagan
Known as the “Quiet Epidemic,” Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne illness in the U.S. A tick infected with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi transmits the infection to humans with a single brief bite. The term Lyme Disease also often refers to dozens of other infections that can be transmitted in the same manner. Each case of Lyme Disease is a unique blend of these infections, affecting each victim’s immune system in a different way. In “Ehrlichia,” Rhapsody in Discomfort #6, composed by Dan Flanagan and performed by Trio Solano, each part represents a different symptom experienced by the victim.
Watch the video of “Ehrlichia”
Nancy Schroeder
Nancy Schroeder paints to share the mood of the landscape she encounters — the colors, shapes, and atmosphere at a moment in time. Viewers tell her that her paintings convey a sense of peacefulness, solitude, and contemplation, reminiscent of quiet places they have visited, people they have known, or objects they have treasured. Growing up in rural Connecticut, she began sketching the marshes, woods, fields and streams near her home at an early age. She went on to study art at Southern Connecticut State University, University of New Mexico, and University of Maryland, and has taken workshops with masters of plein air and portrait painting in recent years.
Visit Nancy Schroeder’s website
Ursula Kwong-Brown
Ursula Kwong-Brown is a composer, sound designer and arts technologist based in Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in Music Composition & New Media from the University of California, Berkeley (2018) where she worked at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology, and her B.A. in Music & Biology from Columbia University (2010) where she spent time at the Computer Music Center.
Learn more about Ursula Kwong-Brown
Michael Morgan
Michael DeVard Morgan was an American conductor. He was music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony for 30 years. He was also music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California.
Learn more about Michael Morgan
Cindy Cox
Transparent yet richly multifaceted, Cindy Cox’s compositions synthesize old and new musical designs through linked strands of association, timbral fluctuation, and cyclic temporal processes. The natural world, ecology, and the concept of emergence inspire many of the special harmonies and textural colorations in her compositions, as in her piano trio la mar amarga, the octet Cañon, and the string quartet Patagón. As Robert Carl notes in Fanfare, “Cox writes music that demonstrates an extremely refined and imaginative sense of instrumental color and texture…this is well-wrought, imaginative, and not easily classifiable music.”
David Milnes
David Milnes presently serves as music director of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players. Following early musical studies on the clarinet, piano, organ, cello and voice, he earned degrees from SUNY Stony Book and Yale University His conducting teachers have included Leonard Bernstein, Erich Leinsdorf, Max Rudolf, Herbert Blomstedt and Otto-Werner Mueller.