Victoria Hauk – Flute, Laura Reynolds – Oboe, James Pytko – Clarinet, Daniel Wood – Horn, Jamael Smith – Bassoon, Amy Zanrosso – Piano
Jean Françaix: L’Heure du Berger
Wallingford Constantine Riegger: Concerto for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, Op. 53
Francis Poulenc: Sextet for Winds and Piano
Victoria Hauk, flute, loves exploring the beauty of music through collaboration with fellow Bay Area musicians and by sharing it with the next generation of musicians through coaching and teaching. She is an avid chamber musician and can be seen performing with groups including woodwind quintet Avenue Winds, One Found Sound, and Areon Flutes. Orchestras she has worked with include Marin Symphony, California Symphony, Stockton Symphony, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and New World Symphony. She maintains an active private teaching studio and coaches chamber music at San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Division. She won the University of Arizona President’s Concerto and Arizona Flute Society competitions. She is an award winner of the Musical Merit Foundation of Greater San Diego, MTNA Southwest Regional Competition, San Diego Flute Guild Young Artist Competition, and has received the Presser Foundation Award. She received her Professional Studies Diploma at the San Francisco Conservatory studying with Tim Day, M.M. at Lynn Conservatory studying with Jeffrey Khaner and Renée Siebert, and B.M. at the University of Arizona studying with Brian Luce.
Laura Reynolds, oboe, is an active chamber and orchestral performer throughout Northern California and serves as Principal oboist with the Santa Rosa Symphony, the California Symphony, and second oboe and English horn with the Marin Symphony. Laura has always been a chamber music enthusiast and before joining Avenue Winds was a member of the wind trio Trois Bois and Citywinds, a San Francisco woodwind quintet dedicated to contemporary repertoire. She is a member of the applied faculty of Sonoma State University as well as of the Pre-College and Continuing Education Divisions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she additionally works as senior program manager. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, her principal teachers were Harry Sargous and William Bennett.
James Pytko, clarinet is an avid performer and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the Second/Bass Clarinetist of Opera San Jose and during the summer, he is the Principal Clarinet of the Utah Festival of Opera and Musical Theater. James has also performed with San Francisco Opera, Symphony San Jose, Sphinx Symphony, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and many other Bay Area ensembles. James has taught clarinet at California State University Stanislaus and University of California, Santa Cruz, and currently teaches privately. His primary teachers were Richie Hawley, Carmine Campione, Scott Andrews, and Naomi Drucker.
Daniel Wood, horn, is a performer, composer, educator, and musical entrepreneur. Before joining Avenue Winds, he received his musical training from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the chair of Musicianship and Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Pre-College Division. As a composer, Daniel favors small ensembles, including brass, wind, and string chamber music, steel drum ensembles, and jazz combos with commissions from Avenue Winds, CSMA Brass, and members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. As a member of Quadre – The Voice of Four Horns, Daniel has performed over 1,000 concerts and composed for all their albums. He additionally writes and performs solo shows as an improvisational musician. As a freelance musician, he has played with chamber ensembles, symphonies, opera & ballet companies, and new music groups. Daniel lectures on the “Business of Music” and runs Solid Wood Publishing, offering over 50 titles of horn music and he is the Northern CA representative for the International Horn Society.
Jamael Smith, bassoon, is a performer and educator throughout the Bay Area. Originally from Seattle, Jamael is a member of One Found Sound and has performed regularly with various other Bay Area ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, and California Symphony. Jamael is very passionate about music outreach and serves as part of the education department of the San Francisco Symphony in their Adventures in Music program which serves all public schools in San Francisco. He has attended summer festivals such as the Bay View Chamber Music Festival, Pierre Monteux, and the Kent Blossom Summer Festival. He completed his master’s and a postgraduate certificate at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music studying with Stephen Paulson and a graduate of the University of Washington where he earned his bachelor’s in music studying with Seth Krimsky. University of Washington where he earned his bachelor’s in music studying with Seth Krimsky.
Amy Zanrosso’s playing has been hailed as expressive, magnetic, and masterful but since no one at the New York Times has said this, she’s not allowed to put it in quotes. Her first touch of a keyboard was a two-octave electric organ that her parents had found who knows where. She enjoyed picking out tunes like O Sole Mio and Ode To Joy until her cousin decided to show her Heart and Soul on an acoustic piano. That’s the moment Amy fell in love. Thanks to her attentive and industrious Italian immigrant mom, piano lessons started at the age of 6, and by the age of 15, Amy had decided to make music her life. A few years later she was accepted into the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada where, in Bruce Vogt’s studio, she realized that she had way too much to learn and would always be in awe of the absolute force that is music. Bruce’s wisdom and humor still influence her life today and she will always be thankful for his guidance in those early years of learning what playing the piano meant.
As a soloist, Amy is addicted to the thrill of performing with an orchestra. Since 2016, concerto repertoire, similar to chamber music but on steroids, has forced her to push her limits, helping make her into the confident and electrifying player she always hoped to be. She has appeared as a soloist with the Symphony of the Kootenays, the Russian Chamber Orchestra, and the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra. Her intense love of chamber music has led her to admire and explore her favorite composers more fully while sharing the experience with countless inspiring, dedicated players and appreciative audiences. In addition to freelancing in the Bay Area with various musicians and ensembles, the RossoRose Duo, founded in 2015, keeps Amy and violinist Alisa Rose occupied learning and performing repertoire from Beethoven to Auerbach.
After her Bachelor’s, Amy furthered her studies for a few years in Italy and then completed a Master’s Degree at McGill University in Montreal. Her life was filled with a wealth of chamber music and was rounded out by some Broadway musicals, German cabaret, and several years in an Argentine tango quintet. In 2014, Amy moved from Montreal to the Bay Area with her partner Dave, and her dog Roscoe. She is currently based in Oakland. Since the big move, Amy went on tour to China with the GRAMMY award-winning Pacific Boychoir, rehearsed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Gustavo Dudamel at the podium, and was the pianist for Chorissima, the five-time GRAMMY award-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble throughout the 2017–18 season.
Like performing, Amy finds teaching to be a highly rewarding part of a musician’s life. She is a faculty member and chamber music coach at the Pre-College Academy of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and The Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA. She is constantly fueled by her fantastically inspiring students and enjoys forcing her favorite composers on them as well as telling them what to do. Amy is looking forward to all the superb music, musicians, students, and enthusiastic audiences that will come her way in the future. Many thanks to Beethoven and Brahms for inspiring her to come this far – she wouldn’t change a thing. For more information, please visit www.amyzanrosso.com.
