Franz Joseph Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in C minor (Hob. XVI/20)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Grand Sonata for Fortepiano and Clarinet in A Major
(anonymously arranged in 1809 from Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K. 581)
Historical clarinetist Dominic Giardino enjoys a varied professional life as a performer, administrator, and public historian. This season Dominic can be heard performing with the orchestras of Opera Lafayette (Washington, D.C.), Boston Baroque (Boston, MA), and the Washington Bach Consort (Washington, D.C.). He appears regularly in chamber music projects with the Raleigh Camerata (Raleigh, NC), Three Notch’d Road: The Virginia Baroque Ensemble (Charlottesville, VA), and Wit’s Folly (Cleveland, OH), and throughout 2024–2025 will be curating music with his ensemble Music of the Regiment (Springfield, VA) for events commemorating the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s 1824–1825 Farewell Tour. Dominic has recorded with the Smithsonian Chamber Players (Washington, D.C.), the Bach Choir of Bethlehem Orchestra (Bethlehem, PA), and as a soloist with Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band. An avid researcher of military music in the 18th-century Atlantic World, Dominic will be presenting work on Virginia’s first regimental band in September 2024 at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture’s annual symposium. He is the executive director of the Tucson-based concert series Arizona Early Music, a music program manager and musician with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and an adjunct instructor in historical clarinets at the University of North Texas. Dominic is a 2016 Fulbright grantee and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
In demand as a conductor and historical keyboardist, Derek Tam performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere. He is the executive director of the San Francisco Early Music Society, a major advocate for early music in the United States, and serves as the artistic director of the biennial Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, an internationally-renowned celebration of early music.
Praised for his “deft” conducting (San Francisco Chronicle), Tam appears frequently with choral and orchestral ensembles. In addition, Tam is a specialist on historical keyboards, and has been called “a master of [the harpsichord]” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “the fortepianist of the beguiling fingers” (Bloomington Herald-Times). Recent concerto appearances include performances with Elevate Ensemble, Modesto Symphony, Chamber Music Silicon Valley, and the Hong Kong Early Music Society.
In addition to performing as a soloist, Tam is a founding member and harpsichordist (and occasional conductor) for MUSA, a San Francisco-based Baroque chamber ensemble. His fortepiano trio, the Costanoan Trio, performed at the 2018 Early Music America Emerging Artists Showcase. He has performed with leading period ensembles such as Voices of Music and Musica Pacifica and has served as principal keyboardist for most of the professional symphonies in Northern and Central California.
Tam currently serves as the Director of Music at First Church Berkeley (First Congregational), one of the major performance venues for classical music in the East Bay. In this role, he also produces Resonance, the church’s critically lauded performance series. He is also involved deeply with community music-making, recently having served as the artistic director of both the Vallejo Choral Society, the oldest community choir in California, and the Berkeley Bach Cantata Group, a reading ensemble.
Tam is the most recent past president of the board of Early Music America, a national organization dedicated to strengthening historical performance.
Tam is a registered tax professional with the State of California. He is a graduate of Yale University.
