Cellist Michael Graham studied at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University, where he was a founding member of that institution’s first secret chamber music society, Skull and Bows.   His instructors included Stephen Doane and members of the Amadeus, Cleveland, Tokyo, Emerson, and Kolisch string quartets.

Mr. Graham has toured and recorded with artists from Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg to John Densmore of the Doors, including performances with Yo-Yo Ma, Joan Baez, John Williams, Rita Moreno, Isaac Hayes, and Weird Al Yankovic.  His playing has been hailed by the San Francisco Classical Voice for its “almost painfully pretty…expressive richness”, and by the San Jose Mercury News as “super-good”.   In the 1990’s he created a rural residency in the Appalachian Mountains of western Pennsylvania as part of the Chagall String Quartet, through a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.   He has appeared on national US television including ABC’s Regis and Kelley and NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and can be heard on Van Morrison’s album “Astral Weeks Live from Hollywood Bowl.”   Mr. Graham performs actively as a member of the Oakland Symphony, the funk chamber music collective Vitamin Em, and Taiwan’s acclaimed Ben Feng Music Studio.  He teaches cello at Mills College.

–

Aileen Chanco, pianist, lauded soloist, and chamber musician, has been recognized for her “intense virtuosity” and “commanding presence” (Musicweb-International and the Santa Cruz Sentinel) and described by the Mercury News as “steeped in expressiveness and tastefulness to the core!” She made her solo concerto debut with the San Francisco Symphony at thirteen, followed by appearances with the Boston Pops and solo performances with orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, and the Philippines. Ms. Chanco’s chamber music performances have also been described as “extraordinary, colorful, and deft” by the SF Classical Voice and “polished and superb” by the San Antonio News. Her solo recording “Images of Three Centuries” on the Con Brio Recordings Label was praised as “beguiling” by the Contra Costa Times and “beautifully delivered and imaginatively worked out” by the American Record Guide.

Ms. Chanco received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Music from The Juilliard School under Herbert Stessin. She attended the Aspen Summer Music Festival, the Banff Centre Resident Artist Program, the Moscow Conservatory in America Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. She grew up in Fremont, CA. After moving back to the Bay Area, she founded Music at the Mission, where she serves as Artistic and General Director.