Join pianist Miles Graber and cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak for this one-hour program of music for cello and piano!

Benjamin Britten, Sonata for Cello and Piano

Bach, Sonata in G minor BWV 1029

Beethoven, Sonata No.5 for Cello and Piano Op.102 No.2

We'll also be chatting on-camera about each musical selection so you know what's going on!

Two ways to enjoy this recital:

• Join us at 5:30 P.D.T. on August 21 for a "watch party" when the recording goes live. Enjoy watching in real time with other audience members, and live-chatting with the artists.
• Or, watch any time on-demand August 21, 22, or 23 at your convenience. Your ticket gives you access to view as many times as you want!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Isaac Pastor-Chermak is Principal Cellist of Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony; Associate Principal Cellist of Stockton Symphony; Assistant Principal Cellist of Opera San Jose and Fresno Philharmonic; and a member of Berkeley Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, and Dayton Philharmonic. He spends his summers at the Eisenstadt Classical Music Festival in Austria, where he is Assistant Principal Cellist, and the Lake Tahoe Music Festival, as Principal Cellist. Mr. Pastor-Chermak is the cellist of Black Cedar Trio, the only professional flute-cello-guitar ensemble in the country, and Ensemble 1828, a piano trio, as well as a frequent sonata collaborator with pianists Miles Graber and Alison Lee.

Mr. Pastor-Chermak is in constant demand as a solo artist, performing more than 100 concerts every season on an 1889 Riccardo Antoniazzi cello. Some highlights of recent and upcoming seasons include the release of the world-premiere recording of Elliott Miles McKinley’s String Quartet No.8 by Navona Records; Ensemble 1828’s Happy Birthday, Beethoven seven-concert Bay Area tour; a performance of the complete Bach Cello Suites on his birthday; and an online, live-streamed recital with Ms. Lee in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Pastor-Chermak fits these creative projects around weekly symphonic programs throughout the country, as well as his local teaching and conducting obligations.

As an educator, Mr. Pastor-Chermak teaches a small-but-mighty studio of private students, who receive consistent high marks in regional competitions and have been admitted to the top conservatories in the country. Pastor-Chermak sits on the Board of Directors of the East Bay Music Foundation, which supports outreach and performance opportunities for young musicians, and Calliope, a brand new ‘arts hub’ based in Albany, CA. Mr. Pastor-Chermak holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. with honors) and San Francisco Conservatory of Music (M.M. with honors). He makes his home in the North Berkeley hills, but is at home wherever the music takes him. www.isaacpastorchermak.com

Miles Graber, piano, received his musical training at the Julliard School, where he studied with Anne Hull, Phyllis Kreuter, Hugh Aiken, and Louise Behrend. He has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1971, where he has developed a wide reputation as an accompanist and collaborative pianist for instrumentalists and singers. He has performed with numerous solo artists, including Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang Lin, Camilla Wicks, Axel Strauss, Mimi Stillman, Judith LeClair, Martha Aarons, and Lev Polyakin. Mr. Graber performs frequently with violinists, Mariya Borozina and Christina Mok; flutists Gary Woodward, Amy Likar, and Ai Goldsmith; and clarinetist, Tom Rose. He is a member of the chamber groups, Trio Concertino, MusicAeterna, GGR Trio, and Sor Ensemble; as well as the new music group, Sounds New.

Mr. Graber has been associated with such ensembles as the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Midsummer Mozart, the Oakland-East Bay Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, the California Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Oakland Lyric Opera, Berkeley Opera, and Opera San Jose. He has accompanied master classes by such artists as Midori, Joseph Silverstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Pamela Frank, Alexander Barantchik, James Galway, Lynn Harrell, Yo-Yo Ma, Robert Lipsett, Ronald Leonard, and Leon Fleisher. He has been a frequent performance accompanist and chamber player with members of San Francisco Symphony, San Jose Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, California Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Oakland-East Bay Orchestra Oakland-East Bay Youth Orchestra, UC Berkeley Symphony, and members of the San Francisco Conservatory faculty.

He is on the faculty of the Crowden School in Berkeley and he accompanies students of the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley. He is a staff accompanist at the San Domenico Conservatory in San Anselmo, California, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Northern California Flute Camp in Carmel Valley. He is pianist for the annual Young Artist Competition at the Mondavi Center for the Arts at UC Davis, as well as the annual Irving Klein Competition at UC San Francisco, and the Summer Brass Institute at the Menlo School in Atherton, California.