Bow & Mallet Quintet – Songs of the Heart

Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 4 pm

Download a copy of the program here.

Bow & Ballet Quintet
Songs of the Heart

Jennifer Kloetzel, cello
Jack Van Geem, vibraphone
Brian Cooke, piano
Robert Wright, bass
Brian Simpson, drums

PROGRAM

Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) & Lorenz Hart (1895–1943)
My Romance (1935)

Hermeto Pascoal (b. 1936)
Bebe (1970)

Jule Styne (1905–1994) & Sammy Cahn (1913–1993)
I Fall in Love Too Easily (1944)

Luiz Bonfá (1922–2001)
Chuva Delicada (Gentle Rain)

Jimmy van Heusen (1913–1990) & Johnny Burke (1908–1964)
But Beautiful (1947)

Claude Lelouch (b. 1937)
Un homme et une femme (A Man & A Woman Medley) (1966)

Erroll Garner (1923–1977) & Johnny Burke
Misty (1954)

Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927–1994)
Luiza (1981)

Richard Rogers & Oscar Hammerstein (1895–1960)
It Might as Well Be Spring (1945)

Lionel Bart (1930–1999)
Where is Love (1960)

Victor Young (1899–1956) & Ned Washington (1901–1976)
My Foolish Heart (1949)

Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981) & Ned Washington
The Nearness of You (1938)

Vincent Youmans (1898–1946) & Irving Caesar (1894–1996)
I Want to Be Happy (1925)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

A graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright Scholar, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. A founding member of the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet, Ms. Kloetzel is noted for her elegant playing and her vibrant tone. Ms. Kloetzel has been featured numerous times on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and her performances have been broadcast on radio stations from coast to coast. A frequent guest soloist with orchestras, she has received the Copland Award for championing living American Composers and has commissioned and premiered nearly forty works, including five concertos written specifically for her. Ms. Kloetzel has recorded 36 CDs, including the entire cycle of Beethoven’s quartets and Brahms’s sextets on the Avie label. In 2016, Ms. Kloetzel was invited to join the faculty at University of California, Santa Barbara, where she serves as Head of Strings. www.jkcello.com

Jack Van Geem retired as Principal Percussionist and Assistant Timpanist with the San Francisco Symphony in 2012, a position he held for 32 years. He is on the faculty of the Percussion Studies Department of the San Francisco Conservatory, where he has taught since 1991. Van Geem began playing the marimba at age four. He studied percussion with Tony Cirone and Jerome Neff earning his Master of Arts degree from California State University at Hayward. He studied contemporary percussion performance with Cristoph Caskel in Germany in the mid-70s on a scholarship from the University of California at Berkeley. Following that, he was percussionist for the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra for five years until he won the SFS position.

Pianist Brian Cooke has been active as a jazz pianist and arranger in the San Francisco area since the late 1960s. He worked with the Chet Baker Quintet in 1970 as well as with Blue Mitchell, Buddy Collette, and Art Pepper. Brian played piano and wrote arrangements for the Bennett Friedman Big Band in the mid-70s. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant for jazz composition in 1976. More recently he worked with Dan Hicks, playing piano in Dan’s Bayside Jazz group. Currently he is pianist and arranger in Jetblacq and Bow & Mallet Quintet. Originally from Boston, Brian is also an accomplished violinist, playing in the Solano Symphony and in chamber groups.

Double bassist and composer Robert Wright is a Bay Area native who has always played both classical and jazz. and composes in both idioms. He studied composition with Glenn Glasow and Vladimir Ussachevsky and arranging with John Oros Sendice. His has played with Charles Moffett, Eddie Harris, Mose Allison, Herb Ellis, and others. He made several recordings since the 1980’s. Interested in crossover idioms, he performed the Claude Bolling suites with members of the Russian National Orchestra, and currently performs with Full Circle and Don Olivet Quartet.

Born and raised in Sacramento, Brian Simpson began playing the drums at a young age (6) and was later introduced to the musical possibilities of many percussion instruments. Upon completion of his Bachelor of Music Degree in Percussion Performance (1986), he moved to England where he played in numerous groups and orchestras in the London area. Before returning to California in late 1989, Brian completed a Master of Arts Degree in Music Performance Studies at The City University, London, during which he attended the prestigious Guildhall School of Music. He continues his ties to the U.K. performing with various orchestras and jazz groups when time allows.