MISSION
San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music (SFFCM), founded in 1998, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure the vitality of minor ensemble music within the cultural landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area. SFFCM supports performers, composers, and presenters who engage in early, chamber, new, jazz, and creative music.
Through performance opportunities, fiscal sponsorship, career development, and financial awards, SFFCM enables its communities to achieve sustainable careers and produce their best creative work while fostering greater audience access and engagement.
PROGRAMS
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP AND ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
The SFFCM Fiscal Sponsorship Program supports emerging and established professional chamber ensembles and presenters through fiscal sponsorship, career guidance, and various services and resources, including grant writing, marketing, public relations, self-promotion, recording, and networking workshops. SFFCM's longest-running initiative serves 86 ensembles currently, incorporating over 335 musicians.
MUSICAL GRANT PROGRAM
The SFFCM Musical Grant Program assists professional ensembles, artists, composers, and presenters through a competitive selection process, providing 20-25 awards a year to outstanding musical projects of various genres. In its first five cycles, the MGP has granted a total of $342,379 to 123 projects, positively impacting the recipients' careers and generating significant opportunities for local audiences to enjoy our vibrant community's creativity, diversity, and diligence.
CONCERTS
SFMusic Day. Live + Free, SFFCM's signature annual event, presents diverse performances by many of the San Francisco Bay Area's finest established and emerging ensembles. Audiences of all ages and backgrounds can experience the excitement of new works and classic chamber music repertoire free of charge. Launched in 2008, it has developed exponentially since its modest beginnings, growing into a highly regarded yearly celebration of our region's 'state of the art' of small ensemble activity.
Chamber Music at the Legion is a free concert series with the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums. Performing ensembles are asked to present a repertoire that makes an artistic connection to the current and permanent exhibits at the Legion.
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HISTORY
In 1998, three longtime San Francisco Bay Area music patrons, Jane Roos Le Roux, Jane Galante, and Barbara Barclay, recognized that while chamber music ensembles contribute significantly to the cultural life of the Bay Area, they generally lack the tools and staffing for audience development. Because most are not tax-exempt entities, they are rarely in the position to garner the contributed support that organizations in other disciplines receive.
The founders saw a distinct need for a local service organization to support this art form in the Bay Area and launched the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music (SFFCM). Since then, SFFCM has become a valuable organization serving all who cherish chamber music as an art form.
Today, we serve ensembles through our Fiscal Sponsorship and Musical Grant Programs and build new audiences by presenting the annual SFMusic Day – Live+Free.
In 2010, SFFCM was honored to be nationally recognized by Chamber Music America when it received the prestigious CMAcclaim Award for its extraordinary contributions to the field of chamber music.
MEMBERS
Katherine Bukstein, PRESIDENT - Hillsborough, CA 94010
Violist; violin and viola instructor, Education Committee Member, Music at Kohl Mansion
volunteer classroom music teacher, San Mateo public schools
member of the Education and Artistic Committees of the Peninsula Symphony
former school orchestra teacher, San Carlos
former board member, California Music Center, and Peninsula Symphony
Nancy B. Ranney, VICE PRESIDENT - Berkeley, CA 94705
Retired partner in business litigation law firm. Specialized in counseling Lloyd's insurers regarding insurance coverage of liability for pollution cleanup
Board president of Crisis Support Services (Alameda County) 2007-2010
Amateur pianist; lifelong avid music lover
BA Stanford University 1962; J.D. Catholic University 1980
Susan Bates, VICE PRESIDENT - San Francisco, CA 94122
Faculty - Viola Chamber Music, Pre College San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Creator/Director, YOUNG CHAMBER MUSICIANS
Violist, San Francisco Ballet Orchestra (1979-2009)
Former Director, SFCM Preparatory Chamber Music Program, Summer Music West
Founder, California Summer Music, Lake Tahoe Music Festival Academy
Awarded "Excellence in Chamber Music Teaching" The Samuel Gruber Award from Chamber Music America.
Martin Gellen, TREASURER - San Francisco
Retired amateur pianist and music lover.
Held various executive positions in municipal bond insurance companies for 16 years
Former faculty member, Department of City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley
Served as Co-chair of the Housing Committee, SPUR
President of Board of Classical Dance of Napa Valley
Mary Wildavsky, SECRETARY - Oakland, CA 94605
Music lover
Retired landscaper/garden designer
Speech pathologist, Master of Science degree in Communicative Disorders for Speech Pathology, San Francisco State University
Bachelor of Education: French and Education, University of London, England
Assistant in the publications departments at Oxford University Press, London, and Unesco, Paris
William T. Horne, - Mill Valley, CA. 94941
Retired psychiatrist
Amateur pianist
President, Mill Valley Chamber Music Society
Board member, ACMP-The Chamber Music Network and Chamber Musicians of Northern California
Eric J. Kim - San Francisco, CA 94109
Cello enthusiast and former member of Aldo Parisot's Yale Cellos
Managing Director at Maverick Capital, focusing on venture capital, private equity, and small-cap equity investments
B.A. from Yale College and M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business
Arvindh Kumar - San Francisco, CA 94105
Private equity investor at Thoma Bravo, L.L.C., focusing on middle-market technology companies
B.S., University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School); M.B.A., Harvard Business School
Amateur violinist
James T. Leak, TREASURER - Alamo CA 94507
International tax consultant, Arthur Andersen & Co., Coopers & Lybrand, G. D. Searle & Co. and Bank of America (retired)
B.B.An in accounting from Baylor University and a law degree from the University of Chicago
Amateur pianist
Susan Larson - Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Amateur cellist, chamber music enthusiast, and arts advocate
Past president, San Francisco SymphonySilicon Valley League
Board of Directors, New Century Chamber Orchestra
Jodi Levitz - San Francisco, CA 94131
Professor of Viola and Chamber Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Violist, Ives Quartet
San Francisco /Bay Area American String Teachers Association Chapter, board member
Holds B.M. and MM degrees from The Juilliard School
Formally principal viola and soloist with the Italian chamber group "I Solisti Veneti."
Tom Stone - San Francisco, CA 94116
Violinist, Cypress String Quartet
Board member, Chamber Music America
Jeff Wutzke - San Mateo, CA 94401
Attorney at Lewis and Roca – equity investments, finance, and real estate
Board member, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
B.A. in History, Dartmouth College; M.S., U.C. Berkeley; J.D., University of Virginia School of Law
Dominique Pelletey
Executive Director
Dominique Pelletey was born in France and completed his studies cum laude in Holland. On graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Mr. Pelletey embarked on a career that included international exhibitions, a nomination to the Dutch Prix de Rome, and many publications. Parallel to his artistic work, he pursued work as a curator/director. After two years as an independent curator with one of Holland’s leading artist-run spaces W139, he was named executive and artistic director.
In 1992 Mr. Pelletey co-founded and directed an art space, Protonica Amsterdam, specializing in producing multi-media works and collaborative projects. This unique organization achieved international acclaim within its first year of operation. Concurrently, Mr. Pelletey was a founding member and chairman of the Association of Dutch Art Centers, publishing a successful arts newspaper, Apex of the Iceberg, which was distributed nationally, bringing a partnership between art spaces and the arts community.
Mr. Pelletey was a respected authority on the arts in Holland, his knowledge recognized with his appointment by the Queen of the Netherlands to the Raad voor de Kunst (Dutch national arts foundation), serving a three-year term as one of four national advisors on art policy, and significant intuitions and granting organizations four-years-grants applications. For three years, he also was a member of the photography and audio/video commissions, reviewing over 400 applications a year for the Fonds voor de Beeldende Kunsten, Design en Architectuur (Foundation for Art, Design, and Architecture), one of Holland’s major granting organizations.
On relocation to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999, Mr. Pelletey became PR and Marketing Director at the San Francisco Community Music Center, where he remained until 2004. For the next two years, he worked with the Del Sol String Quartet, as Managing Director, until taking up his post as Executive Director of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music in July 2005.