Board of Directors

Sally Sprankle received a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Boston University’s College of Music and a Masters of Science in Software Engineering from University of Maryland. She has made software development engineering her professional career but remains an enthusiastic amateur musician.

Pam Johnston, oboe, is a recently retired senior executive with thirty-five years of global revenue and operating experience in executive leadership positions across a broad range of high tech industries. Pam has a MBA from Harvard Business School, a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance from Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, which she attended on a full performance scholarship, while studying with oboists from the Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland Symphony Orchestras. Recently retired, she is now a freelance oboist, having resumed her playing during the 2020 Pandemic after a 40-year hiatus.
Pam is a member of the SBCC Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly with the Santa Barbara Chamber Players, UCSB Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Academy. She also participates regularly in Chamber Music Workshops in Santa Barbara and Humboldt, California, and at Kinhaven in Vermont.

Ed Wielage grew up in the Midwest, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska, and an MBA from the University of California Berkeley. He practiced as a CPA for over 15 years. After leaving public practice, using his accounting experience he and his partner started a software company to develop computer software to help the accounting profession provide better services to their clients.

A native Manhattanite, Eric Valinsky has, for more years than he would like to admit, maintained dual careers in computer systems architecture and music. He was educated at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Illinois, finally achieving his DMA in music composition from Columbia University. He studied composition with Walter Aschaffenburg, Salvatore Martirano, Jack Beeson, and Darius Milhaud; piano with Sara Crawford Drogheo and Emil Danenberg; and conducting with Harold Farberman. While living in Los Angeles, he became music director and composer-in-residence for The Storie-Crawford Dance Theatre Ensemble. Returning to New York, he served in a similar capacity for Danny Buraczeski’s Jazzdance, Uris Bahr and Dancers, and The New American Ballet Ensemble as well as composer-in-residence for The Rachel Harms Dance Company, Opera Uptown, and the Dance Department at City College of New York. He is currently Music Director for the American Dance & Music Performance Group and moonlights as founder and partner of Inlineos LLC, a strategic Internet consulting company.

Jane Hahn, singer and flutist, grew up in Santa Barbara, and has studied and performed as a singer and a flutist her whole life. Her modest singing career includes several comprimario roles with Opera Santa Barbara, and she has been the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Santa Maria. Jane has directed the women’s vocal ensemble, LUX, as well as choirs at St. Michaels and Trinity Episcopal churches. Jane studied flute at the college level at UCSB, and continues to practice and perform as a freelance musician today, lately branching out into the Jazz genre. Jane is a retired Software Engineer and Project Manager. She and her husband are very proud of their two married sons and their precious grand-daughter. Her hobbies include yoga, pottery, and house-building with her husband.

David Malvinni, ethnomusicologist and classical guitarist, has written books and articles on Roma (Gypsy) music and its appropriation in classical music, the Grateful Dead’s improvisational rock, and the Rolling Stones’s brand of Americana (2016). In addition to teaching in the UCSB Music Department (where he completed his Ph.D.) as an Ethnomusicology Lecturer, he teaches as an adjunct professor in Music and Ethnic Studies at SBCC. He also serves on the Board and Concert Committee of the Santa Barbara Music Club. David studied classical guitar with noted Segovia pupil Phillip de Fremery, and completed advanced studies with him at Amherst. Master classes include Eliot Fisk (NEC and Mozarteum) and Oscar Ghiglia (Basel).

Hailing from the Mid-west, Patty Volner was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics and glass from the University of Minnesota it was on to Vermont College where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Art Therapy. Upon moving to Santa Barbara in 1979, she ran the art program at the Laurel Springs Institute, and over the years, she’s used her education and experience to bring art to people of all ages, working with the Children’s Creative Project; adults in day treatment and in-patient community mental health programs; patients in St. Francis Hospital’s Transitional Care Unit; and participants in SBCC’s OMEGA program, among others. In her many volunteer roles with non-profit organizations, she’s had the opportunity to hone skills in administration, communication, organization, and publicity, most recently serving as Executive Assistant to the Quire of Voyces and publicist for the American Choral Director’s Association Western Division conference. Patty’s an avid genealogist, hiker, cook, and baker, and she’s always on the lookout for great works of art and her next exciting travel adventure!