LUX et Veritas

Bassoonist Nicholas Akdag studied at the State Conservatory of Music Berlin “Hanns Eisler” (Berlin, Germany) with Prof. Volker Tessmann. He previously received a Master of Music Degree from the Yale University School of Music with Frank Morelli. He has also attended Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the Idyllwild Arts Academy. Mr. Akdag currently serves on the faculty at Ventura College. He has performed throughout Europe and North America, and regularly performs throughout southern California with groups like the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, New West Symphony, and others.

Cellist Andrea Shigeko Landin has performed, taught, and collaborated with other musicians throughout the U.S. and Latin America, including residencies in Boston, Alaska, Guatemala , and Venezuela. She is passionate about using music as a tool for social change, and has received grants from both the Center for Cultural Innovation and the New England Conservatory to research developing specific social skills in youth through music. She has also presented at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Take a Stand Conference, and was featured on the TED prize blog as an innovator of music education and community building. Andrea has performed in diverse venues ranging from orchestral concerts in Carnegie Hall and Disney Concert Hall to collaborating with singer songwriters in local bars and open mic nights. In 2012 she was a recipient of the Sistema Fellowship at New England Conservatory, selected as one of fifty international musicians over a period of five years, and holds a B.M. in Cello Performance and a B.A. in Anthropology from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music. Andrea is currently the Director of New West Symphony Harmony Project, a youth development program whose mission is to enact social change through music by providing low income youth in Ventura with tuition free, high quality ensemble based music instruction. In 2015 she was granted the City of Ventura Mayor’s Arts Educator Award.

LUX, directed by Jane Hahn, has been pursuing excellence in singing acappella music written and arranged for women’s voices for over five years. They have performed at private functions, on the Music at Trinity concert series, on the SBMC outreach concerts in local retirement homes, and regularly present their own concerts. This group of busy women have various long-term connections with each other, and truly enjoy getting together to practice and share their common love of acappella singing. LUX singers are Alison Krueger, Caroline Pettus, Caroline Nuñez, and Jane Hahn (director), sopranos; Alice Amspoker, Gretchen Ostergren and Laura Hemenway, altos.

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.

Marian Drandell Gilbert, pianist, received her BM degree from UCSB and her Masters in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music. She has twice attended the Music Academy of the West. She maintains a private teaching studio in San Luis Obispo, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is a soloist with the San Luis Chamber Orchestra and is on the Board of Directors of the SLO Symphony Orchestra.