San Francisco Bay area cellist Joanne de Mars is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Jennifer Culp. Originally from Seattle, Joanne graduated from the University of Washington with her BA, BM, and BS. She is a member of the contemporary ensemble Wild Rumpus, and is an active solo and chamber music performer whose collaborations include the UC Berkeley Dance Department and Stanford’s New Ensemble. Joanne has a wide variety of interest in all styles of music. She is currently a member of Oakland based rock band Felsen, and has performed with jazz, pop, classical, and contemporary groups, including Butch Morris’s conduction ensemble, Kanye West, Vertigo Quartet, and Maestro Shajarian, Iranian singer and icon.

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.