Santa Barbara Music Club

Member Type: Musician

Marie Hébert , Violinist

Marie Hébert, violin, is active as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A former SB Music Club Scholarship awardee, she earned her BM and MM Degrees at UCSB, has performed with the Montecito International Music Festival, and toured in China with the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. Marie is currently Teaching Artist and Youth Ensembles Personnel Manager with the SB Symphony, Teaching Artist for SB Strings, violinist with the Folk Orchestra of SB, and maintains a private violin/viola teaching studio.

SBMC Concert Performances

Timothy Beccue , Cellist

Timothy Beccue, cellist, has won numerous awards for his performances spanning North America and Europe, including First Place in the 2018 SB Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation Competition. He graduated with a physics degree from Westmont College, where he studied cello with Trevor Handy, has been soloist with the Westmont Orchestra and West Coast Symphony, and contracts as substitute cellist with the SB Symphony. In addition to his musical pursuits, he works with robotic telescopes at Las Cumbres Observatory.

SBMC Concert Performances

Timothy Accurso , Pianist

Timothy Accurso, pianist, joined the Santa Barbara Opera team as Principal Pianist and Music Administrator in 2018, after having been on the music staff of the Palm Beach Opera and the Seagle Music Colony. He earned his BM Degree at Susquehanna University and his MM Degree at the Univerity of Illinois, thereafter becoming Resident Artist with the Utah Opera as well as Young Artist with Opera Saratoga, where he now spends his sumers on staff. Tim coaches with the Chrisman Studio Artists, engaging in education initiatives of Opera SB.

SBMC Concert Performances

Suzanne Duffy , Flutist

Suzanne Duffy, flutist, is an active soloist and chamber musician, serves as Principal Flute for San Luis Obispo County’s Symphony of the Vines and Opera San Luis Obispo, is Second Flute/Piccolo for Opera Santa Barbara, and maintains a private teaching studio. She earned her MM Degree from Indiana University and her BM Degree from Northwestern University. A Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo faculty member since 2015, in March 2020 Suzanne will be featured faculty soloist with the Cal Poly Wind Ensemble in Stephen Bulla’s Rhapsody, and will present a repeat performance at the University of Puget Sound, Seattle.

SBMC Concert Performances

Han Soo Kim , Violinist

Han Soo Kim, violinist, is an award-winning and internationally accomplished artist who has performed to critical acclaim in numerous countries on four continents. Dr. Kim has concertized extensively as solo performer, duo-recitalist and chamber musician. In the United States, he has performed in some of the nation’s most prominent venues including Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, Cutler Majestic Theater, Jordan Hall, Kaufmann Concert Hall, and The Kennedy Center. Performances have also led him to institutions and festivals including Académie Internationale de Courchevel, Boston Conservatory, Columbia University, Le Domaine Forget International Music Festival, The Juilliard School, Longy School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, Meadowmount School of Music, Morningside Music Bridge, Musicorda, New England Conservatory, and Stony Brook University. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras in the US and abroad performing standard concertos to contemporary world premieres. As a Promessa Records Artist he has released Encore Favori, a solo CD featuring a dozen encores and virtuosic showpieces, and will be recording the next album in 2021. He is Founder and the violinist of The Finehouse-Kim-Yhee Trio.
Dr. Kim has earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance under a fellowship grant. His Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in violin performance are from The Juilliard School where he was a merit scholarship recipient. His influential teachers and mentors include Roman Totenberg, Sally Thomas, and Pamela Frank. He has worked with distinguished chamber music artists including Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, and Orion String Quartets. He is a Bella Rosins Artist and performs on a Carlo Antonio Testore of 1721. His CDs can be purchased at the Westmont College bookstore and hanjoannekim.com. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, son Kian and dog Dolce, exploring restaurants in Santa Barbara, playing pool, and gardening.

SBMC Concert Performances

Joanne Kim , Clarinetist

Clarinetist Joanne Kim, has concertized as solo performer and chamber and orchestral musician in many parts of North America and Asia. Her performing career began in her late teens with the honorable Stamas Scholarship Fund from the New York Philharmonic offering her a new clarinet for her studies and concerts. She has performed with New York Soloist Ensemble, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Korean Chamber Orchestra, Astoria Symphony, New Jersey Philharmonic Orchestra, Chelsea Symphony, and the Santa Barbara Symphony. Dr. Kim has earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in clarinet performance at Manhattan School of Music with a fellowship under the tutelage of Mark Nuccio. Her Bachelor of Music is from Mannes College, and Master of Music degree with merit scholarship in the prestigious Orchestral Performance Program is from Manhattan School of Music. Dr. Kim is on the faculty at Westmont College, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont Academy for Young Artists, and InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy.

SBMC Concert Performances

Sang Jun Yhee , Cellist

Sang Jun Yhee, cello (Tenafly, New Jersey), pursued his studies at the Juilliard School in New York under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick, Harvey Shapiro, and David Soyer. He has also studied with David Geringas in masterclasses at the Chigiana Academy in Siena, Kronberg Academy, Interlaken Classics, and Usedom Music Festival. He will be pursuing his doctorate at Manhattan School of Music in the fall. Sang has won the Juilliard School Shostakovich Cello Concerto Competition and has been a quarter-finalist at the Concours de Genève in Geneva, Switzerland. He also won first place at the Thavieu String Competition, the Society of American Musicians Competition, and is a recipient of the 2013 Frank Huntington Beebe Fund. He has performed as soloist with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Pre-college Orchestra, World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Northshore Orchestra. Past Yellow Barn musician (2013-2014)

SBMC Concert Performances

Charles Talmadge , Organist

Charles Talmadge, organist, is currently Assisting Organist at The Old Mission and Interim Organist at All Saints-By-The-Sea Episcopal Church. He likes to think of himself as a well-rounded musician who plays organ and piano, with experience as bassist and cellist; choral singing from an early age has added to his enjoyment of creating music with others, with these contrasting liturgical traditions providing a rich background in sacred music. He majored in piano performance at California State Universities, San Bernadino and Fullerton, and did graduate study in organ at San Diego State University. Past recitals have been presented at St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco, Trinity United Methodist Church, Eugene, Oregon, Advent Series at Trinity Episcopal and Lenten Series at First United Methodist Church, Santa Barbara, and he has been pianist for Capitol Opera in Sacramento since 1997.

SBMC Concert Performances

Emma Lou Diemer , Composer, Pianist, Organist

Emma Lou Diemer was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 24, 1927 and died in Santa Barbara, California on June 2, 2024. Her father, George Willis Diemer, was an educator (college president); her mother, Myrtle Casebolt Diemer, was a church worker and homemaker. Her sister, Dorothy Diemer Hendry, was an educator, poet, writer, musician (married to Col. Wickliffe B. Hendry; their children are Betty Augsburger, Terri Sims, Alan Hendry, Bonny Gierhart). Her brothers were George W. Diemer II, an educator, Marine fighter pilot, musician, and John Irving Diemer educator, musician (his children are George W. Diemer III, René Krey, Jack Diemer, Dee Dee Diemer).

Emma Lou played the piano and composed at a very early age and became organist in her church at age 13. Her great interest in composing music continued through College High School in Warrensburg, MO, and she majored in composition at the Yale Music School (BM, 1949; MM, 1950) and at the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D, 1960). She studied in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship and spent two summers of composition study at the Berkshire Music Center.

She taught in several colleges and was organist at several churches in the Kansas City area during the 1950s. From 1959-61 she was composer-in-residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project, and composed many choral and instrumental works for the schools, a number of which are still in publication. She was consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland where she taught composition and theory from 1965-70. In 1971 she moved from the East Coast to teach composition and theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB she was instrumental in founding the electronic/computer music program. In 1991 she became Professor Emeritus at UCSB.

Through the years she fulfilled many commissions (orchestral, chamber ensemble, keyboard, choral, vocal) from schools, churches, and professional organizations. Most of her works are published. She received awards from Yale University (Certificate of Merit), The Eastman School of Music (Edward Benjamin Award), the National Endowment for the Arts (electronic music project), Mu Phi Epsilon (Certificate of Merit), the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards (for piano concerto), the American Guild of Organists (Composer of the Year), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers/ASCAP (annually since 1962 for performances and publications), the Santa Barbara Symphony (composer-in-residence, 1990-92), the University of Central Missouri (honorary doctorate), and many others.

She was an active keyboard performer (piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizer), and has given concerts of her own music at Washington National Cathedral, St. Mary’s Cathedral and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

In 2012 she wrote two works for violinist Philip Ficsor: Concerto for Violin (A Little Parlour Music, Remembrance of Things Past, Santa Barbara Rag) that he premiered October 19, 2012 with the Westmont College Orchestra under Michael Shasberger in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. And a light piece for violin and organ: Holiday Madness Medley that he and Diemer premiered at the SB Music Club at First Congregational Church, SB on December 1, 2012. These works will eventually be published. Along with a new work titled Going Away they were recorded by Philip Ficsor and Diemer on the album, Going Away.

SBMC Concert Performances

Marc Evanstein , Director, Pianist

Marc Evanstein is a composer currently residing in the Portland area. His music has been featured at festivals in the US and internationally, including the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, the International Computer Music Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival, where he won the Composition Contest in 2015. He has collaborated with artists such as Aperture Duo, Ignition Duo, Hocket Duo, Formalist Quartet and LA Percussion Quartet. A musician and composer since a young age, he pursued his undergraduate degree at Stanford University, where he studied composition with Jarosław Kapuściński and piano with Thomas Schultz. Following up on his interest in computers and interactivity, he then continued on at Stanford with a master’s degree in Music, Science and Technology. More recently, Marc was the recipient of a Chancellor’s fellowship at UC Santa Barbara, where he completed a PhD in composition and a master’s in Media Arts and Technology, studying composition with Profs. Clarence Barlow, Joel Feigin, and Curtis Roads, as well as piano with Dr. Charles Asche.

SBMC Concert Performances