Santa Barbara Music Club

Member Type: Musician

Brian Hotchkin , Baritone

Brian Hotchkin is a baritone, vocal instructor, and stage director. Hailed for his “strong and effortless” voice and his “unerring, witty sense of theater,” Brian has performed opera, music theater and cabaret performances with companies that include the Virginia Opera, Opera New Jersey, Opera Santa Barbara, Chamber Opera Chicago, and the Aspen Music Festival. His many operatic roles include Papageno in The Magic Flute, both Marcello and Schaunard in La bohème, and the title role in The Marriage of Figaro. Equally at home in operetta and musical theater, Brian has performed leading roles including KoKo in The Mikado, Bobby in Sondheim’s Company and Merlyn/Pellinore in Camelot. As a stage director, Brian has led recent productions of Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza and Sweeney Todd for Ventura College. Brian served as Company Manager and Artistic Administrator for Opera Santa Barbara, and currently teaches singing to students of all ages at his private voice studio in Santa Barbara.

SBMC Concert Performances

Bridget Hough , Pianist

Bridget Hough, pianist, is equally at home in solo, chamber, and duo repertoire, and is regularly engaged for competitions, performances, and recording projects. A piano student of Paul Berkowitz, Robert Koenig, and Betty Oberacker, she has been an invited pianist for summer festivals, including SongFest at the Colburn School (Los Angeles), the Schubert-Institut (Austria), and the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar, where she was a Fellow for two seasons. She earned her B.M. Degree summa cum laude and her D.M.A. Degree from UCSB. Committed to new music, Dr. Hough has premiered works by many contemporary composers, including Tom Cipullo, Juliana Hall, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, Thea Musgrave, John Musto and John Villar.

SBMC Concert Performances

Hal Isbitz , Director Emeritus

Hal Isbitz, composer and pianist, is a classically trained musician who studied composition and music theory with Dr. Ernest Kanitz, then Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California. A retired computer programmer, Hal began writing ragtime and other syncopated pieces in the mid-1970’s, and to date has written over 80 piano pieces. His music has been recorded and performed at ragtime festivals throughout the country, and Tulsey Town Rag, written to commemorate the centennial of Oklahoma statehood, won the 2007 competition held by the Ragtime for Tulsa Foundation.

Natasha Kislenko , Pianist

Natasha Kislenko, pianist, was born in Moscow and has concertized extensively as soloist and collaborative pianist in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Paraguay, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and across the United States. In 1996 she made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut, and has appeared in recital and chamber music performances with numerous distinguished soloists, including James Buswell, Sarah Chang, Theodore Kuchar, Zvi Zeitlin, and Donald Weilerstein. She has received top prizes in international piano competitions in Germany, France, Portugal, and the Slovak Republic, and holds graduate degrees from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and Southern Methodist University (TX), earning her DMA Degree from Stony Brook University (NY). Her primary teachers include Anatoly Vedernikov, Yuri Slesarev, Joaquín Achúcarro, and Gilbert Kalish.

Recent solo engagements include the Eskisehir Greater Municipality Symphony Orchestra, Turkey (2015), the Orquesta Sinfónica del Congreso Nacional, Asunción, Paraguay (2013), and the Varna Chamber Orchestra, Bulgaria (2013). In 2011 she and violinist Chavdar Parashkevov released a CD, “Russian Sonatas,” available on spotify.com, itunes, and other websites. Since 2010 she has been Principal Keyboard with the Santa Barbara Symphony and has been a featured soloist with the orchestra in concertos by Grieg, Clara Schumann, and Shostakovich.

In addition to a successful performing career, Dr. Kislenko has been a dedicated educator and mentor to the younger generations of aspiring musicians. She has recently appeared in performances and master classes at the University of Maryland College Park, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Houston Moores School of Music (TX), Morgan State University (MD), Tulane University (LA), Fort Hays State University (KS), Ankara University (Turkey), Scuola Musicale di Sesto Fiorentino (Italy) and Würzburg Musikhochschule (Germany), in addition to numerous adjudications for MTNA and MTAC.

An alumna of the Music Academy of the West (2001), Natasha has been a collaborative faculty member there since 2004. After serving on the faculty at California State University, Fresno, for five years, she joined the faculty at UCSB in 2007, where she is currently a Lecturer.

SBMC Concert Performances

Andrea Landin , Cellist

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.

SBMC Concert Performances

Kacey Link , Pianist

Kacey Link is a pianist and scholar residing in Santa Barbara, CA. As a both a solo and collaborative artist, she performs regularly in Southern California and has given recitals in the United States, France, and Switzerland. She is a pianist for University of California—Santa Barbara Department of Theater and Dance and served as music director for Out of the Box Theatre Company for the 2014-2015 season. She also has worked as a pianist for Opera Santa Barbara, Kansas City Lyric Opera, and New Theatre of Kansas City as well as accompanied classes for such prestigious artists as Marilyn Horne, Yo-Yo Ma, and ballerina Heather Watts. As a scholar, her research focuses on the music of Latin America with specific concentration on tango music of Argentina and has co-authored the forthcoming book Tracing Tangueros: Argentine Instrumental Tango Music (Oxford University Press). She holds degrees from University of California – Santa Barbara (D.M.A. in Keyboard), University of Miami (M.M. in Musicology), and University of Kansas (M.M. in Accompanying, B.M. in Piano Performance).

SBMC Concert Performances

LUX , Ensemble

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.

SBMC Concert Performances

Paul Mori , Bassoonist

Paul Mori, bassoon, received his earliest start in music through school music programs here in his native Santa Barbara and continued his musical education at Westmont College. From here, he relocated to Baltimore to study at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, earning a master’s degree in bassoon performance with Phillip Kolker and later completing a doctorate in orchestral conducting, studying with the legendary Frederik Prausnitz. He served as music director of orchestras in the Pacific Northwest and Baltimore before returning to Santa Barbara. Currently, he conducts the Santa Barbara Reading Orchestra and is on the music faculty at Westmont College.

SBMC Concert Performances

Svetlana Rudikova-Harris , Pianist

Svetlana Rudikova-Harris, pianist, was born in Russia and is an internationally renowned solo and collaborative pianist, recording artist, and pedagogue. She earned three Masters Degrees in Performance as well as the Special Award for Excellence in Piano Performance and Instruction at the Russian National Education Competition. Gold Medalist in the Russian National Young Performance competition at age 16, she won the Russian Choral Conducting, National Piano Prize, and Russian Piano Competitions. Svetlana has recorded on the Melodiya label and has performed for over 20 years with sister-in-law Tracy Harris, both in orchestral concerts and in their “Wyndfall Duo.” In addition, she conducts clinics, and lectures and maintains a private piano studio.

SBMC Concert Performances

Mao Saito , Pianist

Mao Saito was born in Osaka, Japan in 1986. She graduated as the best student from Kyoto City University of Arts in 2009. From 2010 to 2012, she studied at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin with Prof. Fabio Bidini, attaining a Master of Music with the best note in 2012. Mao Ishida won the “Ugorski Special Prize for an outstanding performance of Schumann” at the ARD International Piano Competition in Germany in 2011, the third prize at the 8th piano competition Prix Amadèo in Aachen in 2012, and the second prize at the 6th Berlin piano competition in 2012. She was on a scholarship from Yamaha Music Foundation from 2012-2015, and got “Final round scholarship” at the 60th Busoni International Piano Competition in 2015. She often performs chamber music in Japan and Berlin and works as an accompanist.

SBMC Concert Performances