Programs El Camino Wind Orchestra Faculty
Music Director and Conductor of Symphony, Sinfonietta and Galbraith Honor Strings
Dr. Camilla Kolchinsky portrait

Dr. Camilla Kolchinsky, ECYS Music Director and conductor of the Symphony, Sinfonietta and Galbraith Honor Strings, received a Master of Music Degree with distinction from the State Music Conservatory of Moscow and completed the doctoral level program in conducting at the State Music Conservatory of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). She appeared regularly with the Bolshoi Theater, the National USSR State Orchestra, and the Moscow Philharmonic. Since coming to the West in 1976, she has conducted the Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Israel Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Orchestra in Stockholm, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Brussels Radio Symphony Orchestra and many others. Before arriving in the Bay Area she served as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and Opera of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Kolchinsky is the Permanent Guest Conductor of The First Austrian Chamber Orchestra in Vienna and the Guatemala Symphony in Guatemala.

“For those students in our preparatory division, my goal is for them to begin to hear what beauty is, and to understand what art can mean. For those students in our senior ensembles, it is my goal to challenge them to reach levels of achievement beyond those which they set for themselves.” – Dr. Camilla Kolchinsky

Conductor of Chamber Players and Camerata Orchestras
Michail Gelfandbein portrait

Michail Gelfandbein, conductor of the Chamber Players and Camerata orchestras, a native of Russia, received his Ph.D. at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music in cello performance as a student of Mstislav Rostropovich, with post graduate study in conducting with I. Musin. He served as Principal Cellist of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra for 25 years, during which time he was also a faculty member of the Leningrad Conservatory and the Leningrad State Music School for Conductors. Mr. Gelfandbein was founder and Conductor of the Rishon-Le-Zion Chamber Group and Co-Principal Cellist of the Israel Opera Orchestra in Tel Aviv. He has performed as a soloist throughout Europe, the USA, and Asia. Locally Mr. Gelfandbein performed in San Francisco with the Russian Chamber Orchestra and at the prestigious Noontime Concert series at St. Patrick's Church.

“Conducting allows me to express so much more musically. You can think of an orchestra as a very big instrument, with a very big ability to express itself...Conducting is like playing this very big instrument. There is the opportunity for rich expression. This is what I try to communicate to my students and to my audiences.” – Michail Gelfandbein

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Conductor of El Camino Wind Orchestra

Christopher Florio, a Bay Area native, trained as a preparatory student at the San Francisco Conservatory of music for five years. Mr. Florio spent eight years in Los Angeles, studying percussion with Mitchell Peters and composition with Roger Bourland. During his under-graduate study at UCLA, he was selected to participate in the Society of Composers and Lyricists Mentorship Program where he worked closely with film and television composers. As a graduate student at UCLA, Mr. Florio studied conducting with Dr. Thomas Lee and was Associate Conductor of the UCLA Wind Ensemble.  During his graduate studies, Mr. Florio was in constant demand to lead student ensembles as well as semi-professional chamber ensembles. As a composer and performer Mr. Florio has worked with talents such as Herbie Hancock, Billy Higgins, Lalo Schiffrin, Jay Chattaway, Bill Conti, Sarah Chang, Mehli Mehta and many others. Since 2005, Mr. Florio has directed the instrumental program at the Harker School in San Jose.  Since his arrival at Harker, the program has doubled in size, with its students capturing over 25 Command Performance ratings at the ’07 and ’08 CMEA Solo and Ensemble festivals.  In December 2006, Mr. Florio and the Harker Orchestra participated in the Paris Parade Festival concert series and in April of 2009 will compete in the National Orchestra Cup at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

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Conductor of Flute Ensembles

Melody Holmes-Schaefle, Lecturer in Flute at Stanford University, M.A., B.A., Teaching Credential, San Jose State University. Studied with Isabelle Chapuis-Starr, Bettine Clemen. Master classes with Jean-Pierre Rampal, Ransom Wilson, Julius Baker, and James Pellerite among others. Winner of numerous solo and chamber music competitions. Ms. Schaefle performs regularly as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. As an educator, she has taught and directed within public and private school environments as well as at the University level. She owns and has maintained a private music studio for over 20 years providing instruction in flute/piano performance, musicianship, and theory.

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Assistant Conductor and Director of Winds
Debra Weinberg portrait

Debra Weinberg Gardner , Assistant Conductor, Director of Winds, and woodwind and chamber music coach for ECYS, received Bachelor’s degrees in Clarinet Performance and Recording Arts from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she studied under Loren Kitt, Principal Clarinetist of the National Symphony.  From there, she went on to Chicago to receive her M.M. in Clarinet Performance from DePaul University, where she studied under Larry Combs, Principal Clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony.   She has performed throughout the U.S., playing with such groups as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Chicago Contemporary Players, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the South Bend Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, and the Monterey Symphony.   She has also participated in many music festivals, including the National Repertory Orchestra, Music Academy of the West, the Texas Music Festival, and the Sarasota Music Festival.  Throughout her travels, she has had the honor of playing under the batons of many great conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Christoph Eschenbach, and Zubin Mehta.  As an educator, her varied experiences include working with at-risk youth at the MERIT Music Program in Chicago, performing in outreach concerts through both the Chicago Civic Orchestra’s MusiCorps Program and the San Francisco Symphony’s Adventures in Music program, and teaching chamber music and music theory for the San Francisco Community Music Center’s Comprehensive Musicianship Program.  She has maintained a private clarinet studio since beginning her studies, with many of her students winning competitions and being accepted into some of the country’s most prestigious music schools.

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Brass Section Coaches
Scott L. Hartman, brass coach for the El Camino Youth Symphony, is one of the Bay Area's busiest horn players. Mr. Hartman has performed in every horn chair in the San Jose and Santa Cruz symphonies, Opera San Jose, AMT, and SJ/Cleveland Ballet. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Merola Opera, Midsummer Mozart, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Monterey Symphony and California Symphony. His performances range from recording Lou Harrison's music for Horn and Gamelan to TV commercials to performing with Luciano Pavarotti to rock concerts at the Cow Palace. He is a first call player with Symphony Silicon Valley, the Pacific Chamber Orchestra and is a founding member of the Silicon Valley Brass Quintet.Mr. Hartman teaches in his home and is on the staff of the University of Santa Clara, In 2004 and 2005, 1/6 of the horns in the California Band Directors Association (CBDA) State Honor Bands were his students.  He was a guest artist and lecturer at the International Horn Society's Western US Symposium in Las Vegas in 2002, and at at the University of Santa Barbara in January 2006, and has lectured for the CBDA. He has been a soloist with the South Valley Symphony (Bach's Brandenburg  Concerto #2 and Mozart's Concerto #4), the Mission Chamber Orchestra (Larssen's Concertino), the West Valley Symphony (Haydn's Concerto #1) and the Cupertino Symphonic Band (Saint-Saens' Morceau de Concert). Mr. Hartman is a frequent clinician and coach and is the author of The Music Teacher's Horn Handbook. Mr. Hartman attended SJSU and the Universidad Politecnico in Mexico City. His horn teachers include two principal horns of the SF Symphony and two from the NY Philharmonic.

Richard Roper, trumpet, received his Bachelor's degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, his M.M. from Yale School of Music, and his D.M.A. from the University of Maryland. As a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar, Dr. Roper spent a year studying and performing in Paris. Commited to arts education, he has served on the faculties of the University of Maine and the Washington, D.C. Youth Orchestra, and currently teaches for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory/Extension department, the Community School of Music and Arts, and as trumpet instructor at California State University Stanislaus. Along with teaching, Dr. Roper stays busy performing frequently with many Bay Area ensembles. In addition, he has studied and performed at the Aspen Music festival, the Music Academy of the West, and the Norfolk Chamber Music festival. His major teachers include Chris Gekker, Allan Dean, Mario Guarneri, Antoine Cure, and Raymond Mase.

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Chamber Music Coach/Coordinator
Sara Spieth portrait

Sara Spieth is an active cellist and music educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her B.M. in Cello Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, studying under former Associate Principal of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Stepansky, and her M.M. from San Francisco State University working with the Alexander String Quartet. She is a recipient of the Israel Dorman Memorial Award and the Sylvia Rosenberg Orchestra Scholarship. Solo engagements have taken Sara abroad, as she has performed throughout the U.K., Italy, Austria, and France. She has attended the Pacific Music Festival, the World Cello Congress, the Domaine Forget Festival, and has participated in many master classes including those with Phillippe Muller, the Julliard String Quartet, Irene Sharp, Julian Martin, and Mihaly Virizlay. Teaching has always interested Sara, as she has maintained a private studio since 1994, as well as being highly involved with the El Camino Youth Symphony and other youth organizations. Sara plays on a Francis Kuttner cello on loan to her from a private collection. For more information, visit www.saraspieth.com.

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