Following in the footsteps of jazz harp legends Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, The Destiny Muhammad Trio features Destiny Muhammad on harp + vocals, Leon Joyce Jr. on drums, and Arthur ‘Chico & the Fam’ Lopez on upright bass. TDMT is a sleek and soulful ensemble designed to showcase Muhammad’s soaring vocals and transporting string work.

Joining them is Tshaka Campbell, an internationally accomplished poet, artist, performer, and the first black Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. He is a husband and father inspired by life and asks the world to “Listen Different!” Together, they present “Malcom X The Centennial: JAZZ Remembers,” a sonic reflection celebrating Malcom’s 100th Solar Return through the music he loved–jazz–and poetic expression.

Ben Goldberg has been at it for a long time. His mother Judy played the clarinet and when Ben was little, he was drawn to the smell of cork grease and old wood inside the case. In fourth grade, Willie Hill taught him the proper embouchure and why you have to sit up straight and know the name of the note, not just the fingering. Clarinet, like many instruments, is not easy. Music gets complicated but you can always sit up straight and keep playing your song.

Benicia Chamber Players provides chamber music concerts in underserved East Bay areas, cultivating a community of world-class professional musicians who are dedicated to sharing their love of classical music. Their 2025–2026 season opens with a playful program that asks: how do composers stay rooted in tradition while creating something entirely new?

In “Carrots and Counterpoint,” three composers from different eras explore that question in bold, unexpected ways. Florence Price’s “Five Folksongs in Counterpoint” blends American folksongs, African spirituals, and classical technique. Schubert’s “Rosamunde Quartet fuses his love of song and chamber music, reworking melodies from earlier vocal pieces. Inspired by Cézanne’s quote, “The day will come when a single, freshly observed carrot will start a revolution,” Gabriella Smith’s “Carrot Revolution” reimagines the string quartet with wild textures and fresh perspective.

Soprano Esther Rayo is acclaimed for her passionate expression of Classical Spanish repertoire, spanning Opera, Baroque, Oratorio, Sacred Music, and Art Song. She has appeared with Circa1600, Sonoma Bach, and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. She earned Vocal Performance degrees from Sonoma State and DePaul University, later performing in Italy at Teatro della Fortuna as Puccini’s “Tosca” and as Mimì in “La Bohème.”

Pianist Peter Grünberg served countless seasons with the San Francisco Symphony, contributing to Grammy-winning recordings, coaching the Chorus, and performing internationally. He has appeared as a soloist, conducted at Moscow Conservatory and San Francisco Opera, and performed at Salzburg and Tanglewood. He remains active as a recitalist and chamber musician, closely connected with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and San Francisco Opera.

The award-winning program Young Chamber Musicians, founded by Director Susan Bates, offers advanced chamber music instruction and performance opportunities to string players and pianists ages 14-19. The program immerses students in chamber music repertoire to develop technical skill, musical imagination, and the art of collaboration. Since 2008, YCM has fostered “learning through listening and performing” with coaching, masterclasses, frequent performances, and access to professional concerts.

Located at Kohl Mansion-Mercy High School in Burlingame, California, Young Chamber Musicians offers 30 talented young musicians the opportunity to immerse themselves in chamber music playing led by the Bay Area’s finest teaching artist-performers. The program has distinguished itself as a winner of Gold Medals in national competition like the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2019, 2021, and 2025. 

A music creator re-thinking the concept of Puerto Rican music, Pedro José Pastrana crosses over invisible frontiers with an (extra)ordinary approach to music. He fuses the earthy quality of folk music with forward-looking compositions and performances, reflecting the mixed identities of his heritage and influences. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Pedro grew up in the “jíbaro” tradition. In high school, he discovered jazz and became fascinated with improvisation.

As a sideman, Pedro has redefined the versatility of the cuatro in Latin Jazz by performing with artists like John Santos, Jerry Medina, Juango Gutierrez, Orestes Vilató, The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, and The Oakland Symphony. His 2022 debut album, “Crónicas de la Pierna Inquieta” was selected by prpop.org among the top 20 recordings that year.

A fearless musical explorer, Vân-Ánh Võ is an Emmy award-winning composer and performer. With the 16-string đàn tranh (zither), monochord, bamboo xylophone, traditional drums, and more, she fuses deeply rooted Vietnamese traditions with other genres and new sounds.

Since settling in the Bay Area in 2001, Vân-Ánh has collaborated with musicians across different genres, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience at venues like Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, NPR Tiny Desk, Houston Grand Opera, Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center, UK WOMAD Festival, and London Olympic Games 2012. Vân-Ánh has been a composer, collaborator and guest soloist with Kronos Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Southwest Chamber Music, Oakland Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Golden State Symphony, Apollo Chamber Players, Flyaway Productions, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and more.

Sopranos Victoria Fraser and Bethany Hill formed Turas Ensemble in 2023 following an invitation to perform in Juneau, Alaska. Limited by the instruments they could travel with, the duo devised a program exploring the concept of home—what it is to leave, to be apart from, and to return—accompanied by mountain dulcimer, harmonium, bass ukulele, autoharp, pedal-looping, electronics, and percussion. This experience established the ensemble’s ethos: to joyfully experiment, challenge technical limitations, and share the music they love through expansive reinterpretations.

Turas Ensemble blends folk roots with classical innovation, reimagining historical music and celebrating the beauty of the female voice. For SF Music Day, they present interpretations of Hildegard von Bingen, J.S. Bach, Franz Schubert, and Nico alongside folk songs.

Julie Herndon is a composer, performer, and sound artist whose work explores the relationship between body, sound, and technology. Her electroacoustic work has been described as “blended to inhabit a surprisingly expressive space” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her music has appeared at MATA Festival, National Sawdust, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca, and Music Biennale Zagreb. She is Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at California Polytechnic State University.

Electronic Etudes are moments of reflection. Each piece grows from improvisation, focusing on live electronics: reverberation as a sonorous wall, distorted field recordings, looping melodic delays, and scattering granulation. These pieces began as self-soothing melodies layered with environmental sounds—the piano’s hammers, wind in the trees outside, cicadas singing with electronics—accumulating until a world emerged.

Guitarist and composer Liberty Ellman has performed and recorded with many stand out creative artists including Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nels Cline, Nicole Mitchell, and others. Mr. Ellman is perhaps best known for his long tenure in Henry Threadgill’s groundbreaking ensemble, Zooid. Their recording “In For A Penny, In For A Pound” earned a Pulitzer Prize. 

As a composer and bandleader, Mr. Ellman has produced several critically acclaimed recordings, including “Orthodoxy,” “Tactiles,” “Ophiuchus Butterfly,” “Radiate,” and “Last Desert.” Ellman’s compositional style has been described as “at once highly controlled and recklessly inventive.” The Wall Street Journal noted: “Along with his contemporaries, Mr. Ellman is helping define the sound of jazz in the 21st century.”

The Berkeley Choro Ensemble (pronounced “shoro”), is a group of world-class musicians from the Bay Area that made its debut in January 2010. The group celebrates the music, culture and history of Brazil, with a special emphasis on the Choro genre, a style of music which emerged in the 1800’s in Brazil, fusing the music of Brazil’s European immigrants and the native music of Brazil’s indigenous and African-Brazilian population. 

The choro sound is somewhat akin to a combination of European classical music, ragtime, and blues. Historically, the choro style influenced Brazil’s most famous classical composer, Heitor Villa Lobos, to compose some of the world’s most hauntingly beautiful music, the “Bachianas Brasileiras.” Their repertoire also includes samba, bossa nova, jazz, and the music of Northeast Brazil.

Anne Hege creates musical worlds that invite awareness of the body and our present moment. A composer, vocalist, conductor, instrument builder, and scholar, she explores the roots of musicality in the intersection of ensemble interaction, technology, embodiment, and expression. Her works have been performed by So Percussion, Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Stanford Laptop Orchestra, loadbang, and more. 

Since 2008, Hege has composed scores for Carrie Ahern Dance, including performances in Wall Street vaults and a retired Lyceum. Hege is currently the artistic director of the Peninsula Women’s Chorus and founder of Laptopera Productions to produce operas for laptop orchestra and live voices, including the premiere of her second laptopera, “The Glance,” in May 2026. Her SF Music Day 2025 set will feature excerpts from this laptopera.

Maestro Kala Ramnath, with her “Singing Violin,” stands among the world’s finest instrumentalists. Her playing has been featured on Grammy-nominated project “Miles from India” and various Hollywood soundtracks. Her compositions have appeared on Grammy-winning album “In 27 Pieces” and Kronos Quartet’s “50 For the Future”. She was the first Indian violinist to be featured in The Strad, the violin Bible. Recognizing her innate talent, her grandfather, Vidwan A. Narayan Iyer, and legendary vocalist Pandit Jasraj trained her. Kala formulated a voice unlike other violinists, dubbed “Singing Violin.”

Considered among the front-ranking tabla players from India, Abhijit Banerjee has crafted a unique style and creative approach which has brought him international accolades and awards for his sensitivity, skill, and deep sense of musicality during his performances.

Praised by The Washington Post for “deft, relentless, and devastatingly good” performances, Dr. Elizabeth Schumann, pianist, has performed at the Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Bösendorfer Saal, Montreal’s Place des Arts, Davies Symphony Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series, Australia’s Huntington Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival. Her performances have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and PBS. She received the Gilmore Young Artist Award, first-prize in the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition, and awards in the Cleveland, Hilton Head, Montreal, and World International Piano Competitions.

Her work spans concerts, public art, and educational projects. Multimedia project “Piano Carnival” grew from a 15-city tour into a book, recording, and apps reaching over 20,000. “Pianimal” brought performances to schools and children’s hospitals through national partnerships.

As an ambitious composer, savvy bandleader, electronics explorer, first-call accompanist, and creative foil for some of the world’s most inventive musicians, Berkeley-based drummer Scott Amendola is the nexus for a disparate community of musicians stretching from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York.

Kasey Knudsen is a San Francisco-based saxophonist, composer, educator, and Berklee alumni. She has been dubbed “one of the region’s most esteemed saxophonists”  (San Francisco Classical Voice) and has “quietly become one of the essential voices in the Bay Area jazz scene” (East Bay Express).

Mat Muntz is a composer, bassist, and bagpiper. Rooted in jazz improvisation and extending through microtonality, non-Western instrumentation, and experimental performance practice, Mat seeks to imbue the volatile and bizarre with an expressive, human immediacy. 

Ruby Ibarra is a Bay Area–based rapper, spoken word artist, and director whose work has reached audiences across the United States, Canada, and the Philippines. She is the co-founder of the Pinays Rising Scholarship program and the independent record label Bolo Music Group. Ruby has been featured in major publications including Rolling Stone, NPR, Huffington Post, Paper Magazine, Vogue Philippines, Billboard Philippines, The Today Show, T Magazine, The New York Times, LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Her music has been featured in FOX Network’s “The Cleaning Lady” and the popular video games “NBA2K23” and “NBA2K24.” Ruby’s latest single, “Bakunawa,” won NPR’s 2025 Tiny Desk Contest. In Summer 2025, she performed a Tiny Desk Concert and completed a nationwide sold-out 10-city tour.

Founded in 2013, Ensemble San Francisco is a malleable collective of musicians dedicated to inspiring a more inclusive world through art. Beyond the traditional concert hall setting, Ensemble SF is also dedicated to bringing world class music to groups throughout the Bay Area including at schools, juvenile detention centers, community centers, hospitals and nursing homes. In these outreach settings, ESF musicians generously donate their time to share their love of chamber music. Through new concert experiences and education of the next generation, ESF is vital in the cultural fabric of the Bay Area.

For SF Music Day 2025, Ensemble San Francisco will perform Antonin Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major.

Berkeley-based composer, bassist, and producer Lisa Mezzacappa has been active in the Bay Area music community for 20+ years. Her activities as a composer and ensemble leader include chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, and collaborations with film, dance, and visual art. Her most recent project is the serial audio opera “The Electronic Lover,” with writer Beth Lisick. She is a recipient of the Pauline Oliveros New Genres Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music, and has been commissioned by the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Del Sol Quartet.

Her improvising ensemble, Lisa Mezzacappa 5(ish), will perform “othrwrldly,” a suite of original music inspired by world-building in speculative fiction of Ursula Le Guin, David Mitchell, Samuel R. Delany, Haruki Murakami, and others.

The Jazz in the Neighborhood (JitN) JazzMobile program addresses the needs of making jazz accessible to everyone and introducing live jazz performances to a wider audience, by taking live jazz performances directly to public spaces in Bay Area neighborhoods. JazzMobile concerts are always free to the public and performers make a guaranteed fair wage. 

Our JazzMobile vehicle carries the necessary gear to present stand-alone outdoor concerts, including a backline (drum kit, amplifiers, keyboard, mixing board, speakers, and rechargeable lithium batteries for power), for musicians. 

For this 2025 InterMusic Music Day, the JitN JazzMobile House Band will be hosting an all day Jam Session outside, in front of the SF War Memorial + Performing Arts Center, as well as a featured “Send-Off” celebration at 6pm to mark the conclusion of the festival.

Bruce Ackley is primarily known as the soprano voice in Rova, the internationally acclaimed saxophone quartet known for its iconoclastic blend of composition and improvisation. He convened the quartet in 1977 and the ensemble has been central to his musical life for nearly 5 decades.

Ackley currently leads the trio Dymaxion with bassist Pete Schmitt and percussionist Dave Brandt, and regularly participates in ad hoc groupings of intrepid Bay Area improvisers.

His performance will be an exploration of acoustic properties and crowd interactions in the lobby of the SF War Memorial featuring Bruce walking and improvising in a special work designed for the space. The resonance, mobility, and presence of the horn, and encounters with the listeners should prove to be an exciting musical experience.