HOME - BROAD SPECTRUM: THE RECITAL - PROGRAM - REVIEWS - COMMENTS

HARNED / KVAMME / LOWENTHAL / PRYOR

SHIRLEY HARNED
mezzo-soprano

    To round out her career, Shirley has done several theatrical productions with companies such as the Seattle Repertory Theatre and The Group Theatre. She loves singing in recital "as often as people will let me!" She has a special love for the song form from all periods and places, but most especially the music of the United States, Latin America and Spain. On several occasions, she was heard in radio recitals on the Pacific Northwest's KING-FM (live) and KUOW-FM (recorded performances). In addition to the Pacific Northwest, recital engagements have taken Ms. Harned as far afield as the eastern United States, Japan, and Panamá—where she was raised and first started singing professionally.
     Since moving to the Bay Area after her marriage to fellow former "Zonian" (Panama Canal Zone), now a San José resident, Dr. Roger L. Kelley, Shirley came out of retirement to sing the role of Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with Margaret Martin Kvamme conducting, in the Almaden Valley Adventures in the Arts concert series and has sung with the highly-respected Silicon Valley Symphony performing arias from Bizet's Carmen.

Broad Spectrum: The Recital is the fulfillment of Shirley's long-held desire to do recitals with a very special theme: performing a wide variety of music that she particularly enjoys and which is audience-friendly in form and setting. In addition, that she is able to collaborate with other musical women for whom she has a high regard as musicians and as human beings is a very welcome bonus.       TOP | NEXT

MARGARET MARTIN KVAMME
organ & piano

Canadian-born  organist  Margaret Kvamme is excited about performing with some of her favorite female musicians this coming October. She and Ms. Harned have collaborated in organ–voice and organ-narrator performances in numerous Bay Area venues.

Margaret attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where she earned her Bachelor of Music studying with David Craighead (who, incidentally, also taught Carolyn Pryor at Occidental College). Margaret met her future husband, Saratogan Damon Kvamme while they were both students in Rochester. After a brief stint in California (just in time for the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake), Damon and Margaret moved to Michigan where Margaret completed Master’s degrees in both Choral Conducting and Organ Performance at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Ms. Kvamme won the 1993 Naples International Organ Festival Competition in Florida, where as winner she returned for a full length recital the following year. She was also subsequently heard on the nationally syndicated radio program “Pipedreams”, and on the “Distinguished Women at

the Console” series in Akron, Ohio. Ms. Kvamme has also been a featured performer at the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival.

Ms. Kvamme has directed college, high school, church and community choruses and has taught college courses in music theory and conducting, including four years on the faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz and six years as Director of Music at Joint Venture Churches in Almaden. Currently Ms. Kvamme is active as the Associate Organist at the Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos, a freelance organist and private teacher. She is mom to 9-year-old Paul and 6-year-old Ruth Ann, both budding musicians. Margaret’s debut solo organ album, Sevenfold Gifts, was  recorded in 2006 at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz and is available in the Misión Galería in Santa Cruz, at albanyrecords.com, and on i-tunes.
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Carolyn Lowenthal, viola/violin, is a devoted chamber music player. She is on the board of Chamber Musicians of Northern California (CMNC), a group that "provides opportunities for musicians to play and enjoy chamber music through workshops, performances, and education."

Carolyn has attended chamber music workshops in Arcata at HSU and also Claremont at Scripps, as part of a piano quartet preparing for a fund raising concert in Pescadero. At Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington, she participated in workshops coached by the Cypress String Quartet. The renowned Manhattan Quartet coached workshops in which Carolyn took part in Racine, Wisconsin, in the US and Vienna, Budapest, and Parma in Europe.

In addition to her chamber music work, she also plays in a number of Bay Area orchestras, including Michael Gibson's Silicon Valley Symphony, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, Mission City Opera, Saratoga Symphony, and the Lyric Theatre.

Born in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Carolyn has lived in Washington State and Southern California and currently is a resident of Los Gatos, where she lives iwth her husband Bruce and her resue Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Ice.

Though she began studying violin in the 4th grade at public school mostly because music was available to everyone, Carolyn says she found it to be "more fun than I ever imagined."

She played in orchestras and in some chamber music groups in school all the way through college.

Living in Kirkland and later Seattle, Washington, Carolyn studied with Emanuel Zetlin, highly respected faculty member at the University of Washington, during her high school years and continued to do so when she attended "UDub" while majoring in Math.

After graduation, she moved to Pasadena to begin a career as a software engineer. She met her husband at that first job and it is not surprising that the high tech couple, by way of Sierra Madre and Modjeska Canyon, ended up in the Silicon Valley.

The Lowenthals have two children: a daughter, Marianne, who graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Toxicology and works in environmental/ecological planning; and a son, Andrew, who recently got his doctorate from UCSC in Molecular and Cell Biology.

Both played in the California Youth Symphony, Andrew on bassoon and Marianne on percussion. Marianne was active in PCLG's bell choir in high school and continues to play the piano. Both she and Andrew love classical music. 

Carolyn resumed studying and playing the violin seriously when Marianne began taking lessons from Diane Egli. (As a side note, Carolyn and Diane currently play together, often joined by other string

players, as the Chancel Strings at the Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos.)

Carolyn studied first with Carolyn Simon, a first violinist in Symphony Silicon Valley, then with Byung-Woo Kim, at that time concertmaster of the San José Symphony and currently the director of the California Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

Later Carolyn added viola to her string studies, first taking lessons from Janet Sims, and switching to Ethan Filner, violist with the Cypress String Quartet, when she began a chamber music class through San José State Open University. After a 20-year career in software engineering, Carolyn retired and has become deeply involved in Bay Area amateur chamber music. There are many other musicians like her here and they meet to explore the extensive repertoire and sometimes put together concerts.

"I never imagined I would meet so many wonderful people and play so much great music as an adult amateur musician," says Carolyn with obvious pleasure.

Carolyn is excited to be playing in Broad Spectrum: The Recital because it is "more like chamber music than solo work. Both the Brahms and Stravinsky are collaborative."       
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Carolyn Pryor, though she "retired" 9 years ago after serving for 21 years as full time director of Music Ministries at Campbell United Methodist Church, is still active as a musician. She is a part time associate organist at Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos and is on call as a substitute choir director and organist at other area churches. She defines "retirement" as a wonderful opportunity to spend more time practicing and learning new repertoire. Though Carolyn lost her husband 13 years ago, she has two children, Maria and Anthony (whom she claims were not named for West Side Story!) and two grandchildren, Katie and John, both of whom are musical. Katie plays the violin; John, the bassoon.

Ms. Pryor started singing and playing the piano at age three and says she can't remember ever not

wanting to be a musician. She had excellent piano teachers, the one who influenced her most being Marjorie Duncan Baker. By the time Carolyn was 12 years old she was teaching piano herself. By the time she reached junior high, she was playing in a professional piano duo, continuing to do so through high school. However, in high school she fell in love with the organ, which, she says, "broke my piano teacher's heart!" She attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, earning a BA in Organ Performance. Her organ teachers there were David Craighead and Clarence Mader. Other teachers have included Paul Callaway and Harvey Burgett.

Carolyn spent three years in Germany during one part of her life, but her children grew up in New York City where the family lived for 15 years.

While in New York, Carolyn
served as an accompanist for many professional auditions and was a substitute organist at churches and temples in the greater New York area. However, substituting came to an end when she secured two permanent weekend jobs—in Brooklyn at Boro Park Progressive Synagogue and on Long Island at Sea Cliff United Methodist Church.

When she isn't practicing and/or performing, Carolyn's time is filled by her many interests and hobbies. She loves sewing, travelling, reading, and attending concerts, plays, and the opera. The peripatetic Ms. Pryor has gone on eight Elderhostel trips—five in Europe, and three in the United States. Carolyn also travelled extensively through Europe while her daughter was living there.      TOP