The Gualala Arts Chamber Music Series is pleased to present Geraldine Walther, viola, and Roy Bogas, piano, in a concert on Sunday, February 20, 4:00 p.m., at Gualala Arts Center.

For the past two summers, Bogas and Walther have performed in the Gualala Summer Chamber Music Festival as part of the five-member ensemble "Roy Bogas and Friends," featuring Bogas and four principals of the San Francisco Symphony. Their sold-out performances were met with enthusiastic standing ovations and calls for their return. The full ensemble will indeed return in July for the 2005 Gualala Summer Music Festival, but meanwhile, having Bogas and Walther perform as a duo provides a special midwinter treat for Gualala.

The February 20th concert will include J.S. Bach's Sonata for Viola and Piano in D Major, Joseph Haydn's Divertimento in D Major, Paul Hindemith's Sonata (1919), and Ernest Bloch's Viola Suite (1919).

Of a concert by Roy Bogas, the Riverside Press-Enterprise wrote, "Bogas searches sensitively for tone quality; he listens, blends, makes the music say something beyond what the notes signify." And about a performance by Geraldine Walther, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Walther brought a wondrous blend of lyricism and energy to the score."

Roy Bogas received his training in New York and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony at age fourteen, and was a prizewinner at the second Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962. At the age of 19, he became accompanist to Yehudi Menuhin, playing over a hundred concerts with him throughout North and South America. He has also played with Michael Rabin, Rugiero Ricci, Jaime Laredo, and Joseph Szigeti, with whom he recorded a number of 20th Century works for Mercury Records. As principal solo pianist for the San Francisco Ballet, he recently toured with the company to Athens, Greece, and London, England, performing Tchaikovsky's Allegro Brilliante and Ravel's Concerto in G Major.

Bogas has performed as soloist with virtually every orchestra in Northern California, as well as many other orchestras in this country and abroad. As an active chamber musician, he has appeared at many summer music festivals, including the San Francisco Symphony's chamber music series at Davies Hall, and the Gualala series. He is the founder of the MasterGuild Series of chamber music at Holy Names University in Oakland, where he is Professor of Music.

Geraldine Walther has been principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony since 1976, having previously served as assistant principal of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore Symphonies and the Miami Philharmonic. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, she was first prize winner of the William Primrose International Competition in 1979.

A frequent soloist with the San Francisco Symphony in such works as the William Walton, Walter Piston and Robin Holloway viola concertos, Ms. Walther was most recently heard as soloist in Benjamin Britten's Double Concerto. She has given the U.S. premieres of Taru Takemitsu's A String Around Autumn, Peter Lieberson's Viola Concerto, and George Benjamin's Viola, Viola. She has also recorded Hindemith's Trauermusik and Der Schwanendreher with the San Francisco Symphony for London Records. In 1995, she was selected by Sir Georg Solti as a member of his Musicians of the World, which performed in Geneva to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

As an exponent of contemporary music, Ms. Walther performed Holloway's sonata for viola alone, and his trio for clarinet, viola and piano at the Kohl Mansion in Burlingame, with the composer present. She is also a chamber music enthusiast, and, along with Roy Bogas, is a member of the MasterGuild Series of chamber music in Oakland. She has played in many chamber music concerts yearly in the Bay Area and elsewhere. She is the founder of the Ruby Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and has performed in the Santa Fe, Marlboro, Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, and Telluride Festivals, as well as the Green Music Festival at Sonoma State, and the Gualala Summer Music Festival. She has appeared as guest artist with the Vermeer, Guarneri, Lindsay, Cypress, St. Lawrence, and Tokyo String Quartets, and has collaborated with such artists as Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, and Jaime Laredo.