Cellist and co-Founder and Director of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on historical and modern instruments. Passionate about chamber music, Tanya has been featured in recitals and at chamber music festivals across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and is a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Tanya is particularly renowned for her interpretation of the complete Bach Cello Suites, which she recorded for the Avie label and has performed many times at venues including New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle’s Early Music Guild, Vancouver’s Early Music Society, Santa Fe’s Pro Musica, and the Library of Congress. For many years, Tanya was principal cellist and a frequent soloist for both San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. She has recorded the complete piano trios by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn with the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio (with Monica Huggett, violin and Eric Zivian, fortepiano) for the Avie label.
A strong believer in the positive impact of music on society, Tanya is now devoting more time to mentoring the next generation of musicians. She learned the importance of mentorship from the great cellist Anner Bijlsma, with whom she studied in the Netherlands. As Bijlsma’s student, she was welcomed into his family’s household, which was the center of rehearsals, lessons, and the musical lifestyle he shared with his wife, violinist Vera Beths. These experiences of musical friendship and mentoring are what inspired Tanya, together with VMMF co-Director Eric Zivian, to create the Apprenticeship, Laureate and Emerging Artists Programs at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, where young musicians are absorbed into an intergenerational musical community and are exposed to the non-hierarchical, collaborative values of chamber music. Tanya has mentored young musicians in master classes at Yale, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and through her frequent appearances as a guest teacher at Juilliard’s Historical Performance Department.
Period Instruments
For over a decade, Tanya and Eric have immersed themselves in Classical and Romantic music on period instruments: recording, performing, and teaching these pieces from an historic perspective. These well-known pieces can be experienced in a completely new way, not only through the unique qualities of period instruments but also through a full understanding of period style.
That led to the idea of starting a music festival devoted to performing and teaching this repertoire on period instruments. Valley of the Moon Music Festival is not just an exciting series of summer concerts in the beautiful town of Sonoma, but also a place for emerging musicians to thrive as they incorporate this chamber music into their professional lives.
