OUR STORY
Co-founders and Directors Tanya Tomkins and Eric Zivian met in California in 2000, when Tanya had just returned from 14 years in the Netherlands learning about performance on period instruments. Tanya was taken with Eric’s unique and dynamic style of piano playing, and Eric had always been eager to learn more about period performance. They soon became musical and life partners, returning to the Netherlands together to purchase the 1841 Viennese fortepiano that is featured in so many of their recordings and concerts. After many years of exploring, performing, and recording Classical and Romantic chamber music, they experienced many of the well-known gems of the repertoire in a completely new way. The historical instruments solved many of the balance problems that arise on modern instruments while bringing the humor, charm, and poignancy of the music into bold relief.
Their excitement led to the idea of starting a music festival devoted to performing and teaching post-Baroque music on period instruments. Valley of the Moon Music Festival is not only a series of summer concerts with world-class musicians in the beautiful town of Sonoma, but also a place for emerging musicians to learn a new perspective on familiar music.
It is Tanya and Eric’s great joy to share this music with you, with help from some of their most esteemed colleagues in the music world. They take special delight in sharing their insights with the emerging artists in the Cremona Foundation Apprenticeship and Laureate programs and presenting these incredible up-and-coming musicians at the Festival.
TANYA TOMKINS, CELLO
Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival in Sonoma, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed on many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, “Great Performances” at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances, and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal.
She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society, and The Library of Congress. For the past 20 years Tanya has been one of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Portland Baroque Orchestra’s principal cellists, and has appeared with both numerous times as soloist.
On modern cello, she is a long-time participant at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and she recently be-came a member of the Bay Area-based Delphi Trio. As an educator, Tanya has given master classes at Yale, Juilliard, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and together with Eric Zivian, runs the Apprenticeship Program at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival.
ERIC ZIVIAN, FORTEPIANO
Music Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, Eric Zivian was born in Michigan and grew up in Toronto, Canada, where he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree. He went on to receive graduate degrees from the Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music. He studied piano with Gary Graffman and Peter Serkin and composition with Ned Rorem, Jacob Druckman, and Martin Bresnick. He attended the Tanglewood Music Center both as a performer and as a composer.
Mr. Zivian has given solo recitals in Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He has performed Mozart and Beethoven concertos with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. He performed the Beethoven Choral Fantasy with Philharmonia Baroque in April 2018.
Since 2000, Mr. Zivian has performed extensively on original instruments, playing fortepiano in the Zivian-Tomkins Duo and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio. He is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and has performed with the Empyrean Ensemble and Earplay. He is a frequent guest artist on the San Francisco Conservatory’s faculty chamber music series. Mr. Zivian’s compositions have been performed widely in the United States and in Tokyo, Japan. He was awarded an ASCAP Jacob Druckman Memorial Commission to compose an orchestral work, Three Character Pieces, which was premiered by the Seattle Symphony in March 1998.