Three private studio instructors have joined the Sonoma State University music faculty - Jonathan Dimmock, organ; Wayne Roden, viola; and Mark Wallace, double bass.
Organist Jonathan Dimmock is well-known internationally as a recitalist, choral conductor, accompanist, continuo player, ensemble musician and church organist. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and Yale University, he has held musical posts at Westminster Abbey (London), and three American cathedrals: St. John the Divine (New York), St. Mark's (Minneapolis), and Grace (San Francisco). He is currently the organist for the San Francisco Symphony, and Organist and Choir Director at St. Ignatius Church and Congregation Sherith Israel (both in San Francisco). A Grammy Award winner for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, he has recorded more than 35 CDs and toured widely on five continents. He has been interviewed and featured on numerous radio and television stations including National Public Radio, Radio France, BBC3, ABC (Australia), MTV2 (Budapest), BCC (Barbados), and SABC (South Africa). His teachers and mentors include Gillian Weir, Simon Preston, Jean Langlais, Peter Hallock, Haskell Thomson, William Porter, Thomas Murray, Harald Vogel, J. Franklin Clark, Paul Halley, Naji Hakim, and Frédéric Blanc. He is co-founder of the highly acclaimed American Bach Soloists, founding director of Artists' Vocal Ensemble (AVE), and founding president of Resonance, using music in international conflict resolution. He is deeply committed to healing our broken world through the beauty of music, and talks eagerly on the subjects of spirituality, psychology, aesthetics, and the arts.
Wayne Roden, violist with the San Francisco Symphony since 1974, began studying the violin at age 8 in his native Alabama. He studied violin, viola, and chamber music with members of the Claremont Quartet at the North Carolina School of the Arts and then enrolled at Northern Illinois University in order to study with the newly formed Vermeer Quartet. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Northern Illinois in 1970. During a tour of military service, Mr. Roden played frequently at the White House as a member of the Strolling Strings of the U.S. Army Band. He also was soloist with the Army Chamber Orchestra at the National Academy of Science in Washington. While in service he studied viola with Karen Tuttle of Philadelphia. Mr. Roden has been a member of the Chamber Soloists of San Francisco, where he performed with Janos Starker, Jaime Laredo, Jerome Lowenthal, and Stephanie Chase. Recently he has performed in the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series and in the pre-concert Chamber Music Series, both in Davis Symphony Hall. He was one of the solo strings that recorded the Metamorphoses of Richard Strauss with Metamorphoses of Herbert Blomstedt conducting, on the Philips label.
Double bassist Mark Wallace recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area after a nomadic two years, which included holding positions as Assistant Principal Bass with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais, Brazil, the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, and performances with the Florida Orchestra. Previously, Mark lived in New York City where he held positions of Principal Bass with the Westchester Chamber Symphony, Assistant Principal of the thundergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Eugene Levinson, and later studied with Donald Palma at the Yale School of Music.