The Bay Area’s Century-Old Mother Lode of Musical Gold

Janos Gereben looks at the Bay Area’s long history of nurturing and launching major musical talent. The article begins with a reference to Ted Huffman, general director of the Festival d’Aix, whose early career included an apprentice year with the Merola Opera Program, and expands from there into a broader survey of musicians with Bay Area roots. Gereben points to institutions such as the Merola and Adler programs, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra as important training grounds. Among the contemporary artists he names are Samuel Carl Adams, Teddy Abrams, Gabriela Lena Frank, Conrad Tao, Gabriella Smith, and Stephen Waarts. To keep the scope manageable, he limits the discussion to classical music, leaving the Bay Area’s histories of jazz, rock, pop, and world music for another time. Historically, he traces the story back to three celebrated violinists who grew up in or around San Francisco: Yehudi Menuhin, Ruggiero Ricci, and Isaac Stern. Rather than presenting a definitive history, Gereben offers the beginnings of a list that suggests how consistently the Bay Area has produced, trained, or helped launch significant musicians over the course of roughly a century.