Emerging Artists Program

Program Information

The Mendocino Music Festival Emerging Artists Program is a tuition-free program that offers 12 pre-professional string players the opportunity to play orchestra and chamber music in one of the most spectacular spots on the Northern California coast. The program is open to violinists, violists, and cellists, ages 18-28. The program dates are: July 9–26, 2026.

Emerging Artists perform in three orchestral concerts with the Festival Orchestra, and an Emerging Artists Chamber Music Recital. The Festival Orchestra includes playing side-by-side with professional musicians from around the country, including members of the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera and Ballet orchestras. Emerging Artists will also have the opportunity to perform in a masterclass with the Festival Orchestra’s soloist.

Emerging Artists perform in two quartets, each playing a movement from the string quartet repertoire. Intensive rehearsals and coachings with our stellar coaching faculty culminate in a chamber music recital at the end of the festival.

The Emerging Artists Program is a wonderful opportunity to make music in a beautiful setting, grow one’s orchestral and chamber music experience, and form new connections and friendships within a tight-knit group of participants. In addition to the program’s curriculum, there is plenty of time for hikes, barbecues, sight-reading parties, and more!

The Mendocino Music Festival provides participants with housing with host families and a stipend for food.

Chamber Music Coaches

Terry Baune is concertmaster of the North State Symphony and the Eureka Symphony, co-concertmaster of the Oakland Symphony, and a member of the new-music chamber ensemble Earplay and the Temporary Resonance piano trio. She is Music Director of the TBAM chamber music festival in Trinidad, CA, and director of the Humboldt Chamber Music Workshop at Cal Poly Humboldt. Her other professional credits include two years in the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, where she performed with the Gabrielli Trio as a Radio New Zealand National Ensemble, four years as a member of the National Symphony Orchestra, and over twenty years as concertmaster of The Women’s Philharmonic. She has participated in numerous world premieres and has had solo works written for her by Chen Yi, Libby Larsen and Pablo Ortiz.

Susan Freier, an internationally known violinist and violist and longtime member of the Ives Quartet at Stanford University, performs with the S.F. Contemporary Chamber Players. She earned degrees from Stanford and Eastman School of Music and was asked to join the Chester Quartet, which went on to win the Evian, Munich International, Portsmouth and Chicago Discovery competitions. She has been a participant at the Aspen Grand Teton and Newport festivals, and has recordings on a number of prestigious labels. Formerly an artist-faculty member of the Pacific Music Center, she now teaches and performs at the Orfeo, Telluride, and San Diego music festivals.

Stephen Harrison has been a member of the Stanford University faculty since 1983, when he returned to his native Bay Area to co-found the Stanford String Quartet. In 1998 he became the founding cellist of the Ives Quartet and is now co-Artistic Director of the Ives Collective. These ensembles have commissioned works from composers such as William Bolcom, Ben Johnston, Elinor Armer, and Dan Becker. Cellist of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players since 1986, he has performed internationally and recorded for the Naxos, Music and Arts, CRI, New Albion, Newport Classics, AIX, New World and Bridge recording labels.

Application Deadline: April 1, 2026.

Audition Requirements:

• One movement each from two contrasting pieces of applicant’s choice.

Questions?

Meet the Directors

Tyler DeVigal currently serves as principal cellist of Symphony San Jose and holds positions in the Santa Rosa Symphony and Marin Symphony. He regularly plays with several other Bay Area orchestras, including Oakland Symphony, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and San Jose Chamber Orchestra. Outside of the traditional repertoire, Tyler is the cellist of Quartet San Francisco, whose crossover performances have brought him to SFJAZZ, Yoshi's Oakland, and the Sag Harbor American Music Festival. In addition to performing, Tyler is the director of Youth Chamber Music at the Crowden School's Community Programs, where he also maintains a private studio. He received his musical training at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he earned his M.M. in Cello Performance. Prior to CIM, he attended Stanford University, where he earned his B.A. in Human Biology, with an emphasis in mental illness in the arts. His mentors and teachers include Bonnie Hampton, Robert DeMaine, Mark Kosower, Stephen Harrison, and Milly Rosner.

Violist Nao Kubota is an active chamber and orchestral musician in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Nao frequently performs in several Bay Area chamber music series, including the Chamber Music Society of SF and Benicia Chamber Players. As an orchestral musician, Nao has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and regularly plays with several Bay Area orchestras, including the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Santa Rosa Symphony, Modesto Symphony Orchestra, and Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera. Nao is a member of the Los Angeles-based chamber ensemble, Delirium Musicum, where she can be heard on albums Seasons and Cabinet of Curiosities, released by Warner Classics. Nao is a graduate of New England Conservatory, where she earned her B.M. in Viola Performance studying with Dimitri Murrath, and the USC Thornton School of Music, where she earned her M.M. and G.C. in Viola Performance, studying with Karen Dreyfus.

Program History

The Emerging Artists Program began in 1991, the Mendocino Music Festival's fifth season, when the Young Musicians Scholarship Program was inaugurated to nurture young classical musicians in the community and beyond, and to reinforce orchestral resources. Every year 8–12 instrumentalists—talented wind and brass players, string players and pianists—were chosen to play in the Festival Orchestra and to present chamber music programs, coached by professionals. By combining the best features of a music camp with a rigorous professional festival, the program enabled young players to grow musically while enjoying camaraderie with fellow participants and the festival musicians. Like all visiting musicians, the students were housed with local families, allowing them to interface with the broader community.

Beginning in 1998, the program focused exclusively on string players. In 2007, Karl Goldstein, who served as director of the program for many years, changed the program’s name to “Emerging Artists.” Other directors and coaches have included Anne Crowden, Bonnie Hampton, Susan Waterfall, Burke Schuchmann, Christina Mok, Eric Sung, Jill Brindel, Roy Malan, Susan Freier and Julie Feldman.

The Program Alumni Page gives an impressive peek into the value of this program with personal statements from many of the more than 160 alumni since 1991 on the importance of the Festival experience in their development as musicians, and on their achievements and career paths. The alumni represent an international community of young musicians who came together for a magical summer experience, most of whom have gone on to have successful professional musical careers as players, teachers and administrators who nurture young people themselves.

The Festival is proud of the Emerging Artists Program and remains committed to encouraging, nurturing and showcasing young artists each season to enable them to make significant contributions to the communities where they live and play. This program is free to participants thanks to the generosity of the donors of the Mendocino Music Festival.

Learn about the recital