Guest Artists

Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir

Eric Tuan

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Eric Tuan is highly sought after as a choral conductor, composer, and collaborative keyboardist. Tuan received his B.A. in Music with Honors from Stanford University, and completed a Master of Music in Choral Studies with Distinction at the University of Cambridge with the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Tuan started his musical journey in the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir as a young chorister, and is currently on faculty as Ecco conductor and composer-in-residence. He will take over as Artistic Director of the internationally recognized program in July 2019.

Tuan currently serves as the founding Artistic Director of Convivium, the Peninsula-based chamber chorus he founded in 2012, and as Director of Music at Christ Episcopal Church, Los Altos. His dedication to the creation and exploration of new music has led him to conduct and perform the world premieres of over thirty works. Tuan has sung professionally with Volti, Cappella SF, and the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, and has received acclaim for his sensitive work as a collaborative pianist, continuo player, and repetiteur.

Michael Jankosky

Hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tenor Michael Jankosky has performed with many San Francisco Bay Area companies. He recently made his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Mendelssohn’s Symphony 2 “Lobgesang” under the baton of Sir Andras Schiff. This was followed by a performance as tenor soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus’ performance of Bach’s St. John Passion.

Other recent concert performances include Bach’s Cantatas 78 & 125 with the Cantata Collective and Pacific Boychoir Academy; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Amy Beach’s Canticle of the Sun, both JS Bach & CPE Bach Magnificat with the SF Choral Society; tenor soloist for Bach St. John’s Passion with the UC Davis Early Music Ensemble, and the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil with the Pacific Boychoir Academy. He gave the premiere workshop performances of David Garner’s opera Mary Pleasant at Land’s End. Recent operatic credits include The Painter/Foreigner in West Edge Opera’s production Berg’s Lulu, Richard Smythe in Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair, the tenor soloist in Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato with American Bach Soloists, Benedict in Berlioz’ Beatrice & Benedict, Sam in Floyd’s Susannah with San Francisco Parlor Opera, Orönte in Handel’s Alcina with the SFCM Baroque Ensemble, Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff with North Bay Opera, Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Brighella in Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. Besides opera, he also enjoys performing concert music ranging from the Baroque to modern eras.

Mr. Jankosky has sung in master classes with Frederica von Stade, Christine Brewer, Gidon Saks, Warren Jones, Roger Vignoles, Martin Katz, and Jeffrey Thomas. He received his Bachelor of Music from the Conservatory of Music at Baldwin-Wallace College and his Master of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

He is an avid cyclist and hiker.

Simon Barrad

The versatility of “gorgeous voiced” baritone, Simon Barrad, has been heard across the United States and Europe in opera, Lieder, and oratorio concerts. A lover of music both old and new, he has recently sung with such companies and festivals as the Marlboro Music Festival, Art of the Piano Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Conspirare, Cincinnati Opera, and the Los Angeles Bach Festival. He has collaborated with artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, Awadagin Pratt, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

In 2015/16 as a Fulbright scholar in Helsinki, Mr. Barrad toured southern Finland with his Musical Madeleine recital, and gave lectures and private lessons promoting contemporary American art song abroad. His recent performances of Finnish and American music have brought him wide acclaim as a recitalist, headlining in venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo, and Finland’s National Opera House.

A passionate linguaphile, Mr. Barrad recently completed a word for word translation and IPA transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and is currently working on a side-by-side translation of the librettos of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Katerina Izmailova. He is a native of Long Beach, California, and recently moved to the Bay Area.