The Bernal Hill Players is a local chamber ensemble conceived by San Francisco Community Music Center faculty members Jennifer Peringer on piano and Martha RodrÃguez-Salazar on flute and voice, joined by Leah di Tullio on clarinet.
We play both older and new repertoire, and have a special interest in promoting Bay Area composers. Pieces that cross boundaries between classical and world music intrigue us, and we feel particularly close to music with Latin connections.
Our mission is to be accessible, innovative, friendly, and educational. Above all we want people to be able to respond intuitively to the beauty of the music we make.
Martha RodrÃguez-Salazar was born and raised in Mexico City, coming to the United States in 1998 to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Music at Mills College in Oakland. As both flutist and mezzosoprano, Ms. Rodriguez has toured extensively in the United States, Mexico and Europe, with Classical, Baroque and folk ensembles and orchestras, winning awards in many of the countries where she has performed. In 1995 she began her conducting career, directing various ensembles, ranging from chamber music to flute and vocal choirs to operas. Ms. Rodriguez's diverse teaching activities include flute, voice, piano, Latin Vocal Workshop and a Latino youth scholarship program at the Community Music Center.
Jennifer Peringer spent the 1980's exploring the creative pulse of London, where she worked as a multi-instrumentalist, musical director, and composer with several theater companies and bands. She then earned a B.M. degree at the University of London, before returning to the U.S. to earn a M.M degree from San Francisco State University. Ms. Peringer currently teaches piano, chamber music, and Latin jazz at the Community Music Center in San Francisco. Her work as a freelance pianist includes theatrical productions, choral and vocal accompanying, piano duet concerts with Lauren Cony and Allison Lovejoy, and chamber music concerts with the Bernal Hill Players, as well as other Bay Area musicians such as Jill Brindel of the San Francisco Symphony, Bill Klinglehoffer of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Valerie Tisdel of Opera San Jose, and Peter Josheff of the Earplay Ensemble.
Leah di Tullio studied clarinet with Rudy Tapiro from age ten, and played in the Berkeley and Oakland Youth Orchestras throughout highschool. At U.C. Berkeley she continued her clarinet study with Rosario Mazzeo, playing in the U.C. Symphony and in many noon chamber concerts. She worked in London on the BUNAC program, and has returned whenever possible to play with the Kingston Chamber Music Society. For the past seven years, she has performed in many concerts with BACH (Bay Area Classical Harmonies), and travels periodically to New York to study with Kalmen Opperman.
