Cello Street (San
Francisco, CA) has dazzled audiences on the streets and performance
halls of San Francisco with their tantalizing arrangements of pop and
classical works for almost two years. Working toward bringing together
classical and pop music audiences, this dynamic quartet presents both genres
with an innovative and fresh sound.
Passionate about helping children and young
aspiring artists of all genres, Cello Street quartet has performed for local
schools and is a new affiliate of San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music in
hopes of expanding their education outreach.
Their energy has led them to
many collaborations including with the Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter
Matt Alber with whom they are celebrating the release of their collaborative
DVD "With Strings Attached".
All classically trained musicians, they
hold Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School, the San Francisco
conservatory of music and Miami University.
Matthew Linaman
(Cello) was raised as a competitive gymnast, and did not discover his love
for music until a violin class in fifth grade at his public school. The
following year in orchestra class he switched to the cello. He's never looked
back. Now as a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of music, he has won
multiple competitions, performed with several orchestras and collaborated with
many inspiring artists and teachers. For Matthew, music is about communication.
It is this passion for communication which has led him to a wide array of community
outreach and learning Spanish and French. In his free time, he studies
neuroscience and the learning process.
Andres Vera (Cello)
is a native of Puerto Rico and has been a member of the Miami Symphony
Orchestra for 8 years. He is an active chamber musician and founding member of
the Cello Street Quartet. He frequently performs with many Bay-Area
singer-songwriters and chamber ensembles across the United States. Dedicated to
helping others, he has travelled to Haiti with the Friends of Haiti for Music,
an organization which provides music immersion seminars to the children of
Haiti. Andres enjoys improvisational performance, creating enchanting rhythmic
grooves, arranging new songs for the Cello Street Quartet and enthusiastically
reads science and environmental news publications. Andres is a graduate of the
University of Miami and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and fluent in
both Spanish and English.
Gretchen Claassen
(Cello) is a graduate of the Juilliard School and San Francisco Conservatory
of music. During her intensive chamber music studies at the SF conservatory,
she became interested in baroque music and learned the baroque cello and the
6-stringed viola da gamba. In addition to the cello street quartet, Gretchen is
a founding member of the baroque group, MUSA. She has performed with some of
the world's leading chamber musicians and continues to be in high demand as
both a modern and baroque musician in the Bay Area.
Adam Young (Cello) a current student at the SF
conservatory, he also plays piano and studies ballet. Through the
conservatory's inspiring baroque program, he has learned baroque cello and
viola da gamba. He is fascinated by renaissance art and design and creates his
own period costumes. A wonderful composer as well, Adam is the primary music
arranger for the Cello Street Quartet.
Please allow for at-least 90 minutes for soundchecks and
stage set-up, especially if a hired sound engineer and/or sound system is
involved in the program.
