The Old Taylor Store, H.U. Bunnella & Sons. The store was as the south east corner of First and Front Sts. Left to Right are: Walt Gonnella, H.U. Bunnella and Joe Panizzera. Date of photo is unknown.
18th Century Music Opens Concert Series
Posted 5 pm, Thursday, August 24, 2006 --------- On Saturday, September 23rd, the Redwood Arts Council presents, the early music group, Galanterie in the opening concert of its 2006-2007 season. The group will perform a program of rarely heard 18th century music for lute and strings that underlines what was lost when the lute fell out of musical favor. The concert takes place at 8:15 p.m. in the acoustically superb sanctuary of the Occidental Community Church at Second and Church Streets.
Galanterie features John Schneiderman on lute and guitar, Elizabeth Blumenstock and Lisa Weiss on violin and William Skeen on cello. Galanterie will perform the music of Silvius Leopold Weiss, Karl Kohaut, and Johann Kropfgan as well as Haydn and Vivaldi. This unique, beautiful, virtuosic and sometimes quirky literature has one foot in the baroque period and the other in the classical.
John
Schneiderman, who specializes in the performance and repertoire of 18th century
lutes and 19th century guitars, leads Galanterie. He studied with British
guitar pedagogue and author Frederick Noad and continued his studies at the
Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland with the modern pioneer of the baroque
lute, Eugen Dombois. Mr. Schneiderman is currently based in California and
appears as a soloist and chamber musician on recordings and performances
throughout North America.
Elizabeth Blumenstock, violinist, is one of the country’s leading Baroque
musicians. She has appeared as soloist, leader and concertmaster of San Francisco’s
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, L.A. based Musica
Angelica and many other groups. Ms. Blumenstock has also pursued her love
of chamber music as a founding member of several of California’s finest
period instrument ensembles, including Musica Pacifica and the Artaria Quartet.
Lisa Weiss, violinist, performs regularly as a concertmaster and soloist with Philharmonia Baroque, American Bach Soloists, and the Arcadian Academy, and is a frequent guest artist with early music chamber groups such as Earplay and the Empyrean Ensemble. In 1997, she organized a project to perform the quartet works of Schubert in honor of his 200th birthday; this was the first complete Schubert cycle performed on historical instruments.
William Skeen currently serves as principal cellist of Musica Angelica, Los Angeles Bach Society, Seattle Baroque Orchestra and the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra. Mr. Skeen earned degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Southern California, where he is currently Lecturer in Baroque Cello and Viola da Gambe.
Tickets are available at Handgoods in Occidental. If available, tickets may also be purchased at the concert. Prices are $20.00 for general admission and $10.00 for full-time students. Infants and very young children will not be admitted. For further information and to request a 2006-2007 season brochure, call the Redwood Arts Council at (707) 874-1124, or visit <http://www.redwoodarts.org>.
Occidental: A Watershed Moment By Brock Dolman, Director, WATER Institute
In western Sonoma County, the location of the town of Occidental is unique in that it straddles a saddle between two distinct watersheds, Salmon Creek Watershed and Dutch Bill Creek Watershed, a tributary of the Russian River Basin. The town is bisected by what is called a “watershed ridge divide” which roughly runs through the south end of town, where the picnic tables are located in front of Howard’s Station. The opportunity this site presents to educate picnicking visitors and locals about watersheds has not been lost on the dedicated members of the Dutch Bill Creek Watershed Group and the Salmon Creek Watershed Council.
On July 14th at 6pm, during the Friday Occidental Farmers Market, they will unveil the fruits of their inspired labors in the form of a watershed interpretive display case. This beautifully sculpted display case, with hand crafted steam-bent shingles and lovely salmon shaped trusses, will house a wealth of educational materials and will become a must-see for locals, and eco-tourists alike. The north side of the display is dedicated to Dutch Bill Creek Watershed and the south side of the display is dedicated to the Salmon Creek Watershed. This display case provides an opportunity for these two active citizen-based watershed communities to display their informative watershed maps, pictures, wildlife and plant lists, restoration information, community watershed related activities, public meetings and other pertinent ideas of interest to local community members and visiting tourists.
What is a watershed anyway?
A watershed is a geographic bowl, called a catchment basin, that captures all of the precipitation (rain, snow, hail, sleet, etc.) that falls into it. This water is then “shed” through flowing streams and groundwater aquifers, often passing through lakes, ponds, laguna, and other wetlands, and eventually returning to the ocean. It is geographically defined by the highest ridgelines that encircle it and it is these ridgelines that differentiate it from the next watershed. It is common for people to focus on the creek alone when, in fact, it is everything that happens from the ridgeline to the creek that impacts the health of the entire watershed. For this reason, we see these as “Basins of Relations”. The movement of water over and through the living ecosystem connects us to one another and to all species living in our Basin.
The quality and quantity of this precious liquid, can determine which and how many of each species can sustainably live in each watershed. The better we understand the relationship between our actions and the watershed we live in, the more likely endangered Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout are going to recover and the better we can steward this place we all love. In the hearts and stomachs of many folks,
Occidental has always been considered a special place and now with this new feature in town we can all celebrate and recognize the fact that visiting Occidental is quite literally a Watershed Moment. We hope that you too will venture down to visit this display case and have a watershed moment of your own.
On behalf of the Dutch Bill Creek Watershed Group and the Salmon Creek Watershed Council, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s WATER Institute was able to make this exciting project happen due to a generous grant from the all the members of the Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise.
In addition, many thanks are due to the skilled carpenters who volunteered their time, Mischa Steinbruck, James Wilson, Jim Coleman, Kate Lundquist and Stephanie Smith. For more information about this display case, our upcoming publication on Basins of Relations, our Fall WATER Institute speakers series and other watershed related projects, call OAEC’s WATER Institute at (707) 874-1557 x206 or log onto
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