If you telephone the SFEMS office number during regular business hours these days, more than likely you will be greeted by a new voice at the other end—Nicola Gruen, who has taken over answering our phone, selling tickets, and a great deal more, from Dorothy Manly, who retired this past spring.
Nicola is very much a product of the Bay Area’s cultural environment and community. Although born in England, she moved to Berkeley as a child and attended the Crowden School, where she studied violin, and graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in music.
Returning to England for the better part of a decade, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and earned a postgraduate violin performance diploma and teaching certificate there. She remained in England for a few years afterwards, playing in orchestras, teaching, and doing other work, before returning to the US.
Since relocating back to the Bay Area two years ago, Nicola has worked as a music librarian for the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, taught violin in several Bay Area schools, and played violin both recreationally and professionally with several ensembles, including the Oakland East Bay Symphony. In recent years, her interest in early music has grown. She got one of her own violins “baroqued” and bought a new bow so she could enjoy a more historically-informed experience playing and hearing the music.
Besides answering our phone, Nicola’s work for SFEMS will include collecting, opening, and forwarding mail, processing checks, filling subscriptions, selling tickets and running the box office at performances, coordinating ushers, and arranging housing for visiting artists. And a great deal more than that.
Nicola will be calling all current subscribers to our concert series in the coming days. She asks current subscribers to renew their subscriptions by August 5 in order to reserve their seats.
Hopefully, everyone will have a chance to meet Nicola at a concert or other SFEMS event this fall, as we welcome her back into our community and move into celebrating our 40th-anniversary season.
