Donna Lerew, violin
Skye Atman, piano

Music from Vienna

Music from Vienna

A glittering center of European culture for 200 years, the city of Vienna has inspired many musicians. Here Emperor Franz Joseph hired Haydn and Mozart to be his court composers, here the people danced every Wednesday night in the public garden to the Strauss waltzes, here nearly everyone played an instrument and Schubert wrote string quartets for his family.

This gracious and charming city, famous for its beauty and culture, is known the world over for Viennese classicism, dance music, operas and operettas. The greatest master musicians were drawn here to study, compose, and perform; to take the baths at nearby Baden hot springs; and to fall in love and marry. Here they created some of their most famous masterpieces. 

Donna Lerew has been hailed as a "superb artist whose technical command is so assured that one is only aware of her singing tone, profound musical feeling, and sparkling vitality." Her special talent is in "capturing the very essence of the music" -- so wrote a music critic for the New York Times after her Carnegie Hall debut concert. Donna Lerew made her debut at the age of seven. She received training from some of the world's foremost violinists and graduated with awards from the Eastman School of Music and Paris' Ecole Normale, where she studied with a Fulbright Scholarship. She is currently active as a teacher and solo performer in the Bay Area., concertmaster of several orchestras, first violin of the Musica Viva String Quartet, and a member of the Rose Trio.

Syke Atman is known internationally as an accompanist for leading singers and instrumentalists. She has been praised as "the ultimate musical partner, a sensitive pianist who plays from the heart" (The Times, London). Her professional training includes years of scholarship study as well as music degrees from the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, Washington University, and the USC Graduate School in Los Angeles. In addition to her accompanying engagements, Skye currently is the pianist with The Rose Trio, a faculty member at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and Contra Costa College. She's also a church musician at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland. She maintains a private teaching and coaching practice in Berkeley.