Joseph K. Chan, Treasurer

Association of Bay Area Governments, Retired

Joseph Chan is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Ensemble Parallèle, and has been serving as its Treasurer since 2008. He retired from the Association of Bay Area Governments in 2009 after serving 26 years as Chief Financial Officer of the agency. In his retirement, Mr. Chan continues to be professionally active by offering pro-bono services to non-profit organizations. He is active in philanthropy in support of various societal causes and music organizations. Mr. Chan is a Certified Public Accountant and holds current memberships in the American Institute of CPAs and the California Society of CPAs. He also earned a MBA degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mr. Chan learned to play the violin as a teenager. Although he says he is not good enough to be a performer, he has learned enough to know what is good playing, and appreciates how very special good violinists are.

Jolene Davis

Board Leadership in the Performing Arts and Children in Need Organizations

A former resident of San Francisco and still the city’s ardent promoter, Jolene Davis now resides in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, Dr. Steven A. Davis. Professionally, she is a registered dietitian with a master's degree in nutrition. She has had careers in management, in medical nutrition and in publishing, but her great enthusiasm has always been as a volunteer in the arts and for various children’s causes, including chair of a cultural arts program for elementary school students for seven years (obtaining funds for and scheduling musical performances, establishing poetry workshops, teaching art to gifted students, etc.). Other board positions include development for the Magik Theatre (children’s theater), president for two terms of a choral support group for high school students, taking it to a 501(c)(3) status, board positions of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center, and most recently, past president and trustee, and now Development Chair of Boysville, Inc., a home for abused or abandoned girls and boys. Ms. Davis is also on the San Antonio Jewish Film Festival Committee.

Jacques Desjardins, DMA, Secretary

Ensemble Parallèle; San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Born in Montréal, Jacques Desjardins completed his studies in composition at McGill University and at the University of Michigan where he received a doctorate in musical arts. A frequent grant recipient from the Canada Council and the Québec Council for the Arts and Letters, he has also won First Prize on two occasions at the SOCAN competition for young composers. Dr. Desjardins has also received commissions from the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Québec Youth Orchestras Association, the Arthur-LeBlanc Quartet, the Musica Nova Ensemble. His music has been performed in North America and Europe by ensembles such as The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Ijsbreker Ensemble in Amsterdam. He recently completed the re-orchestration of John Harbison’s opera The Great Gatsby to be performed with Ensemble Parallèle in February 2012. Dr. Desjardins is the General Manager of Ensemble Parallèle. He has conducted and managed vocal ensembles in Eastern Canada and the Bay Area since 1995. He joined the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2004 where he currently teaches music theory and musicianship.

Robert Ellis

WebpropLLC / Web Development; San Francisco Opera Board of Directors

Bob Ellis has started several publishing and internet companies. He's currently working on a new startup www.greenmadesimple.com, focused on home energy saving, and before that he helped develop www.enature.com. For www.xoom.com he served as publisher, board member and investor through its 1999 IPO and merger with NBCi. He is on the board of directors of www.salon.com and www.verticalresponse.com. Earlier he founded Bonjour Paris, a travel destination site in France, and Compact Publishing, developer of the TIME Almanac, which he sold to the Learning Company in 1995. Many years ago he was a Vice President of Time-Life Inc. and a correspondent for TIME Magazine in Washington D. C. Mr. Ellis is on the board of directors and the executive and finance committees of San Francisco Opera, and is chairman of the Media Advisory Committee. He has an M.A. in History from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University.

James Garrison

Drew School of San Francisco

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer James Garrison is Director of Music at Drew School in San Francisco, where he teaches musicianship, improvised music, and music production. He has been active in performance and recording across several styles and genres; most recently in jazz, afro-cuban, and popular idioms. Notable recent recordings include performance and production credit with Los Maestros del Son, Jaz Sawyer, and St. Mawr, among others. Mr. Garrison is from the San Francisco Bay Area, and studied at University of California, Santa Cruz (BA 1995) and the University of Massachusetts (MM 1998).

Pamela George

Nonprofit Boards in San Francisco; Community Volunteer

A graduate of Simmons College, Pamela George’s professional career includes the following positions: college mathematics editor at Houghton Mifflin, followed by sales and then marketing at Polaroid, head of field programs at Intel, president of Hi-Tech Ad Inc., a subsidiary of Arrow Electronics, senior director of marketing at Cisco, and senior vice president of corporate affairs at Sybase. Additionally, she served as a member of the board of directors of non-profit boards, which included Junior Achievement Worldwide, the CA Music Project, The Foundation of City College of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Opera.

William Kwan, MD

Private Practice; University of California, San Francisco, Department of Dermatology

Is a prominent board certified dermatologist, practicing both medical and cosmetic dermatology in San Francisco. He is among the nation’s leading practitioners of laser skin procedures. Dr. Kwan received his medical degree from University of Southern California and holds a BS in biology from University of California, Los Angeles, magna cum laude. He completed his internship at the University of Rochester Medical Center and returned to Los Angeles for a residency at UCLA. He was also the Chief Resident in dermatology at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. Along with his career in medicine, Dr. Kwan is also an accomplished jazz vocalist, studying alongside singer Kitty Margolis and performing throughout the city of San Francisco.

Patricia Lansche

Art Consultant

Patricia Lansche is an independent art advisor with more than twenty years of experience and is recognized for her expertise in art of the 1900s leading up to and spanning the Great World Wars through Postmodernism. She is also a recognized authority on 15th through 19th century rare illustrated books, maps, prints, and paintings. Born by birth and by plan into a musical family that includes musicians in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, and one Guarnerius del Gesu, her father played a recording of Prokofiev’s 5th Symphony to his newborn daughter the moment he brought her home from the maternity ward. Patricia made her operatic debut at the age of twelve, singing in the children’s chorus of La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera, and her violin debut at the age of nine playing Turkey in the Straw in her elementary school auditorium. She graduated magna cum laude from Tulsa University, where she was Concertmaster, and the University of Miami, with a degree in violin performance and minors in music theory and history, operatic voice, and art history studies. She has studied violin and chamber music performance with Martin Chalifour, current Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; RCA recording artists Nell and Ivar Gotkovsky; and Thomas Moore of the Pro Arte Quartet.

Alice Morison

Coldwell Banker; West Bay Opera Board of Directors; Community Volunteer

Alice Morison is a realtor at Coldwell Banker and is an active community volunteer. From a very young age, she has been an supporter of all the arts, with an emphasis on music in general and opera in particular. She serves on the board of West Bay Opera in Palo Alto under the leadership of Jose Luis Moscovitz. She has been a lifelong subscriber and patron of San Francisco Opera; a Gold Circle Member of San Francisco Opera’s Medallion Society; a Friend of the Adlers Fellowship Program for Young Singers; and past Board Member of Peninsula Ballet Theater. Ms. Morison is very active in her community and recognizes the importance of promoting and supporting smaller opera companies ensuring that quality opera is affordably available at the local level.

Nicole Paiement, DMA

Ensemble Parallèle; San Francisco Conservatory of Music; University of California, Santa Cruz, Music Department

Nicole Paiement has been the Artistic Director and conductor of Ensemble Parallèle since she founded it in 1993. With this professional ensemble, Paiement has conducted and recorded many world-premiere performances including music by Lou Harrison, Germaine Tailleferre, Henry Cowell, Claude Debussy, Henri Collet, Andrew Imbrie, and music by students of Olivier Messiaen. With Ensemble Parallèle she has toured in Asia, Australia and North America. She holds a DMA from the Eastman School of Music. For a complete biography, go to ensembleparallele.com. Since 1999, Ms. Paiement has been on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Artistic Director and conductor of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music‘s New Music Ensemble. In 2002, she, with the support of the SFCM, founded the BluePrint Project – a series focused on building new music for the city of San Francisco. She is on the tenured faculty and is the Director of Ensembles at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she conducts the Opera, Orchestra, and Chamber Singers.

Robert Ripps

Thirty-Eight Year Career in the Classical Music Field, Writer

Robert Ripps' career in classical music spans thirty-eight years, and includes positions with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto; the National Arts Center in Ottawa; Portland Opera; the San Francisco Opera, where he was Assistant Stage Director and Stage Manager at the Opera House and Curran Theater; and Decca Records and WNET/TV 13 (PBS), both in New York City. He is presently a senior contributor to Sound & Vision magazine. In 2004, he moved to Santa Fe and served for six years on the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, a professional choral festival, chairing at times the marketing and governance committees and serving as President from 2005 until 2009.

Christopher Rauen, JD

SFL Data / e-Discovery for Fortune 500 Corporate Legal Departments and Law Firms

Attorney Christopher Rauen received his Juris Doctorate degree from The George Washington University Law School, where he graduated with honors and received an ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Intellectual Property Law. While a law student at George Washington, he served on several non-profit student boards and was the Articles Editor for the Public Contract Law Journal. Mr. Rauen is a member of the State Bar of California, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. He is presently Project Manager for SFL Data and is committed to doing all he can to promote the arts, especially to young people.

Cheryl Ruby, PhD, Ensemble Parallèle Vice President

The Next Step / News Reports on Emerging Technology

Cheryl Ruby is the co-founder and president of New Material, Inc., an electronic media company that provides video content to both broadcasters and broadbanders. One of the products of New Material is the award winning Next Step, news reports on emerging technology for ABC television and premier science broadband channels. Ruby is the producer. Dr. Ruby received her PhD from the University of Oregon where she also taught graduate courses specializing in quantitative analysis. In the corporate realm, she has extensive experience in strategy and business development, including major mergers and acquisitions. In the healthcare industry, she was on the core executive team that developed the largest non-profit hospital system in California. She has appeared before the FTC to present oral testimony on mergers, and has developed strategic plans for nonprofit corporations and boards of directors.

Betty Wallerstein

Volunteer Leadership in Bay Area Performing Arts

A graduate of Wellesley College, Betty worked as a laboratory assistant at the Thorndike Laboratory, Boston City Hospital, Harvard Service. There, she met her husband, the late Dr. Ralph O. Wallerstein. In 1950 they made their way to San Francisco where they raised three children. Mrs. Wallerstein has a long and distinguished history of volunteerism including numerous leadership and performing arts-related positions, such as Chairman of Youth Concerts for the San Francisco Symphony; ex-officio member of the San Francisco Symphony Board of Directors; founding member of the San Francisco Symphony League; member of the San Francisco Opera’s Medallion Society; President of the UCSF Faculty Wives; President of the Northern California Wellesley Club; Co-chair 1951 60th Reunion, Wellesley College; and President of Friends of the American Conservatory Theater.

Judy Walsh, President

Involve / International Management Development

Judy Walsh began her career as an aide in the United States Senate, then moved to the San Francisco Mayor’s office and Board of Supervisors. In a career shift, she became a member of a small group of seven, who opened the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and ultimately founded the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the philanthropic arm of the Bay Area national parks. In 1985, Ms. Walsh started her own international private training and consulting practice specializing in organizational change implementation, conflict management, strategic planning, executive coaching, facilitation, and communication training and training design. Clients include Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Twentieth Century Fox, CBS MarketWatch.com. Fireman’s Fund, Baxter International Healthcare, Children’s Hospital of Oakland, Richmond, Virginia Police Department, National Park Service, Fidelity Investments. She is an Executive Coach, Master Trainer, Mediation Specialist, and Leader Effectiveness Trainer. Ms. Walsh received her BS from Washington State University, and has certifications from: Harvard Negotiation Project, Center for Dispute Resolution, Linkage Executive Coaching, and Crucial Conversations Master Trainer.

Contact Us

• Contact Us

Our Home

• San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Photo Credits