Local violin star plays Cubberley
Anat Kardontchik, a local violinist who played Carnegie Hall as a teenager, will be a featured soloist in El Camino Youth Symphony’s upcoming “Winter Spirit” concert on Sunday, Feb. 12.
Kardontchik, 21, lives in Sunnyvale but has many ties to Mountain View. She studied at the Community School of Music and Arts, and as a teen played regularly at retirement homes here such as Redwood Villa.
As part of her music education, she has studied under major conductors in Europe and North America, including ECYS’s own Camilla Kolchinky. Alexander Barantschik of the San Francisco Symphony described her as “a big natural talent” with “everything to become one of the finest violinists of her generation.”
The Winter Spirit concert begins at 2 p.m. at the Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Tickets are $10. Visit www.ecys.org for more information.
— Don Frances
Western Ballet awarded arts grant
Arts Council Silicon Valley, which gives grants to small and mid-sized arts and cultural organizations throughout Santa Clara Valley, has selected Mountain View’s Western Ballet as one of its recipients for the beginning of 2006. The $3,000 Artistic and Program Excellence grant will support master classes given by Alonzo King, Karen Brown and Michael Smuin in the spring of 2006.
The Arts Council Silicon Valley grants are enabled through Applied Materials Excellence in Arts grants, and are given out in two focus areas, organizational infrastructure and artistic programming. The grants through this program since the beginning of this calendar year have totaled nearly $55,000.
— Molly Tanenbaum
