About The Bernal Hill Players
The Bernal Hill Players was formed in 2008 by Bernal Hill residents Jennifer Peringer, Martha Rodríguez-Salazar, and Leah diTullio. Since then they have been playing concerts throughout the Bay Area and Mexico City, and have commissioned several pieces by Bay Area composers for a project about the neighborhoods of San Francisco, called “San Francisco: In and About the City”. This project has resulted in a CD due out in February 2012. Their next big project involves commissioning pieces about neighborhoods of Mexico City by Mexican composers.
Their mission is to play a wide and rich repertoire, to commission new works, to create interesting arrangements of existing works, and to use chamber music as a way of both celebrating local community and creating cross-cultural musical connections.
Martha Rodríguez-Salazar was born and raised in Mexico City, coming to the United States in 1998 to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Music at Mills College in Oakland. As both flutist and mezzo-soprano, Ms. Rodríguez has toured extensively in the United States, Mexico and Europe, with Classical, Baroque and folk ensembles and orchestras, winning awards in many of the countries where she has performed. In 1995 she began her conducting career, directing various ensembles, ranging from chamber music to flute and vocal choirs to operas. Ms. Rodríguez’s diverse teaching activities include flute, voice, piano, Latin Vocal Workshop, two senior choirs, and a Latino youth scholarship program at the Community Music Center. She performs with the Bernal Hill Players, the Latin folk duo Chile y Limón, and the Coro Hispano de San Francisco. She has become a cultural leader of the Bay Area Latino community, directing and producing the annual Mexican Christmas show La Posarela at the Community Music Center, as well as curating the annual Día de los Muertos Community Concert at the San Francisco Symphony.
Jennifer Peringer began what was to be a lifelong love affair with the piano at the age of five. After a childhood studying classical piano in her hometown of Spokane, Washington, and then Interlochen Arts Academy, she veered off into other styles as a young adult, and spent the 1980’s in London working as a multi-instrumentalist, musical director, and composer with several theater companies and bands. She then earned a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of London, before returning to the U.S. to earn a Master of Music degree from San Francisco State University. Ms. Peringer currently teaches piano, chamber music, and Latin jazz at the Community Music Center in San Francisco. She accompanies choirs, solo singers, and theatrical productions, and performs with piano duo partner Lauren Cony, the Bernal Hill Players, and the Latin folk duo Chile y Limón.
Leah diTullio, clarinet, credits the Oakland Public Schools with introducing her to the instrument in the fourth grade and remains a strong advocate for public school art and music programs. Other passions include painting and fighting for social and economic justice, most recently single-payer health care. She is currently happy to be working in the Oakland and San Francisco Public Library systems where she has found a home among many wonderful people, books, and recordings. A year spent on a work exchange program in London in 1997 cemented a love of chamber music, and she travels back when she can to play with her old friends from the Kingston Chamber Music Society. She has played extensively with Bay Area Classical Harmonies (BACH), and is thrilled to be a part of the Bernal Hill Players. Her clarinet teachers include Rudy Tapiro, James Freeman, Rosario Mazzeo, and Kalmen Opperman.