Orquesta Z

 

musicians

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandy Schniewind, Contrabass

Sandy comes from a very musical Bay Area family. Her mother was Concertmaster of Prometheus Symphony until 1973, when she joined the Oakland Symphony and played with them for 38 years. Sandy learned piano from her grandmother, then played violin. In fourth grade, she played in the Kensington Community Orchestra with Robin Hansen, conducted by Bob Hansen (who just might be related to Eric Hansen).

“In sixth grade, my music teacher said, ‘we need a bass player and since you play piano, you can read bass clef. Here’s a bass.’” Sandy basically taught herself how to play it. She played it through school, but got really tired of lugging the bass around on buses. The lure of jazz and folk rock led her to singing and playing guitar with the Oakland Jazz Choir and folk rock bands—that heavy bass fell out of her life.

Meanwhile, Sandy went to UC San Diego and University of the Pacific in Stockton, getting a degree in music therapy. Sandy recently retired after decades as Director of Rehabilitation at the Gladman Mental Health Rehabilitation Center, a facility for long-term psychiatric care.

In the summer of 2009, Sandy signed up for a chamber workshop week, on piano. The Director found out she had played bass and persuaded her to borrow one of theirs and play bass instead. “I had to use Google to see if the bass would even fit in my car. I realized then that I regretted giving up such a beautiful instrument.” Sandy started taking lessons and talked with Eric Hansen about joining Prometheus.

We discovered Sandy at her first performance of Argentine tango at Crowden School, directed by our past violinist Jim Shallenberger, in 2013, and we are lucky she's been with Orquesta Z since!

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Ruth Kravis, Violin

 

Picture this:  A 15-year-old Ruth sits in her Canberra (Australia) garage, carefully, patiently building an entire electric violin of Canadian maple wood.  And it actually works!  Hooked up to speakers and everything!  You will not be surprised to learn that Ruth is pursuing  a  PhD in electrical engineering and plays violin withPrometheus Symphony (and now Orquesta Z).  “My design was purely esthetic,” Ruth laughs, “in what I thought was a really cool “S”shape with the chin rest at the bottom of the S.  It looked incredible.  But it was totally unwieldy and way too heavy to really play.”

Ruth grew up in Canberra capital of Australia, playing violin since she was 7 years old, then through Youth and Community Orchestras, and finally with the symphony at the Australion National University where she received a joint degree in Engineering and Philosophy.

Drawn to Cal Berkeley for it’s exceptional electrical engineering program, Ruth is now working for her PhD, but still devotes time for violin with Prometheus, playing fiddle at pubs, and now we are introducing Ruth as our latest violin player, premiering with the OZ Trio while she is still in the San Francisco Bay Area. We hope she will remain here to grace us with her beautiful violin playing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bendrew Jong, director Orquesta Z, piano/bandoneon

Starting at 6-years old, Bendrew began piano lessons in Berkeley with the famed Shirley Adams, and continued through high school, where he was musical director, pianist, and composer for an original musical “So How’s Your Sister?” at Harry Ells High in Richmond. Then, attending UC Berkeley and graduating in Architecture, Ben took music classes through his 5 years at the University of California at Berkeley, including opera and chorus and music theory. Then taking a 40 year hiatus as a full-time architect, Bendrew discovered Argentine tango and the rest is history, first dancing tango throughout the world while in his 50’s and 60’s and now performing and composing tangos as part of Orquesta Z, which he helped form in 2011. He’s so pleased to be able to have performed with such stellar alumni of Orquesta Z as James Shallenberger, who founded the Kronos Quartet, and dozens of others who have added to the rich repertoire of Orquesta Z.

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Valerie Suzawa​

Joining Orquesta Z for the first time on May 11, 2025, Valerie has performed locally with classical string groups as well as local symphony orchestras.  She has been a member of Prometheus Symphony in Oakland for 20 years, and serves often as the lead second violin.  She graduated with a Ph.D in biochemistry from Cal Berkeley (Go Bears!) and most recently worked professionally at Bayer Labs in Berkeley.  We are thrilled to have the distinguished Dr. Suzawa performing with Orquesta Z in 2025, and she joins Ruth Kravis, another Cal Ph.D. (candidate) in Electrical Engineering!

Soon, the criteria for being an Orquesta Z musicians is #1. Be an excellent musician  #2. Be a Cal Graduate with an advanced degree, and #3. Like cats! :)

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