Joyce Johnson-Hamilton, Cornetto Virtuoso, is Heart and Soul of Diablo Symphony

ONE NEED not look far and wide to find the unique or unusual. Sometimes something significant is going on, figuratively speaking, in one's own back yard. Consider the relative rarity of women orchestral conductors in the world. It isn't necessary to look to Baltimore, Boston or Buffalo to find one. According to East Bay music promoter and aficionado Robert Rezak, we've got "our answer to Marin Alsop" right here in the Bay Area. (Alsop was recently named conductor/music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, albeit not without some furor.)

Rezak, of course, was referring to our own local feminine ground-breaker, Atherton resident Joyce Johnson-Hamilton. Writes Rezak, "This year marks her 26th anniversary as conductor of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, the oldest aggregation of professionally trained musicians in Contra Costa County."

While she has distinguished herself as a fine conductor, she is also a noted trumpet virtuoso and has performed as such with major orchestras and in music festivals throughout the country. She has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the Oakland and San Jose symphonies, and principal trumpet with the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra.

She has become a specialist in Renaissance and baroque wind instruments, including the "cornetto" and the "natural," or valveless, trumpet. She recently performed one of the two solo cornetto parts in the Carmel Bach Festival's performance of the Monteverdi "Vespers for the Blessed Virgin," conducted by William Jon Gray.

Studying under Bruce Vickey, she became a virtuoso in the cornetto, a Renaissance period instrument that she describes as "sort of a cross between a recorder and a trumpet with a curved, conical shape and seven finger holes like a recorder." In addition, she also became skilled playing the difficult, bugle-like, valveless brass baroque trumpet.

Full article: Joyce Johnson-Hamilton is Heart and Soul of Diablo Symphony