Colleen Monica Jen Maguire, cello/Jean Mitchell, piano.. "During 1892 through 1895 while Antonin Dvorak was the Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York, he wrote 2 cello concerti and many famous pieces. Of the 2 concerti the B minor is the one played the most. Dvorak used themes from the music of The Indigenous People (old name = Native Americans) and African Americans to add to his palate of melodies and rhythms.

Yearning to be in his beloved Czechoslovakia, he returned home after 3 years of living out of his comfort zone "In the New World", as his famous 9th Symphony is called. He passed away in 1904..

I too was homesick so I compiled a short collage of memories back home in California. I was fortunate to have the best training with Orlando Cole as my cello teacher and spent 5 years back east in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. but "there is no place like home".

In 1977 I returned home to San Francisco from Philadelphia and took about 7 lessons with Michael Grebanier. Michael Grebanier has been the principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony for the past 38 years, since 1977. It was like the frosting on the cake. He taught me many tricks like how to sustain the harmonic so it carries on for a long time after you've played it in the Brahms Piano Concerto third movement. In the Guitarre by Moskovski he showed me a particular strumming stroke for the chords to sound like a guitar. The cello only has 4 strings so it's a trick to make 4 strings splay out like 6 strings on the guitar. I'm sorry Michael I never perfected the bow stroke with 16ths forte using only your wrist. I did the Cole thing of using my full arm. Uh uh! In the slow movement of the Dvorak, Michael taught me to honk on the triplets to give them more sustenance and umph! The most important thing that I learned from Michael Grebanier was to "vibrate on and under the note'. Voila! That's the ticket! Thank you Michael. I want to thank you Michael for coaching me in all the above and suggesting and lending me the music to the old time selections for my recitals.

The picture of me with my horse Yankee is where we'd take a 1 hour ride from Mill Valley due west to above Muir Woods. Its called "The Dias" named after the Portuguese family that had a dairy there. You can see the milking barn behind Yankee and me. From where we were if you look to the right you see Mt. Tamalpais. We are posing where I want to have my ashes strewn when the good Lord takes me 'home'.

Thank you 'Tony' Dvorak, this is my favorite cello concerto! My grandfather's name was Anthony and they called him 'Tony'. Please forgive me for being so bold but if I weren't, I wouldn't have been able to play this concerto. That's also why I chose the more recent photos of New York to show the boldness of an ever constant 'city that never sleeps'. The bust of Maestro Dvorak is in Central Park in New York.

There are only 2 movements because that's all the San Francisco audition asked for. This performance was in 1978 in preparation for the SFS audition. I was able to get into the finals but the woman who won had 2 kids so I didn't feel sooo bad. She really needed the money. C'est la vie!" - Colleen Monica Jen Maguire.

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