This SLO County violinist found ‘a new way to make people happy’ amid COVID-19 closures
San Luis Obispo Symphony violinist Brynn Albanese is using her internationally recognized talents to chase away the COVID-19 shut-in blues.
Every week or so, the vibrant Cambria concertmaster sets up her violin and a chair, pins a bright red flower in her hair and plays for free to a modest group of masked, physically distanced fans.
Her neighborhood concerts, which she started April 1, provide musical uplift and a chance for locals to get out of the house amid coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
Sometimes, Albanese is alone.
Sometimes, other musicians join her in concert, including her Café Musique cohorts: percussionist Tim Costa, bassist Fred Murray, guitarist, Craig Nuttycombe and multi-strummer Eric Williams. Each performer is at least six feet away from the others.
Albanese has performed from balconies, sidewalks and roadway medians. She’s even lined up a platform-stage venue on a very large, privately-owned and forest-encircled property in Cambria.
Her audience sits on portable chairs they brought themselves. Often, they’re sitting in their own driveways.
They’d probably stand out in cold fog and wind just to hear the resonant and evocative melodies that flow from Albanese’s instrument.
The music isn’t all symphonic. Albanese, 52, is considered a “multi-genre musician.”
One of her 75-minute concerts — usually enhanced by the use of high-tech equipment and professional, orchestral backing tapes — could include everything from John Williams’ “Schindler’s List” soundtrack to Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”
In between the love theme from Ennio Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso” score and Walter Murray’s funky “A Fifth of Beethoven,” Albanese might throw in what she calls “musical palate cleansers”: French street music, Scottish tunes, Celtic melodies and crossover pieces.
In fact, she and her Café Musique pals, appearing as the new group Classinova, often close their gigs with a rousing rendition of The Champs’ “Tequila,” which she calls “classical violin meets bossa nova, jazz standards and more.” The piece would bring down the house if, indeed, there was a house to bring down.
For now, the outdoors will just have to do.
How Cambria musician started play free concerts
Albanese came up with the concept of free performances by accident on March 17.
That’s when her professional world came crashing down along with COVID-19 shutdowns of her usual venues, such as the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo, where she was set to do a solo concert, and Old Santa Rosa Chapel, where she serves as artistic director of the Cambria Concerts Unplugged series.
In fact, Alabese was dressed and ready to go a St. Patrick’s Day gig at Robin’s Restaurant in Cambria when she got the call telling her that the eatery and other businesses had to shut down immediately to try to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Within 24 hours, six months of my professional calendar was completely erased to nothing,” she said.
Reeling from the news, the devastated Albanese went out on her balcony and began playing her heart out to the strains of the Irish classic “Danny Boy.”
Drawing the bow across the strings, pulling the melancholy melody out of her instrument, she saw her neighbors coming out of their houses to listen.
“That was the start of the ‘Tiny Balcony Series,’ ” she said.
For two weeks in different areas, “I did that about three times a week,” Albanese said. “Then, for a while, the weather made it too difficult, so I set up a studio in the living room so it looked like I was on the balcony Then I posted videos of the performances on YouTube.”
From there, the live entertainment she donated to cheer up her neighbors bloomed into a new, income-producing concept for her.
Albanese is now doing smaller, donation-funded, socially distanced gigs on private properties — substituting those venues for the professional concert halls where she’s honed her craft over the decades after making her solo debut at the age of 10 with the Carson Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles.
Violinist has musical roots
Albanese was born in 1968 in Altadena to two professional musicians who now live in Cambria: cellist Rhoda Albanese and clarinetist Claude Albanese. Her dad’s father was a concert pianist, while her great-aunt was prima donna soprano Licia Albanese, a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera.
Brynn Albanese began playing violin at age 4, studying until the age of 17 with Elizabeth Ivanoff Holburn of Los Angeles. During this period, the young virtuoso won many first-place awards, becoming the six-year consecutive winner of the California Bach Festival, VOCE regional and state competitions and the Etude competition.
She graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore with the highest honors.
Albanese served as concertmaster of the Peabody Orchestra for four years, including a tour in 1987 to the former Soviet Union. Upon graduation, she was the recipient of the Van Hulstein Award for the most valuable musician of the orchestra.
Albanese’s most notable assignments as a professional musician include serving as the concertmaster for the Boston Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, National Women’s Music Festival Orchestra and first and second Leonard Bernstein Memorial concerts at the Tanglewood Music Festival. At Tanglewood, she received the Henry Kohn Award for most valuable member of the festival.
From 1998 to 2006, Albanese lived and worked in The Netherlands. She was the assistant principal second violin of the Residentie Orchestra in the Hague. She then returned to the United States and eventually came to Cambria, where her parents live.
Albanese now is a Cal Poly faculty member, teaching violin, viola and coaching the orchestra strings and chamber music groups. She also teaches privately, hosts mobile digital lectures and so-called “Violin Practice Technique Boot Camps.”
She frequently records with singer-songwriters and film scorers, and enjoys occasionally recording for Disney-Pixar movies and theme parks.
On the other end of the work spectrum, Albanese was once a DJ and a maître de at a Japanese restaurant in Baltimore. The beauty school dropout learned her hair-cutting skills well enough that she’s trimmed the heads of many of her musical associates, including some famous musicians and conductors.
Albanese lives with her wife Amber, an environmental education specialist, and their dog Trina in Cambria. The couple loves cooking, camping and hiking in the Eastern Sierra, as well as walking at dusk on Cambria’s Fiscalini Ranch Preserve and Lodge Hill.
What’s next for SLO County performer?
Albanese plans to continue her free concerts and invitation-only performances while vigilant about COVID-19 precautions. Concertgoers are required to wear face masks except when in socially distanced “bubbles” that are scrupulously 6.5 feet apart.
If someone doesn’t want to wear a mask, they must leave, Albanese said.
She’s also preparing to do a 45-minute version of her one-woman show for school children. That music education program for the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education was due to launch in some North County elementary schools right before COVID-19 shut down campuses.
Beyond that, Albanese has begun training for her newest heartfelt adventure.
“This will be a more intimate and meaningful musical experience,” she writes on her website. “I will be sharing my talents to help the healing process for people who are suffering and to provide a therapeutic environment for all. I will also be working to implement regular musical programming in all of the local hospitals and care centers in and around the Central Coast of California.”
Toward that end, she’s seeking donations to help defray the costs of earning her certificate from the Music for Healing and Transitions Practitioners Program, which operates throughout the United States. She’s already begun those studies, and hopes to go on from there to a new calling as a musical end-of-life doula.
Albanese’s advice for other musicians struggling with COVID-19 restrictions?
“Find a new way to make people happy and make a living,” she said. “Plan ahead and do it right. Don’t skimp on your equipment. Do it safely and don’t be afraid to ask for help” on social media, where music lovers have responded warmly so far.
And when all else fails, take that talent outside and give it away. Perform on private property to small, socially distanced groups.
Because musicians do what they do so they can make people happy. Even if it’s standing out in the wind, fog and cold, playing “Tequila” and cueing the pandemic-weary audience to chime in.
To book Albanese for free shows or paid gigs, or make donations, go to www.brynnalbanese.com.
