Welcome to the 5th Season of the Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra!

The season continues with a free concert on Sunday, February 22, 2:00pm, at Crosswalk Community Church, 2590 1st St., in Napa. Conductor Melinda Ellis and Concertmaster Mark Hodgson will lead the ensemble presenting music by Mendelssohn, Price, Mozart and Schubert. Cello soloist Jeffrey McFarland-Johnson is the featured artist, playing Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata.

• Cellist Jeffrey McFarland-Johnson

  

  Jeffrey McFarland-Johnson has played the cello since 1960.  He received his Bachelor’s degree in cello performance from the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific and his M.A. in composition at UCSD, La Jolla.  He studied cello with Arto Noras (1966 Tchaikovsky Competition winner) at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland.  He has recorded and produced five albums including the Bach solo cello suites Nos.1-3 and Gershwin’s An American In Paris.  He taught middle school music students for twenty-four years and currently teaches exceptional music students in the Napa Valley.  Jeffrey wrote a four-volume series of method books illustrating the harmonic blueprint of string instruments tuned in fourths and fifths.

• Conductor Melinda Ellis to lead NVCO in February 22 concert

  Melinda Ellis is a passionate music educator, multi-instrumentalist, and conductor living and working in the greater Bay Area. Originally from New Jersey, Melinda holds a BM in Music Education and Viola Performance and an MM in Viola Performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She currently works for the Vacaville Unified School District, teaching 4th-grade general music and 5th and 6th-grade strings classes at ten schools each week, and also serves as the District Music Coordinator. Outside of her teaching job, Melinda is active as a freelancing mulit-instrumentalist. She plays with several local ensembles, and sits as principal second violin with the Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra. She plays tenor saxophone in the Solano Winds Community Concert Band and saxophone ensemble, is the Assistant Conductor of the Golden Gate Symphony, and sits in their viola section, and is also the Resident Conductor for Missouri Street Theatre Company in Fairfield, where she conducts several large professional musical productions each season, as well as galas and concerts. Having played with the Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra for several seasons now on both viola and violin, Melinda is thrilled and honored to be stepping onto the podium to lead the orchestra for this performance. She hopes you enjoy listening to this vibrant program as much as she and the musicians will enjoy performing it. 
  

• NVCO Welcomes New Artistic Advisor Daria Adams

  

  A founding Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards, violinist Daria Tedeschi Adams has been a member of the Grammy Award-winning St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for over 30 years. A graduate of the New England Conservatory and SUNY-Stonybrook, she considers herself a lifelong student, always interested in hearing and learning a new piece of music. As an Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards, Daria enjoys curating programs that move, inspire, provoke, and delight audiences. Her choreographic arrangements of pieces by J.S. Bach, Aaron Copland, Kevin Puts, Arvö Part and Pablo de Sarasate have been heard frequently on MITV programs. A mother to three adult children, Daria and husband Michael relocated to Napa during MITV’s 30th Anniversary Season in 2024.

• How to Support NVCO

  Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra relies heavily on donors and volunteers. Please consider making a donation today:

  

  Or head on over to our Donate page for more ways to help with monetary support, and take a look at the Volunteer page to see how to get directly involved.

• Thank You for the amazing support!

  

• Become A Sponsor

  Your support of the Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra goes toward funding our 5th season.

  Federal Tax ID: 87-3337280. We are a 501(c)3 organization

  Gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law 

  Napa Valley Chamber Orchestra
  PO Box 4334
  Napa CA 94558

  For more information or questions, or to inquire about playing in the orchestra, please contact info@napavalleychamberorchestra.com

• Who We Are

  NVCO is the one community orchestra in the Napa Valley for resident musicians and audiences. All our concerts are free to the public. We are funded by audience donations, community business sponsors, an annual wine and music fundraiser, and grants from the Napa Arts Council and the Gasser Foundation. We are proud to promote the love of Classical music to audiences throughout the Valley, including Napa, American Canyon, St Helena and Angwin.