Echoes in the Woods | Music in the Afternoon
Echoes in the Woods features a Flute, Viola, and Harp Trio. Join us for an evocative program that invites listeners into a sound world of shimmering colors, delicate textures, and vivid storytelling. From the folk-inspired warmth and rhythmic vitality of Timo Andres’s I Found It In the Woods, the lyrical elegance of Yuko Uebayashi, to Maurice Ravel's Sonatine for Flute, Viola & Harp. The program culminates in Claude Debussy’s landmark Sonata for Flute, Viola & Harp, a masterpiece celebrated for its impressionistic beauty, graceful interplay, and radiant sonorities. Each work explores the trio’s uniquely expressive blend of timbres, creating an intimate and immersive musical journey inspired by nature, memory and color.
Musicians:
Ráyo Furuta, Flute
Jessica Chang, Viola
Amy Ahn, Harp
One-hour concert from 1:00–2:00 PM. Coffee and snacks will be served in the lobby after the concert.
Early Bird tickets are $20 until September 28. General Admission is $30.
No refunds once tickets are purchased.
Ráyo Furuta - hailed as “The Rockstar of the Flute” (Informador de Guadalajara) and “The Prodigy of the Great Flutist, Carol Wincenc [professor of flute at the Juilliard School]” (San Jose Mercury News), is a Mexican Japanese American flutist known for his electrifying stage presence and genre-defying artistry. With command of classical, contemporary, global, jazz, and pop styles, Furuta has captivated audiences worldwide.
At the age of 25, Furuta was officiated as a Cultural Ambassador to the United States. Since then, he has appeared worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. He tours regularly as a concerto soloist, specializing in contemporary works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Yuko Uebayashi, Jake Heggie, and Alexis Arranda, and as a recitalist with his longtime duo partner, Grammy-winning pianist Michelle Cann. His acclaimed Linda Ronstadt Tribute Experience celebrates Ronstadt’s legacy and his own bicultural heritage through a fusion of rock, Latin jazz, mariachi, and folk traditions. He recently signed with Azica Records, where upcoming recording projects will spotlight his solo artistry, cross-genre collaborations, and his ongoing commitment to expanding the flute repertoire.
Furuta currently serves as Professor of Flute and Chamber Music at San José State University. He has given masterclasses at institutions including The Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, University of Guadalajara (Mexico), Jeju National University (Korea), and University of Toronto
(Canada) among many others. He has also served as a Visiting Professor of Flute at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Furuta earned his Bachelors, Masters, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Stony Brook University, where he was a Staller Scholar and named a Distinguished “40 Under 40” Alumnus at the age of 25. At Stony Brook, he studied with legendary flutist Carol Wincenc and the Emerson String Quartet, serving as their hand-selected teaching assistant, the only wind player ever to hold that title. Ráyo Furuta is a Burkart Artist and performs exclusively on a handmade 9k gold Lilian Burkart flute.
Amy Ahn - is principal harpist of the Stockton Symphony and a national award-winning harp soloist whose career spans a wide range of musical genres and contexts. As a distinguished ensemble musician, she has collaborated with San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Stanford Jazz, among several orchestras in the West Coast.
In 2023, Amy won third prize in the American Harp Society’s National Competition and a top prize in the Busan Maru International Music Festival Concerto Competition. As a recording artist, she has produced her own original music and can also be heard on records by Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun, Grammy Award-winning producer M-Phazes, John Wineglass, Spellling, among many other projects. Known for her artistic versatility, she has performed with artists such as Doe Paoro, Little Kruta, Ken Peplowski, Sarah Brightman, and Thaddeus Hogarth.
Amy has performed internationally at venues including Jordan Hall, National Sawdust, Konzerthaus Berlin, Kraków Philharmonic Hall, Musikverein, Smetana Hall, Geoam Art Hall, and Kumho Art Hall. A passionate chamber musician and new music advocate, she has performed the premieres of works by Samuel Adams, Elliott Carter, Hiroya Miura, Sid Richardson, Justin Weiss, and Chen Yi.
She holds a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with Dr. June Han. She also holds a Master’s degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she studied with Felice Pomeranz and Ina Zdorovetchi, and a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA, where she studied with Lou Anne Neill.
Violist Jessica Chang - leads a versatile career as a chamber musician and educator. As the Founder and Executive Director of Chamber Music by the Bay, Jessica directs and performs interactive concerts for diverse communities of young audience members throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work as a teaching artist has led to concert residencies and performances with Sound Impact, Project 440, the Savannah Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, and Music Beyond the Chamber. She has also served as violist of the Afiara Quartet, with whom she toured North America, including a visiting faculty residency at The Banff Centre in Alberta and residency as the Glenn Gould School Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada.
Jessica has performed as a chamber musician in concert tours throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Her performances have been broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today, WNYC, WHYY, and WQXR Public Radio. Highlights include collaborations with Roberto Díaz, Pamela Frank, Scott Yoo, Christoph Richter, William Bennett, Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Silverstein, Toby Appel, James Campbell, members of the Orion and Guarneri Quartets, as well as members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Berlin Philharmonic. Her festival appearances include Festival Mozaic, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Bard Music West, Music in May, Music from Angel Fire, International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove, Open Chamber Music Prussia Cove, Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, Tanglewood Music Center, Taos School of Music, Verbier Festival, the National Arts Centre of Canada, and Aspen Music Festival.
Jessica is a graduate of Yale University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors and distinction. She also holds an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music as the recipient of the William A. Loeb Fellowship, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. She studied with Heidi Castleman, Steven Tenenbom, Roberto Díaz, Michael Tree, Misha Amory, Daniel Panner, Jodi Levitz, Jesse Levine, and Jenny Rudin.
A sought-after chamber musician and teacher, Jessica maintains a private teaching studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. She performs frequently with ensembles including SAGE, Ensemble Illume, Ensemble San Francisco, the Ives Collective, and Chamber Music Silicon Valley, and has also performed as principal viola with the Santa Cruz Symphony and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. She serves as the Director of Chamber Music by the Bay and has served as an appointed board member of the American Viola Society and on the Marketing & Technology Committee at the Curtis Institute of Music. She also leads a dual career in information security and trust & safety.
Senior Programs are made possible in part by generous contributions from the Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund, the John R. Schwabacher Family, Diane and Jon Claerbout, as well as many other individual donors. We are grateful for their generous support.