Harms, Dawn

Violin

Dawn Harms leads a richly diverse career ranging from chamber musician and concertmaster to violin soloist and conductor. Dawn is a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and also holds the positions of Associate Concertmaster for the New Century Chamber Orchestra and Co-Concertmaster of the Oakland East Bay Symphony. She was recently named Music Director for the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.

Dawn was selected as a Conducting Fellow at the exclusive American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival where she worked with some of the world's leading conductors. Recent conducting engagements include appearances with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, the Livermore Amador Symphony and Symphony Parnassus. She was also invited to conduct the extra shorts featured on the DVD release of the Pixar film, Ratatouille. Her recent solo appearances include the Folsom, Paradise (CA), Lincoln (NB), Sacramento Symphonies, Symphony Parnassus and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Dawn has performed in concert with Frederica von Stade, Zheng Cao, Eugenia Zuckerman and premiered works by Jake Heggie. She also had the good fortune to be a featured soloist with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony performing the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires composed by Astor Piazzolla.

A strong advocate for Music Education, Dawn was formerly the conductor and music director of the Amarillo Youth Orchestra. She designs and performs her own family performances throughout the United States, New Zealand and Japan. Recently, she performed her one-woman family show with the Lincoln (NE), Oakland East Bay, Berkeley and Napa Youth Symphonies. Dawn performed on her cousin, Tom Waits' CDs Alice and Blood Money. Her two solo CDs The Black Swan and The Hot Canary are available online at cdbaby.com. She serves on the faculty of Stanford University.