Diane Gilfether
Founder and Musical Director
Ms. Gilfether is the recipient of many, many awards both for her
professional achievements as one of the Bay Area’s leading
Lyric Coloratura Sopranos, as well as her continued work with
The Blackhawk Chorus. She has received the Arts and Culture
Commission’s “Arts Recognition Award” given by the Contra Costa
Board of Supervisors, the Bay Area News Group and Comcast’s
“Hometown Hero” award, and most recently, Ms. Gilfether was
named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary
International. In her operatic career, Ms. Gilfether was named a “California Arts Council
Touring Artist,” for four consecutive years, an award and designation given to only two
classical singers in the State.
She has appeared with the San Francisco Opera, Pasadena Opera and City Opera, and was
a longtime leading lady with Donald Pippin’s Pocket Opera. She has been a featured
soloist with the Oakland, Berkeley, Washington-Idaho, Concordia College (Indiana),
San Jose, Monterey, Stockton, Santa Cruz, UC Davis, Holy Names University and UC
Berkeley symphony orchestras, to name only a few. She has toured nationally and
internationally delighting audiences and critics alike with concerts and recitals
throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Often in demand for master
classes in voice, Ms. Gilfether holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from Holy Names
University, and studied voice with the late Donald Stenberg of the San Francisco
Conservatory of Music.
Randall Benway
Assistant Musical Director and Accompanist
Randall Benway, Assistant Director/Accompanist is a
native of Cleveland, Ohio, where at the age of 10 he was accepted
as the youngest piano student of Theodore Lettvin and later as a
student of Arthur Loesser and Eunice Podis. While in Cleveland,
he also studied composition with Starling Cumberworth and
collaborated in piano concerto performances with conductors
James Levine and Robert Shaw. While an undergraduate
student at Hartt College of Music in West Hartford,
Connecticut, Mr. Benway was the four-year recipient of the
Alfred C. Fuller Scholarship. He received a Master of Music (Piano) degree from
the University of Michigan where he studied piano with Gyorgy Sandor and Louis Nagel and
composition with William Bolcom. Mr. Benway spent considerable time in Europe: in
London, while studying piano with Balint Vazsonyi, and in Fontainebleau, France, while
studying composition with Nadia Boulanger.
Mr. Benway was the winner of two piano competitions, one in the United States and
one in Switzerland. He has performed in the United States, Europe, and China as soloist,
soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician, including live radio broadcasts on National
Public Radio. He is a founding member of The Redwood Trio and a member of the
Board of Directors of the United States Open Music Competition. Mr. Benway is a
sought-after accompanist and coach for pianists, opera singers, and instrumentalists. The
summer of 2009 found him judging a piano competition and giving master classes in
Yantai, China, and again in Kunming, China, in 2010
and Dalian, China in 2011.
