Crowden Presents

A year-long celebration of chamber music, collaboration, and community perfomances

2026-2027 Concert Series

Artist-In-Residence owen dalby

Crowden alum and violinist Owen Dalby (Class of ’98) returns as our Artist-in-Residence this year, bringing home the breadth of a career devoted to chamber music. As Co-Artistic and Executive Director of Noe Music and a member of Stanford University’s chamber music faculty, Owen has shaped a Crowden Presents season featuring composer-performers, genre-spanning ensembles, and music both new and familiar. Together, these five concerts invite our community to listen closely-and to one another.

"We are excited to welcome Owen back to lead our flagship performance series. His artistic vision for Crowden Presents brings an extraordinary knowledge of the Crowden history, chamber music’s past, and importantly chamber music’s future."

KEVIN ROGERS

HEAD OF MUSIC, CROWDEN SCHOOL

PRESENTING FIVE EXTRAORDINARY CONCERTS

Four Radicals

November 2, 2026 — 7:30pm

Season Opener: Owen Dalby and superstar guest artists perform Beethoven’s Op. 130, Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3, and Crowden alumna Gabriella Smith’s (’05) Carrot Revolution.

Dolphins Quartet with Owen Dalby & Eric Zivian

November 15, 2026 — 4:00pm

The dynamic young Dolphins Quartet joins Owen Dalby and Eric Zivian for an evening of collaborative chamber works, including Ernest Chausson’s epic Concerto for violin, piano, and string quartet.

Complete Brahms Violin Sonatas

March 14 2027 — 4:00pm

Owen Dalby and his longtime friend and colleague, Stephen Prutsman, present the complete sonatas for violin and piano by Johannes Brahms.

Trio Gaia - 'Between Worlds'

February 8, 2027 — 7:30pm

The award-winning piano trio brings their expressive repertoire to the Hoefer Auditorium stage.

Decoda with Caroline Shaw

April 11, 2027 — 4:00pm

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and violist Caroline Shaw join Owen Dalby and friends in Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s affiliate chamber ensemble, for an afternoon of her own music paired with Brahms’s 1st string sextet in B-flat, Op. 18.

Owen Dalby

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Violinist Owen Dalby is a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and musical entrepreneur praised by The New York Times as “dazzling.”

With his wife, violist Meena Bhasin, he leads Noe Music, the acclaimed San Francisco chamber series where he serves as Co-Artistic and Executive Director, and teaches as Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University and, from 2026, at the Crowden School in Berkeley.

From 2015 until 2024, Dalby was a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ), touring internationally and appearing as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, he holds two degrees from Yale University.