Our Musicians

Bill Armstrong - Banjo

Bill Armstrong began his music career in 1945 when he was asked to play in a Dixieland Band that had been formed at Palo Alto High School. He continued to play in college and while serving in The US Air Force. At that time he met Don Ho and both would entertain on most weekends. The Churchill Street Jazz Band, which Bill led for more than 20 years, started as a 1975 volunteer project for Palo Alto High School. In 1985 he joined the famous Turk Murphy Jazz Band, and was part of their last year at the Fairmont Hotel, as well as part of the Carnegie Hall "Tribute to Turk" in January 1986. Bill continues to perform in small trios and quartets, as well as in larger orchestras.

Joan Connolly - Piano

Joan Connolly is a well-known pianist and accompanist in the Bay Area. A former music teacher, she is well-known for her ability to work with singers and instrumentalists alike to bring out the best in them. ( Best evidence: her daughter, Anne Marie Gabrielli.) Joan performs with Realtor Rhythm, the Three J's, and recently as Director of the Peninsula Civic Light Opera's Highlighters group. This is her first work with an orchestra this size, but she quickly grasped the concept and the music. We're fortunate to have her with us between trips; she's an inveterate traveler, all over the world.

Joy Eaton - Conductor, Vocalist, Music Director

Joy Eaton has been singing and acting since childhood. Her love for both led to a BA degree in Music and an MA degree in Theatre Arts. She has performed on college, community and professional stages in New England, Pennsylvania, Sacramento and the Bay Area. Joy is a founding member of the Crystal Springs Players and has starred in or directed ten recent productions. In musical theatre, she has played Laurie in "Oklahoma," Sarah Brown in "Guys and Dolls," Maria in "West Side Story" and Aldonza in "Man of La Mancha." She also sings with and sometimes directs the Crystal Springs United Methodist Church choir. She is married to Todd Wees (see below).

Henry Eidler - Violin

A retired San Francisco Police Captain, Hank has been playing the violin since age 11. As concertmaster in high school, he was invited to play in college productions. He has since performed with the San Francisco German Orchestra, San Mateo Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, Peninsula Civic Light Opera, Capuchino Performing Arts, Burlingame String Chamber Orchestra and Vintage Music Theatre. He resides in Belmont, and has two sons and three grandchildren.

Lynn Garbe-Recknagel - Violin, Concertmistress

A native of New York, Lynn has played the violin since Fourth Grade, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Music at Manhattan School of Music. The violin took second place to her family when her four children were young. Since then she has enjoyed the violin, her eight grandchildren, and work as a bookkeeper for a number of client companies. Lynn is Concertmaster of the Vintage Music Theatre Orchestra, is active in the Burlingame String Chamber Orchestra and the Peninsula Civic Light Opera Orchestra. She directed the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church choir (San Carlos) for many years.

Martin Johnson - Woodwinds

Martin Johnson grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father, a professional trumpet player and music teacher, got him interested in music at a young age - he's been playing since the fourth grade. Martin played in concert bands and jazz bands at the University of Minnesota while studying computer science and mathematics. After graduating from college in 1989, he accepted a job offer from a Silicon Valley software company and moved to the Bay Area. Since then, he's been playing with various concert and jazz bands on the Peninsula.

John Kinney - Trombone

A native San Franciscan and Lowell High graduate, John Kinney has a Bachelor’s degree in Music from Indiana University. He graduated as a Master of Trombone from the Juilliard School in New York. For the past twenty years, he has played in symphony orchestras and dance bands "from Napa to Modesto." John manages a business in San Francisco, and musically is also active with the famous Golden Gate Park Band. He was this orchestra’s first trombonist in 1998, and returned to us in 2002.

Susan Magrini - ’Cello

Susan Magrini is a native Californian and graduate of UC Berkeley. She began playing violoncello in school, but her career took her in the direction of raising a family and being Office Manager for a dental practice. A Burlingame resident, Sue has been active in many community activities, including assisting the Burlingame Elementary School District's music program and library. Her cello can be heard as part of the Peninsula Symphony Orchestra, The Peninsula Civic Light Opera, the Burlingame String Chamber Orchestra, Peninsula Center Stage and the Botticelli Strings.

Don Millhauser - Woodwinds

Don Millhauser has been performing in the Bay Area with many groups, including the Peninsula Civic Light Opera Orchestra, Vintage Music Theatre, Pacifica Spindrift Players, and the Bay City Big Band. He majored in Music at UCLA. Don, who has worked to master a number of woodwind instruments, mostly plays flute, clarinet and alto saxophone in this orchestra.

Jim Morrissey - Bass

Jim Morrissey began playing with a radio orchestra while studying at the University of Kentucky as an engineering student with a music scholarship. After graduation, he worked the tag end of the big band era, then with the Atlanta Symphony. Finding that a music career in those days was "a dignified way to starve to death," he began working as an engineer and playing with symphonic and jazz groups in Chicago and the Bay Area. He has been Principal Bass of the Peninsula Symphony. Jim says that "real jazz musicians have day jobs;" his is as President of Conversion Products Inc., in Hayward.

Frank Oborne - Trumpet

Native San Matean Frank Oborne grew up in Belmont and attended Serra High School. He studied music and played in various groups at College of San Mateo, Skyline College, and Notre Dame de Namur University. He was a member of the Vintage Music Theater orchestra and currently plays in the San Mateo Elks Band, Peninsula Brass Quintet, and the West Bay Concert Band. When he puts down his trumpet, Frank often picks up a book to pursue his avid interest in military history. Frank thanks his wife, Joan, for her encouragement and support of his musical endeavors.

Eric Ribeiro, Jr. - Vocals

Eric is very happy to be a featured soloist with GGRO. Since 1988, he has performed in musicals for Artrise, Capuchino Community Theatre, Coastal Repertory Theater, Hillbarn Theater, Pacifica Spindrift Players, Peninsula Center Stage, and Theatreworks, as well as numerous shows with Broadway By the Bay. He is an active member of the Melodies and of Broadway By the Bay's promotional performing group, the Highlighters. Eric participated in the Carnegie Hall Centennial Celebration in New York in 1991, singing Beethoven's Ode To Joy. He has sung with and provided backstage support to Vintage Music Theater and Bill McKenna and the Californians.

Gerald Saliman, M. D. - Violin, Viola

Jerry Saliman has an extensive symphonic and theater music background, including solo violin and viola appearances with the Modesto Symphony and the Burlingame String Chamber Orchestra. While in Modesto, Jerry played with the local college orchestra, until the Modesto School Board stopped him. He was only in the seventh grade at the time! During his college years at UCLA, he played first violin in the UCLA Symphony and viola in the American Youth Symphony. Jerry is also a veteran of the Peninsula Civic Light Opera Orchestra. In some 60 hours of spare time each week, Jerry is an internist at Kaiser Permanente in South San Francisco.

Tony Serrano - Woodwinds

Tony Serrano, who is heard here playing tenor saxophone or clarinet, has been performing in B-flat for more than fifteen years with various groups, including the Peninsula Civic Light Opera Orchestra, Vintage Music Theatre, Pacifica Spindrift Players and the Bay City Big Band. Tony is also currently working with a jazz quintet headed by his older brother, trumpeter John Serrano, Jr.

Jack Shnider - Vocals

Jack Shnider began singing professionally at age nine on Arthur Godfrey's national radio show. He continued as a vocalist with Sam Jack Kauffman's Fox Theater orchestra in Washington, DC, and with the Blue Barron and Glen Gray orchestras, moving to musical comedy and drama roles on Broadway and in first-run road companies. He has toured with Eva LaGallienne, Alfred Drake and Jan Pierce, has appeared with such notables as Gracie Fields, Sir Harry Lauder and Al Jolson. In addition to staging, directing, singing and acting in more productions than he can remember, Jack has been a spy, a Naval Intelligence officer and a vice president of corporate communications. He was Vice-President of the Vintage Music Theatre, and he maintains a reasonably heavy schedule of local appearances.

Nancy B. Tamburello - Vocalist

Originally from Chicago, Nancy Tamburello began her musical career as a ballerina, performing with the Leningrad-Kirov Ballet at age 3, the Bolshoi at age 12, and the Berniece Holmes Touring Company from ages 14 through 18. Her first theatre premier, was at age 7, playing Helen Keller at Chicago’s McCormick Place, and most recently in CSUMC’s Godspell. Her singing career (motivated by a cousin who was in the USO) began at age 11 with songs of the 30s, 40s and 50s and a first-place award winning Italian Aria, followed with stints in the blues, folk and rhythm-and-blues arenas on Chicago’s Lincoln Avenue in the late 70s and more recently in a Christian Choir. Nancy resides in San Jose and enjoys managing senior properties, as well as singing and signing (ASL) in unison.

Gary Uffens - Tuba

Gary Uffens, a native of Salt Lake City, has been playing bass instruments since his Senior year in high school, when he began with the string bass. Music remained part of his life at San Jose State University and Brigham Young University. Almost ten years ago he inherited a tuba, and he now plays both instruments. With this orchestra, Gary primarily plays the tuba or Sousaphone. Professionally, Gary is in property management. He has played with Paul Price's Society Orchestra, and is currently active with the Burlingame String Chamber Orchestra, the Peninsula Pops, and the Vintage Music Theatre Orchestra.

Todd Wees - Percussion, Creative Director

Todd Wees was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Carlos. He has been a practicing percussionist since Fifth Grade (through the Rusty Reed era at Carlmont High School and early Vernon Read at San Jose State). He promises to keep practicing until he gets it right. He plays with the San Carlos Community Band and the Vintage Music Theatre Orchestra, and has played with jazz groups and theatre pit orchestras around the Bay. A photographer and phototypesetter by profession, Todd claims Spike Jones as a musical influence, which helps this orchestra to sparkle a bit more. His own sparkle has increased since his marriage to Joy Eaton.

Buzz Wilkes - Trumpet, Cornet

W. G. "Buzz" Wilkes studied music at San Francisco State College, and trumpet with Victor Kress of the San Francisco Symphony. He worked with a number of Bay Area hotel bands after school. His military service included duty playing trumpet in the Marine Corps Band. Family and business responsibilities caused a 20-year break in musical activity. Buzz is active with various Dixieland groups, the San Mateo Elks Band, and the Skyline College evening big band.

Michael Wong - Woodwinds

Bay Area native and U.C. Berkeley graduate Michael Wong describes himself as a "defrocked scientist" who switched from a study of evolutionary biology to the practice of music when he took up the saxophone again in 1998 after playing it briefly in high school. He has since added a number of other members of the woodwind family to his musical arsenal and plays them frequently in local jazz bands and community theater pit orchestras. When not engaged in musical endeavors, Michael works for his wife.