Faculty - Navarro Trio
Chamber Artists in Residence
Co-founded in 1992 by pianist Marilyn Thompson and cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel, NAVARRO TRIO is currently in its 26th season as chamber music artists-in-residence at Sonoma State.
Comprised of violinist Tammie Dyer, cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel and pianist Marilyn Thompson, NAVARRO TRIO has performed virtually the entire “standard” piano trio repertoire.
They are advocates of out-of-print and rarely performed works by composers including Rebecca Clarke, Paul Juon, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Clara Schumann and Sergei Taneyev. In the contemporary vein, they have performed trios by Chick Corea, Richard Danielpour, Brian S. Wilson, Kirke Mechem, and Paul Schoenfeld.
Their frequent collaborations with Bay Area musicians and instrumentalists from the San Francisco Symphony, Opera, and Ballet orchestras have brought a remarkable range of mixed ensemble repertoire that includes the String Quartets of Bernard Brindel and Iosif Andriasov; Piano Quintets of Schumann and Shostakovich; the Vaughan Williams Quintet in D; Piano Quartets of Catoire, Fauré, Mozart, Saint Saëns and Schumann, and the Horn Trios of Brahms and Brian S. Wilson.
Marilyn Thompson, piano
Pianist Marilyn Thompson is Professor of Piano and Director of Chamber Music at Sonoma State. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she was a student of Adolph Baller. She was awarded a Fulbright grant to the Vienna Academy of Music, and subsequently received her Master’s Degree from Stanford University, where she studied under the Helen Evans Memorial Scholarship on a full-tuition grant. While at Stanford, she gave the West Coast Premier of Roger Sessions’ Piano Concerto. She has given countless recitals in the United States and abroad, and has been the featured soloist in concerti of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Martinu, Hindemith, Barber and others.
She has performed virtually the entire standard chamber music repertoire. Her recordings include performances of the Thomas Beversdorf Cello Sonata, the Brahms Trio, Op. 87, and Ravel’s Violin-Piano Sonate. Miss Thompson has performed in chamber music concerts in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center; the 92nd Street “Y” in New York City; the Philip’s Gallery, Washington D.C.; Boston’s Symphony Hall; Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco; and in the Teatro Nacional, San Jose, Costa Rica. In the 1980s she was the pianist member of the Chamber Soloists of San Francisco and the San Francisco Trio. At the present time Miss Thompson is the pianist of the NAVARRO TRIO – which she co-founded in 1992 with cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel – a group that performs frequently throughout the Bay Area. Marilyn Thompson has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; the College of Holy Names, Oakland, California; at the University of California at Santa Cruz; and is presently on the faculty of Sonoma State University where she has taught since 1976.
Tammie Dyer, Violin
Violinist Tammie Dyer holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, an M.M. from Rice University, and a B.M. From the University of Utah. She has studied with many of the great artists of our time, including Philip Setzer, Dorothy DeLay, Pamela Frank, Soovin Kim, Kathleen Winkler, members of the Cleveland String Quartet, and the Emerson String Quartet. She has also attended the Tanglewood, Aspen, Sarasota, Eastern, and Marrowstone music festivals. Tammie enjoys playing a variety of musical styles, and is passionate about sharing the transformative experience of live music. As an active chamber musician, Tammie performs regularly throughout the Bay Area, with such groups as the Navarro Trio, Hidden Valley String Orchestra in Carmel, the Ives Collective, on the Opus Series in Mendocino, the Bellarosa String Quartet, and Synchronicity Strings. She also performs regularly with the San Francisco Opera, the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Mendocino Music Festival, the Renegade Orchestra, and many other groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a dedicated violin teacher, Tammie teaches privately, and coaches regularly at Sonoma State University, the Santa Rosa Junior College, and for the Santa Rosa Youth Ensembles. Formerly an artist teacher at Simply Strings, an El Sistema inspired after school program through the Santa Rosa Symphony, Tammie is committed to supporting music in our schools through teaching and outreach.
Jill Rachuy Brindel, Cello
Jill Rachuy Brindel is Adjunct Instructor in Cello at SSU. She has been a cellist with the San Francisco Symphony since 1980 and a co-founder and member of NAVARRO TRIO, an ensemble hailed as “the premier trio of Northern California” by Classical Sonoma. Ms. Brindel studied at Indiana University and Chicago Musical College and was formerly Assistant Principal Cellist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, Principal Cellist of the Mendocino Music Festival for its first six years, cellist for the Navarro Quartet and a member of the Houston Symphony. She has performed chamber music at Kohl Mansion, the Russian River Chamber Festival, Old First Church, the Ralston Chamber Series and Chamber Music Sundaes. In 2006 she returned to the Mendocino Music Festival as Principal Cellist and chamber soloist and in 2009 she became co-director of the Emerging Artists Program at the festival. Ms. Brindel actively promotes the music of her late father, composer Bernard Brindel. She is a private instructor of cello as well as the coach for the cello section of the SFS Youth Orchestra. In 2015 she joined the faculty of Sonoma State University as studio cello instructor. Ms. Brindel has given seminars on audition techniques to students at the University of Nevada at Reno and the New World Symphony.