Ron McFarland, pianist/composer/teacher

I was a piano protégé of the legendary Ethel Leginska. I made a successful Los Angeles piano debut as a teen-ager with the Leginska Symphony Orchestra. RICHARD DRAKE SAUNDERS of the Musical Courier wrote, "The unaccountably neglected Arensky's Concerto in F Minor was displayed romantically by youthful Ron McFarland….His tonal warmth and grasp of light and shade proved this young man a presumptive virtuoso well worth watching." I have performed with other symphonies including the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with conductor James Sample.

Also critically acclaimed as composer and teacher, I studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg at his famed Brentwood studio. I have written operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber works, songs and music for piano and the theater. My Opera "The Donner Party" was premiered at Chico State and was followed with a highly successful production with Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony. My second opera "Song of Pegasus" was first performed at the "In Performance" series at Dominican's Forest Meadows directed by Denis deCoteau with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the same weekend it was performed as finiallist in the Samuel Rueben Amercian Opera Competition at New York University.

I am a member of ASCAP, MTAC of Marin, a founding member of Composers, Inc and on the Advisory Committee of Old First Concerts in San Francisco. I maintain a studio in Tiburon, California, where I divide my time between composition and teaching.