
Bringing out the music in you!
Kris Yenney feels twice-blessed. She is an impressive, beautiful musician, but she is also an extraordinary teacher. She brings apparently-endless creativity, individualized attention and practical problem solving to her lessons elevating the experience in ways perfectly tailored to the learner. I am repeatedly astonished.
Pamela Dorrell,
Kris Yenney feels twice-blessed. She is an impressive, beautiful musician, but she is also an extraordinary teacher. She brings apparently-endless creativity, individualized attention and practical problem solving to her lessons elevating the experience in ways perfectly tailored to the learner. I am repeatedly astonished.
Pamela Dorrell, Adult Student
For a long time now, Kris has been both a musical collaborator (classical, Nordic, Celtic, early music) and my cello teacher. She is flat out awesome on all fronts. A top notch musician, she tackles technical and expressive challenges with both classical precision and with heart, and yet is also able to bravely improvise and collaborate in a wide variety of folk traditions. Timely and reliable, she is professional in her conduct and holds herself to high standards. As a teacher, she is warm and positive, offering up useful criticism with a side of wit and humor to make it palatable. I recommend Kris to any and everyone as a huge musical asset and as a laudable human being.
Barbary Grant ~ concert pianist, vocalist, hospital harpist, liturgical musician
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"The John Lennon of the cello!"
Chris Saxe, 10
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Kris is like some sort of cello Mary Poppins providing each of us with just the lesson we need.
Adult Student
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I could write a book about Kris as a cello teacher. Kris is the most intelligent, imaginative, fiercely musical teacher on the planet.
I came to the cello as an adult. And I can say that, although her ear is perfect and true, and her sense of the pulse and sense of rhythm are unerring, regardless of the ferocity of her musicianship, she has always been a safe space for me, giving me space to enter as my own, slightly damaged self, without judgement, without fear. Consequently, with Kris, I have not only grown as a musician, I have grown as a person.
Kris is good at trying creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems. I am missing a finger on my right hand. Kris never became discouraged. We tried bow after bow, bow-hold after bow-hold, she was always ready to experiment, ready to try something new until I found a bow and a bow-hold that suited me. I was never allowed to feel sorry for myself, but pushed to keep trying until I felt comfortable.
Kris has the imagination and knowledge to hear my playing and then help me take the next step. She listens intelligently, and her critique is always slightly ahead of where I am. But her push is so imaginative, always saying, Try this, try this, that a cello lesson is also a lesson in moving forward with the music, moving forward imaginatively.
She has the ability to communicate concrete strategies that bring out the music from the written notes.
She is pleasant even when giving you the same information for the 500th time.
Kris is a grounded, compassionate human being. A person may sign up for cello lessons, but signing up with such a human being makes the lessons a pleasure and a privilege.
Linda Bethel, Adult student
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Now that - thanks to COVID 19 - we are all becoming accustomed to interacting online, I am happy to offer private online cello instruction to anyone with an internet connection and a cello!
I have been teaching cellists of all ages and abilities for decades, love the journey and the discoveries, aha moments, beautiful earthtones and perso
Now that - thanks to COVID 19 - we are all becoming accustomed to interacting online, I am happy to offer private online cello instruction to anyone with an internet connection and a cello!
I have been teaching cellists of all ages and abilities for decades, love the journey and the discoveries, aha moments, beautiful earthtones and personal expressions of each unique traveler on the cello road.
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Should you happen to reside in either the San Francisco Pennisula area - Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties - or Southern Oregon (my studio is in Ashland), we may be able to do some in-person work, as well. Currently, I spend about half my time in each address, so some flexibility will be required. A mix of online and in-person sessions promises more possibilities than having to be locally available each week,
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Beyond cello instruction, I am very happy to arrange for one-time Chamber Music coaching.
As a member of the New England String Quartet, I traveled and performed, recorded and competed internationally (see bio). I was a founding member of the cutting Edge Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, I have served as Senior Faculty for the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra's Summer Chamber Music Workshops for most the past two decades, have served as Workshop Coach for the Bay Area Chamber Music Society and have launched dozens of young string players into the challenging rewarding world of ensemble playing. Many of my young charges have gone on to achieve high levels of artistry in their instrumental and related disciplines.
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Lessons (weekly - both In-Person and Online - fee on a sliding scale);
One-Time Chamber Music Coaching sessions are:
$100/hour with a 90-minute minimum.
2 hr with short break is recommended;
Nyckelharpa instruction*,
$60/half-hour lesson;
Any other consultations around arranging/composition/theory or psychology of music (Usually included in
Lessons (weekly - both In-Person and Online - fee on a sliding scale);
One-Time Chamber Music Coaching sessions are:
$100/hour with a 90-minute minimum.
2 hr with short break is recommended;
Nyckelharpa instruction*,
$60/half-hour lesson;
Any other consultations around arranging/composition/theory or psychology of music (Usually included in cello and Chamber Music sessions), by arrangement - $100/hr;
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I am often available for chamber music gigs: Recording Sessions, Weddings, Concerts, Sometimes solo.
My Celtic Trio, Broceliande (www.broceliande.org) is happy to supply Olde World traditional fare with a contemporary flare, .... Try Me :")
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I sometimes have instruments for rent or for sale - just ask.
('You know those “living national treasures” in Japan who are master practitioners of their arts? Kris Yenney’s profound expertise feels like that. She has decades of immersion in music, not just cello. Of course she plays exquisitely, but she is fluent in so many genres and instruments. (Nyckelharpa anyone!?) She even helped my son on his neuroscience paper about music and the brain. Is there anything musical this lady doesn’t know!?!?') ~ PD
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So, yes, I can also teach a bit of basic Nyckelharpa technique and repertoire *
I have a lot of Celtic and Scandinavian repertoire I can teach - with or without Dots ;")
from Hands Series by Mark Kitaoka
Schubert Heaven (w/Yo-Yo Ma) 💕
Performed September 2019
Santa Cruz, CA
Lady Laiton'e Almain / Frog Galliard and Dancing Bear.
@ Seventh Ave. Church, San Francisco
* Brocelïande’s Arrangement of the Gavottes from J. S. Bach’s Cello Suite #6 in D
Michael Goldberg, guitar and Kris Yenney, cello (Left Coast Chamber Ensemble). Bogdanovich Duo
From Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass - for Two Cellos, Double Bass and Voice (Left Coast Ensemble performance)
PACO Bach Festival Emeritus Ensemble: Carol Kutsch and Heidi Yenney, violins, TIm Bach, cembalo and Kris Yenney, cello.
arrangement by Jazz great, Fred Hersch (at the piano). Part of the “lullaby of New York” project with NESQ.
I'd love to hear from you
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