Piano Trios written by American Composers

The Pacific Piano Trio was formed in the summer of 2001 because of its members' passion of playing chamber music. Rebecca and Gretchen have performed as a duo since 1999, and Gretchen and Michael performed together as part of the Sunrise String Quartet on a Cunard cruise in 2001. The trio has been hired as the ensemble in residence to coach and perform at a chamber music workshop in Hayward sponsored by Chamber Musicians of Northern California. The Pacific Piano Trio specializes in music from the Americas. 

Rebecca Bogart, pianist, has won numerous awards, including top honors in the Pacific International Piano and Carmel Music Society Competitions and an Alfred Hertz fellowship from the Department of Music at the University of California at Berkeley. She performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician in California and in other parts of the United States and Europe. In July 1998 she performed at the Academia Bellini in Naples and in Ragusa, Sicily and was a prizewinner at the Ibla International Piano Competition. She has performed as orchestral soloist with groups such as the Palomar Symphony Orchestra in Escondido, California, the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, Berkeley's Trinity Chamber Orchestra, the Kensington Symphony, Oakland Community Orchestra, Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, and Pro Musica of the East Bay. Her first solo piano CD, American Retrospective, available in the classical music section of Amazon.com, includes works from 1850 to 1943 by American composers, including Beach, Griffes, Joplin, Gershwin, and Copland.

Michael Yokas, violinist, has been living and working in San Francisco for the last five years. He plays regularly with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and the Oakland East Bay Symphony. He is a member of the faculty at the San Francisco Community Music Center and at the Northern California Music and Arts Center. He received his Bachelor degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he grew up. He moved to San Francisco to obtain his Master degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Camilla Wicks. Michael plays first violin with the Chamberlain String Quartet. With cellist, Gretchen Egen, Michael recently went on a transatlantic cruise tour with the Sunrise String Quartet from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Hamburg, Germany. 

Gretchen Egen, cellist, received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Arizona and her Masters from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying with Gordon Epperson and Bonnie Hampton respectively. She has been soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Tucson and the Kensington Symphony, and has toured throughout Europe with the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchestra with many conductors including Leonard Bernstein and Christoph Eschenbach. Gretchen was the cellist in the Del Sol String Quartet for three years, playing numerous children's concerts and recording a CD, Short Cuts, playing music from the United States, Cuba, and Argentina. Gretchen has been principal cellist with Santa Cruz County Symphony, the Sacramento Philharmonic, and the Sacramento Ballet. She has also played and recorded with the Women's Philharmonic. Gretchen currently plays with the Sacramento Philharmonic and the California Symphony. As well as being an active chamber musician and educator in the Bay Area, Gretchen can be seen playing cello in the movie, Redwood Curtain, available on video.