SOM DELA
An ensemble dedicated to the performance of music by Brazilian women composers
(Som Dela means “her sound” in Portuguese)
Join us for our debut concert
Saturday, October 11, 7:00 pm
Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship
1924 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets: At the door (cash preferred)
Sliding Scale: $20-30
Featuring compositions by Léa Freire, Luisa Mitre, Luciana Rabello, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Kerry Politzer, Irene Sazer, and Rebecca Hass.
🍷 Join us for a reception afterwards!
More upcoming performances
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
1823 9th St, Berkeley
Ticket details to come!
Sun. January 25, 2026 - 3pm
Performer bios
Irene Sazer, violin
Internationally known founding member of Turtle Island String Quartet, soloist, recording artist, and respected educator, Irene Sazer is an in-demand genre-hopping violinist/fiddler of many styles. She founded Real Vocal String Quartet and the School of Strings and String Improvisation in Berkeley, California. Sazer’s recording First Things First highlights her original songs.
She has performed with Ali Akbar Khan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Smoky Robinson, David Grisman, Linda Ronstadt, Bjork, and Billy Joel, performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and concert halls around the world. A grant awarded composer, she has also built a body of work in visual arts with a distinctive portfolio of drawings, paintings and films.
Jane Lenoir, flute
Jane Lenoir grew up in a family of professional musicians in Tampa, Florida and left at 15 years old to study at Interlochen Arts Academy and later Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. She has a career spanning many different styles of music, from orchestral work, chamber music, jazz, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music and Latin Jazz, to baroque flute. She has performed with the Oakland Symphony, Ballet and Opera, Stockton Symphony, San Jose Symphony, SF Opera, SF Ballet, San Francisco Chamber Music Society and University of California Contemporary Chamber Players. She is principal flute of the Music in the Mountains Orchestra and appears regularly as a soloist at the festival.
She performed “new” music extensively in the 70’s and 80’s, appearing with Port Costa Players, the UC Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, Mills Group for New Music, SF Chamber Music Society, Paul Dresher Ensemble, George Coates Performance Works, and performed the premieres of many works locally, recorded by KPFA and in their archives from that period. She recorded with the Seattle Group for New Music on a recording of the music of Seattle composer Janice Giteck, played the US premiere of Hans Henze’s El Cimarron with John Duykers and David Tannenbaum, for which the ensemble was cited by the LA Times as the “best contemporary performance of the year” for their debut at the LA County Museum of Arts’ Monday Evening Concerts.
For the past 7 years, Jane has been involved with Brazilian music and other Latin flute styles, and was a founding member of the Berkeley Choro Ensemble, and co-director of the Berkeley Festival of Choro at the Freight and Salvage for 5 seasons, a founding member of Primavera Latin Jazz and Matiz Ensemble, whose first album, “Confluencia” came out in April 2014. Other albums include “fluid”--a jazz album with Brad Buethe, John Wiitala and Chris Braun, “Live at Anna’s Jazz Island”, with Calvin Keys, guitar. In 2018, two albums of Brazilian music were produced: Jane Lenoir plays Penezzi, with composer and 7-string guitarist Alessandro Penezzi, São Paulo, Brazil, and The View from Here, with Berkeley Choro Ensemble, featuring the music of contemporary Brazilian composers..
As a teacher, Jane is on the faculty of San Domenico School Conservatory of Music in San Anselmo, and has taught at the SF Conservatory of Music, Cazadero Performing Arts Summer Chamber Music Workshop, National Flute Association Conventions, Suzuki Conventions, and conducted workshops all over the US and Europe. Her students have performed with the Marin Youth Orchestra, Oakland Youth Orchestra, UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Interlochen Center of the Arts Camp Ensembles, and are concerto winners and competition winners all over the US.
Rebecca Hass, piano
Rebecca Hass is a pianist, composer, collaborative pianist, educator, and creative coach in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to creative curiosity and joy. She has extensive experience collaborating with classical performers, groups, and movement artists, including Diablo Women’s Chorale, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choirs, Bella Musica, Payvand Vocal Ensemble, and Opera on Tap SF.
With a deep passion for Brazilian rhythms, Rebecca has been part of the Brazilian music scene in the Bay Area since 2019, and performs solo shows of her own compositions and arrangements, as well as with Som Dela, Lillian Yee, and other groups. Other collaborations include the Berkeley Choro Ensemble with multi-genre bassoonist Paul Hanson, Echo Chamber Orchestra, Diablo Symphony, and her newly-co-founded Women Composers Collective.
Rebecca’s debut Brazilian album, Florescer (Bloom), was described as “a delightful 43 minutes of musical sunshine”, and her 2024 album of original piano music, Bright Little Worlds, is an imaginative, heart-filled collection of 22 compositions in various styles (Brazilian, jazz, impressionistic, neo-classical, and more), featuring guest musicians Debbie Gold (flute) and Brian Rice (pandeiro), and is inspired by influences as diverse as Hermeto Pascoal, Laercio de Freitas, Claude Debussy, Aaron Copland, Vince Guaraldi, and Thelonious Monk.
She was also a longtime member of the Minneapolis Brazilian percussion group Batucada do Norte, and a founding member of the Modern Spark Trio, a piano trio with diverse repertoire.
In her creative coaching practice, Rebecca helps musicians and artists reconnect to joy in their creative practices through curiosity and self-compassion, and hosted the related podcast Being a Whole Person on this topic. She is always designing new practices for herself, her students, and her creative coaching clients.
Michaelle Goerlitz, percussion
Michaelle Goerlitz has been playing drums and percussion since she was eight years old. After attending college in the Midwest, she moved to San Francisco in 1980 to continue her studies, which have led to exploration of Brazilian, Afro Cuban, Venezuelan, Peruvian and Middle Eastern rhythms (plus American idioms jazz, R & B & funk). She was a founding member of two renowned & long-term projects, the Blazing Redheads and Wild Mango. Both groups blended many different styles which showcased Michaelle's versatile percussive skills.
Some of the many instruments she proficiently plays are: congas, bongo, timbales, shekere, cajon, drumset, udu, bata, pandeiro, tamborim, repinique, zabumba, berimbau, surdo, cuica, dumbek and many other "auxiliaries", i.e. shakers, triangle, etc.
Among the teachers she is proud and honored to have studied with are: Jorge Alabe, Carolyn Brandy, Pedro Rosales, John Santos, Michael Spiro, Elizabeth Sayre, Claudio Bebbiano, Chalo Eduardo, Eric Rangel, Celso Alberti, Mingo Lewis and Gibby Ross. Each summer she goes to California Brazil Camp to study with some of the finest percussionists from Brazil, and has also traveled to Brazil and Cuba for further studies.
In addition to playing in groups and recording, she is also a sought-after teacher in the Bay Area. She gives private and group lessons to kids, youth and adults on a variety of instruments and styles. Since 2004, she has been the lead percussion teacher in the afterschool program at the San Francisco School, and has been teaching ongoing classes for adults in Brazilian percussion. She has the distinction of being the first female teacher at California Brazil Camp in 2004, and in 2007 was named a Rising Star in Downbeat magazine.
Michaelle has played, recorded and toured with the following people and bands. Their styles encompass Latin jazz, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, Afro-Peruvian, Broadway, singer-songwriter, and "new" music, to name a few:
Mark Levine, Wayne Wallace, Houston Pearson, Denise Perrier, Joan Jeanrenaud, Montclair Women's Big Band, Ojala!, Sylvia Harold, rhiannon, Jami Sieber, Barbara Higbie, Wild Mango, Falso Baiano, the Blazing Redheads, Tret Fure, Soul Sauce, Phil Thompson, Kat Parra, the Pickpocket Ensemble, Samba Rio, Novo Tempo, Bossa 5-0, Tammy Hall, Wendy Waller, Splatter Trio, Blame Sally, Holly Near, Jennifer Berezan, Masha Campagne, John Worley, Valerie Pettiford, Mimi Fox, Fred Randolph, Venezuelan Music Project, Erika Luckett, Lichi Fuentes, Fasmania Big Band, Maria Volonte, Proyecto Lando, the VNote Ensemble and Gina Breedlove.