Matthew Wolka, Interim Music Director
Matthew Wolka has worked as a church music director for the past 15 years in a variety of denominational settings including United Church of Christ, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian. In Chicago, he started a community orchestra, took his choir on a concert tour of Germany, and performed as organist in a number of concerts both in the United States and Poland. In Los Angeles, he developed a new ancient/urban liturgy that drew on sources as diverse as Sufi poetry and Ancient Greek and Egyptian texts, to contemporary thinkers such as Henri Nouwen. An avid traveller, Mr. Wolka has been to many countries and enjoys listening to all kinds of music almost as much as he enjoys performing it.
Renée Witon, Accompanist
Renée, a pianist, accompanist and music educator living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the accompanist at First Unitarian Church and is director of music theory for the San Francisco Girls Chorus and also maintains a private piano studio in Oakland. She also teaches piano and theory at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga. In addition to concert performances, Renée appears as co-host of 90.3 KUSF radio’s Classics Without Walls. In 2000, she released a classical piano CD, Coming Home, featuring music of Brahms, Beethoven, Suk, Ravel, and her own compositions.