Board of Directors
Greg Zinkl
President
Greg first joined the SFCMA as a violist in Mozart to Mendelssohn, days after his arrival to San Francisco. He was impressed by the artistic and music leadership’s warm welcome. He had never heard of an organization that not only embraced a musical home for all, but also music for the community for free, and fell in love with the SFCMA mission.
Since joining the organization in 2016, Greg has served on the gala committee for three years, chairing it for two. Since joining the board in 2018, Greg has served on various committees and served as secretary for the 2018-2019 season.
In his previous home of Chicago, Greg was an orchestra co-manager for a legal professionals orchestra and a board member for a music organization that supported two training orchestras, one for pre-college, and a second for college and graduate students. He was also the promoter, interim and first president, and co-founder (along with 35 dedicated musicians) of the Lakeview Orchestra in 2013, which went on to win a record of three awards in 2016 from the Illinois Council of Orchestras, including Community Orchestra of the Year.
Greg is eager to help advance the SFCMA into its next generation.
By day, Greg is a biotech patent attorney. By night, he enjoys spending time with Tom, his husband of 21 years, an architect; spoiling their greyhound, Kai; and being subject to the whims of their cats, Millie and Tula. Greg also serves on the Leadership Council of San Francisco for Lambda Legal and volunteers as a librarian at Next Door, a homeless shelter in the Tenderloin. Their son Justin is an officer in the Air Force after having graduated from the University of Illinois and is serving in Misawa, Japan.
Greg’s musical tastes are wide-ranging, finding joy in Bach’s cantatas, emotional gratification in Bruckner’s symphonies (and enjoying Mahler’s angst), humor in Haydn’s wit and Mozart’s brilliance, and emotional involvement in the music from the line of great northern European composers, including Sibelius, Nielsen, and Rautavaara.
Kate Cowan
Vice president
Kate Cowan joined the SF Civic Music Board in 2018 and serves as the chair of the Fund Development & Marketing Committee. She has played clarinet in the symphony off and on since 2007. She believes community musical groups play an integral part in enriching the lives of amateur musicians of every age and skill level, as well providing educational, affordable, and fun experiences for their broader community. In her non-musical life she is the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relationships at Cal State East Bay. She also volunteers on the development committee for Strange Horizons, a speculative fiction literary magazine. In her spare time, she can usually be found reading, knitting, traveling to far off places, or talking about (and drinking!) craft beer. She likes lists, wombats, pie, her cats, and Vivaldi.
Her favorite piece is Six Marimbas, by Steve Reich.
Gerri Donato
Treasurer
Gerri joined the 2nd violin section of the SF Civic Symphony in 2008 when the Old First Presbyterian orchestra disbanded. She has participated in the Summer Workshop each year since its inception, and recently joined the 1st violins of the Civic Strings ensemble. When she isn’t performing with one of the groups, she enjoys ushering at the other association concerts. As duty called, she has served on the board at various times as vice president, secretary, and since 2013 as treasurer.
As a resident of San Francisco for 45 years, Gerri has come to appreciate the unique role played by the SF Civic Music Association in absorbing new and established members of our community into a variety of performing ensembles to meet the needs of musicians of all skill levels, and in providing high-level amateur musical performances to the public free of charge.
A retired physical therapist, when not practicing her instrument or performing her duties as treasurer of the association, Gerri can be found in the pool practicing with her synchronized swimming teammates, perfecting her Tai Chi skills, keeping up with several book clubs, cycling around the Bay Area and beyond, and providing feedback to our elected leaders and their appointees in Washington, D.C.
Kat Feller
Secretary
Kat has been musically inclined pretty much her entire life. She is the daughter of Roland and Lois Feller, fellow SF Civic musicians.
A native San Franciscan, she grew up in a musical family and with a strong lifelong love of music. She is a music teacher, and plays violin and viola, and is currently with M2M as violist and Coordinator. Fun fact: Kat could be considered a quadruple threat. She plays violin, viola, is the M2M orchestra coordinator… and sings!
She is a regular performer with Lamplighters Music Theatre and Pocket Opera, as well as playing in civic groups and with Villa Sinfonia. She has her bachelors in Musical Theatre and Vocal Performance from Chico State University.
John Arnott
John joined the board of directors in 2015 after having played with the Civic Symphony for four years and serving on committees for three. He is part of the finance committee, helping to coordinate the construction of the association’s annual budget. He continues in his role of facilities coordinator, having started in 2012, researching and negotiating venue rentals and support services for the association’s ensembles’ rehearsals and performances.
John first played with an SF Civic Music ensemble in the Summer Workshop of 2011. The workshop’s primary goal of providing a route for musicians to re-enter the world of ensemble playing was perfect for John who had left his violin in the closet literally for decades before picking it up again in the early 2000s. He then joined the Civic Symphony for the Fall concert that year. He has also played with to our SF Civic “Mozart to Mendelssohn” orchestra and the SF Civic Strings.
He is hard-pressed to name a favorite piece, but still loves Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, which was on an album he found in his parents’ collection as a young boy.
Darlene Daevu
Darlene Daevu, a native San Franciscan, started her journey with the organization in 2009 as a second violinist in the Summer Music Workshop. After completing the 8-week workshop, she knew she would dedicate herself to perfecting her musicianship with SF Civic Music and joined the Civic Symphony.
In 2011, Darlene began to lend her professional skills as a MBA and Project Manager Professional for the City and County of San Francisco by coordinating the Summer Music Workshop. The Summer Music Workshop is our premier welcoming and entry level ensemble where committed amateur musicians are given an opportunity to study and perform a diverse repertoire of classical music. Above anything else, Darlene strives to ensure everyone has fun and loves making music together. “My favorite part about the Summer Music Workshop is appreciating the stark improvement from our first rehearsal to our final ‘Family, Friends and Fans Day’ concert.”
In 2016, after obtaining approval from the Board of Directors, under her leadership, she transitioned the orchestra to a symphony, of course with the musicality leadership of Conductors Thomas Alexander and Arun Saigal. Notably, our Civic Strings ensemble launched from the Summer Music Workshop under the direction of honorary Board Member and Conductor Thomas Alexander.
Similar to Darlene’s mentor, Doe Mechum, a Violinist and previous Board member who played and volunteered her time, talent, and funds until age 91, Darlene plans to do so also.
Nikki Flom
Nikki Flom is a Senior Tax Director at Meta (formerly Facebook) and leads the company’s indirect and business tax risk management function. Nikki and her team of tax professionals support Facebook’s new products launch and new business initiatives globally, manage the full aspect of indirect tax operations, and support global tax policy initiatives. She speaks regularly on tax technical topics and leadership at various policy and industry forums, including the Tax Council Policy Institute, Tax Executive Institute, and the American Bar Association.
Nikki is passionate about women’s leadership and mentoring. At Facebook, she mentors and coaches in the company’s internal leadership programs. She also devotes her time to KPMG’s Future Leaders Program mentoring future women leaders.
Nikki lives in San Francisco, California with her husband, two sons who are young musicians, and their beloved German Shepherd Sasha. Nikki is a preforming art enthusiast and enjoys classical music and ballet.
Graham Johnson
Graham first joined the San Francisco Civic Music Association in 2016 as a violinist with the Civic Symphony, shortly after moving to San Francisco. Since then, Graham remains an active member of the Civic Symphony and volunteered as Orchestra Coordinator for the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 seasons. He is very thankful to have found a musical home with the Civic Symphony and hopes to make the Symphony a welcoming and enjoyable ensemble for all.
By day, Graham is a practicing psychiatrist serving the mental health needs of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. When not practicing music or medicine, Graham enjoys running, hiking, backpacking, exploring San Francisco, and taking walks with his wife and 2 senior Chihuahuas.
Vik Sharma
Vik Sharma joined the SF Civic Music Board in Fall of 2020. He first joined the Civic Symphony in Fall 2011 along with Civic colleague John Arnott, both having met at an orchestra class of nine players at CCSF the prior Spring! Like many, Vik started playing violin with the Civic Symphony after a multi-decade hiatus from any playing, having also like many, begun his musical career in 4th grade in school and with private instruction which continued through high school, during which time Vik also played second violin for two years with the Los Gatos-Saratoga Symphony, a well-loved community orchestra. As an undergrad at UC Berkeley, Vik became exposed to chamber music through a remarkable performance class taught by Felix Khuner, a founding member of the Kolisch String Quartet which premiered works by Bartok, Hindemith, Schoenberg and others in the 1920s-1940s. In the course of three years, he and his fellow students played works by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, Bartok, and Mendelssohn.
Inspired by a love of chamber music and by participation of colleagues at SF Civic, Vik organized three annual Civic Chamber music concerts and one Civic Chamber music workshop, held at the Koret Auditorium in the San Francisco Public Library beginning in the Fall of 2013. It was at this concert that Ayako Onoda was introduced to the Association as a performer, and she shortly thereafter joined the Board of Directors becoming, its President for many years. All the while, Vik continued to play violin in the Civic Symphony, often viola in Civic Strings, until the founding of the Mozart to Mendelssohn Symphony, where he now plays viola. His other career, still active, has been as a molecular biologist working in early stage research to understand the molecular mechanisms of human diseases with the goal of developing therapeutics against them.