No tickets required for this event.

In pursuit of their degrees at SFCM, each student presents a recital that represents their artistry and craft. Student Recitals feature repertoire curated by students with guidance from their faculty instructor.  

Subject to Change is a national commissioning initiative led by Natalie Boberg and Caroline Jesalva of the Magari Ensemble to perform, record, and publish new works by women and gender minorities for two violins. Please join us for our Inaugural Concert at San Francisco Conservatory. This concert is made possible through a grant from San Francisco Conservatory and the 1,000 Dreams Fund

Program

Final program details will be announced upon availability.

Artists

Natalie Boberg, Violinist and Subject to Change Founder
Violinist, Natalie Boberg, is a versatile soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Her playing has been noted by Vijay Gupta of Street Symphony and the LA Philharmonic as, “beautifully personal, with instincts that are so on.” Natalie made her debut as a soloist with the Utah Symphony in 2018, performing Mark O’Connor’s Double Violin Concerto under Maestro Connor Covington. Natalie has also appeared as a soloist with the Colburn Chamber Orchestra alongside Anne Akiko Meyers, Lake Avenue Chamber Orchestra, and Gifted Music School Chamber Orchestra. In national chamber music competitions, Natalie placed second at University of Michigan’s MPrize Competition, and medaled bronze at Pasadena Conservatory of Music’s national competition. Her summer endeavors include time at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Domaine Forget, Meadowmount School of Music, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Interlochen Center for the Arts. Natalie also studied conducting at the Colburn School with Maxim Eshkenazy and performed and trained vocally for nine years in Los Angeles Children’s Chorus’ top Bel Canto choirs. 
Natalie’s mission is to share engaging musical experiences and the art of the violin with the world. She is particularly excited about contemporary music and collaborating closely with living composers and artists on new projects. As a violinist, choral singer, dancer, and artist, she envisions unique programming that has wide-appeal and captures a new generation of classical music lovers. In 2018, she founded the non-profit organization, Magari Ensemble, presenting interdisciplinary and purpose-driven concerts across the country. Alongside her work on the stage, Natalie has maintained teaching positions at New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School and Boston Music Project. She is committed to nurturing the growth of new artists and aims to make classical music more accessible by creating inclusive, memorable experiences for all. Learn more at natalieboberg.com and magariensemble.org.

Caroline Jesalva, Violinist and Subject to Change Founder
Caroline Jesalva is a multidisciplinary violinist and vocalist traversing the worlds of classical music, improvisation and experimental music. Inspired by Dadaism, her music explores experimental theater, poetry, classical repertoire, and free improvisation. She is the founder of Blind Glass ensemble, named the 2023 New England Conservatory Wildcard Honors Ensemble, which was created with the intention to build a collaborative space for musicians of all shapes and kinds. As a violinist, Caroline has most recently performed with Crossing Borders Music as their core ensemble member; A Far Cry, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Callithumpian Consort. She has held fellowships with Bang-on-A Can, Black House Collective, Yellow Barn Young Artists; and is a recent graduate of New England Conservatory of Music where she studied violin performance under the tutelage of Nicholas Kitchen (Borromeo String Quartet). Caroline is the co-founder and artistic director of Music in the Garden, a summer concert series in Chicago, IL which provides an above-ground space for underground music. Music in the Garden is the recipient of the 2023 Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Caroline began her musical journey when she was four years old through the Suzuki Music Program at Meredith College. She continued her violin studies with Eric Pritchard (Ciompi String Quartet) at Duke University, and is an alumni of the Philharmonic Association, Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble (on voice), North Carolina Chamber Music Institute, and Mallarme Youth Chamber Orchestra, where she spent many happy days falling in love with chamber music. In the summers, she attended Brevard Music Festival and Meadowmount School of Music. Caroline was the 2018 Rising Young Artist of the Chapel Hill Philharmonia Young Artist Competition, a two-time winner of the Philharmonic Association Concerto Competition, and a finalist in the Ronald Sachs International Music Competition. She has performed in Jordan Hall, Moeser Auditorium, and Meymandi Hall. Caroline is a passionate educator and was an NEC Teaching Fellow at Conservatory Lab Charter School and NEC's Preparatory School. In 2023, she joined the Magari Ensemble as Operations Director, and the People’s Music School in Chicago, IL as a violin teaching artist.

Olivia Wilkins-Becker, Inaugural Composer
Olivia Wilkins-Becker (b. 1990) is a composer, guitarist, and vocalist based out of Boston. Their work spans from their self-taught background in experimental rock, hardcore and noise scenes to more recent studies in composition, playing with the tension between the underground versus the formal, the personal versus the political, and pleasure versus pain.

Recent commissions include a trio for the 2023 New Bedford Roots and Branches Festival; an electroacoustic piece titled “FLEECE” written for alto saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl, co-composed and performed with Emiliano López in 2023; and a video performance of compositions for their septet Premium Velvet Headache Pillow premiered by Non-Event in 2022. In 2024, they will be releasing three albums: a suite of new compositions for sextet through people | places | records, an independent label that specializes in DIY new, experimental, and hardcore music; an album of avant-prog songs with their five-piece band Other Joliah through ERASED! Tapes; and an album of instrumental noise-meets-math-rock-meets-hardcore with their three-piece band Hairbrush also being released through ERASED! Tapes.

One of Olivia’s primary and longest-running music projects is Rong, a noise-punk band that has been playing together since 2017. Unlike many of their experiences with composition, Rong is a fully collaborative endeavor in which all bandmates participate in and bring their whole personalities into the songwriting process. Lars Gotrich of NPR described Olivia’s vocals as “acrobatic” and wrote that Rong’s 2019 album wormhat “channels the joyous chaos of Japanese punks Melt-Banana and the aggro skronk of Brainiac with a tad of Deerhoof’s weirdo-pop hooks.” Kris Handel from Post-Trash wrote that wormhat is “a record full of explosions of all shapes and sizes - an outright assault - yet one that carries a weight that makes it impossible to escape or ignore.” Rong has since released tracks on multiple compilations including Post-Trash: Volume Four by Post-Trash in 2019; Rong // The Cost of Living Split by Mutual Aid Records in 2023; and #1 by I’m Into Life Records in 2023. Rong has also gone on several tours up and down the Atlantic coast, across the Midwest, and through parts of the Southeast. Currently Rong is wrapping up mixing and mastering their second full-length album as well as a full-length session recorded with a live audience at New Alliance Audio in Somerville, MA.

When Olivia isn’t playing music, they are still fully immersed in the music scene; they have organized hundreds of shows including an experimental music and art series called FIND OUT which also raised funds and featured speakers from local community organizing initiatives. Since October 2023, they have been assisting at New Alliance Audio in Somerville, studying audio engineering through Lead Engineer, Ethan Dussault.

Following a non-traditional and formerly self-taught educational path, Olivia began formal composition studies in their late twenties. In 2023 they graduated from New England Conservatory with a BM in Contemporary Musical Arts where they studied with Efstratios Minakakis, Anthony Coleman, Ted Reichman, Lautaro Mantilla, Carla Kihlstedt, Dominique Eade, Joe Morris, and Christi Catt.