Jill Rachuy Brindel, Cellist

Jill Rachuy Brindel has been a cellist with the San Francisco Symphony since 1980 and a member of the Navarro Trio for more than twenty years. This ensemble was hailed as “the premier trio of  Northern California” by Terry McNeill writing for North Bay Classical Music.

She studied at Indiana University and Chicago Musical College and was formerly Assistant Principal Cellist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, Principal Cellist of the Mendocino Music Festival for its first six years, cellist for the Navarro Quartet, and a member of the Houston Symphony. She has performed chamber music at Kohl Mansion, the Russian River Chamber Festival, Old First Church, the Ralston Chamber Series, Rossmoor, Chamber Music Sundaes, the San Francisco Symphony Chamber series, and at Sonoma State University, where the Navarro Trio is in residence. In 2006 she returned to the Mendocino Music Festival as Principal Cellist and chamber soloist and in 2009 she became co-director of the Emerging Artists Program at the festival. 

Ms. Brindel actively promotes the music of her late father, composer Bernard Brindel. She is a private instructor of cello as well as the coach for the cello section of the SFS Youth Orchestra. She has given seminars on audition techniques to students at the University of Nevada at Reno and the New World Symphony. In 2011 the San Francisco Symphony selected her to hold the Gary & Kathleen Heidenreich Second Century Cello Chair. On August 23, 2014 the Navarro Trio played in the opening concert in Schroeder Hall, the new Chamber music hall at Sonoma State University. She has been an instructor of cello at Sonoma State University since 2015.

To learn more about Jill, click here to read about her in this recent review in the SF Chronicle