Kristin Speer is has been a long time member of Redwood Symphony and joined the board in 2010. Kris’s music background started with piano lessons at an early age, and in high school she switched to bassoon and studied with Professor Ronald Tyree at the University of Iowa. As a student at Stanford University, Kris studied bassoon with Steven Dibner of the San Francisco Symphony and Rufus Olivier of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet. Kris earned a double major B.A.S. degree from Stanford University in Environmental Earth Sciences and Music Performance. She was elected to the Stanford Cap & Gown Honorary Society.

Professionally, Kris is the Managing Partner of AccelSearch, an executive search firm for technology companies, and was formerly Client Partner and a member of Korn/Ferry International’s Global Technology Practice for five years. Prior to Korn/Ferry, Kris headed up a boutique search and human resources consulting firm, established a software technology and on-site service staffing solution for venture-backed startups (Claria Corporation) and led an independent recruiting practice for nine years specializing in engineering management for start-ups.

Kris has three children and is married to Richard Morgan.

Andrew Callejo joined the Redwood Symphony board in 2010, and was introduced to the orchestra through one of its outdoor concerts in downtown Redwood City. The concert was also the inspiration for his 6 year-old daughter to want to play the violin! (We are delighted that she is enjoying her private lessons, and we look forward to recruiting her into the symphony in the future.) Andrew’s area of expertise on the board is business management, marketing, website and outreach to public schools.

Professionally, Andrew is an Asset Manager for First Bank & Trust, a private bank in San Francisco. He is responsible for managing assets for local businesses, charities, and high net worth individuals. Previously, Andrew was a Market Maker for NYSE & AMEX traded securities, under Sunlogic/JB Oxford Securities. In addition to asset management, Andrew is owner to several businesses in the Bay Area, including the franchise Quickly’s and Chorus Benefits.

Andrew was born and raised in San Francisco, and graduated from San Francisco State University with a major in Finance. He and his family live in Burlingame, and are enjoying their new passion for classical music through the Redwood Symphony.

Bio coming soon

David Meckler is a Professor of Music at Cañada College in Redwood City, and has also taught music, arts and humanities courses at Skyline College in San Bruno, the University of California at San Diego and University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. In addition to teaching, David has composed many significant works. His recent music often features simple, sometimes fragmented, polyrhythms, often in the context of unusual meters; the pitch language is sometimes freely diatonic but rarely with traditional harmonic functionality. Scenes from his Apollo 14, A Space Opera were presented by the New York Opera in 2002.

David studied music composition at the University of California at San Diego (Ph.D.) and at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati (MM). His teachers include Rand Steiger, Roger Reynolds, Frederick Bianchi, Jonathan Kramer and Allen Sapp. David is also interested in science (B.S., Physics, Lafayette College) and in the social dimensions inherent in music.

Born in El Paso, Texas, David and his wife MaryLouise currently live in Redwood City, California.

Chris Moropoulos joined the Redwood Symphony board in 2011. He began attending Redwood orchestra concerts to share a richer music heritage with his children, and they quickly joined the symphony’s volunteer ranks. Chris brings broad experience serving non-profit boards and volunteer organizations, particularly those serving youth. He currently serves the Pacific Skyline Council of the Boy Scouts of America as a volunteer member of its Executive Board and its General Counsel. In addition to strategic guidance, his focus on the Redwood Symphony Board tends toward its outreach to youth and families, its technical and marketing efforts, and excellence in the business side of the symphony.

Chris grew up in Southern California, earning a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from U.C. Santa Barbara. Following a tenure developing undersea acoustic systems and aerospace technologies, he attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. His legal practice has included advising public agencies, businesses, technology ventures, and entrepreneurs, both as a successful trial and transactional lawyer in private practice, an intellectual property licensing expert and registered patent attorney, and as an in-house managing attorney, general counsel, and executive for high tech companies in Silicon Valley. He has counseled a wide range of clients, from individuals and tiny start-ups to pre-eminent semiconductor giant and world technology leader Intel Corporation.

Chris resides mid-Peninsula with his children, dog and cat, as well as lesser invited deer, raccoons, squirrels, and other creatures. He welcomes questions, comments, or suggestions for thought at morops@gmail.com (please include "Redwood" in the subject line to avoid spam filters).

Kent Reed joined the Redwood Symphony board in 2010, and is one of the premier professional timpanists in the Bay Area having performed and recorded with the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra as well as the period instrument groups Philharmonic Baroque and American Bach Soloists. Kent holds a B.A. in Music from the University of California at Berkeley and currently also plays percussion with the Jose Symphony/Symphony Silicon Valley as well as other musical ensembles.

In addition to his musical performance career, Kent has great depth in running operations for various types of organizations, and is currently employed with Vascular Cures, an innovative, entrepreneurial medical research foundation. He is also Orchestra Contractor and Manager for the San Francisco Opera Center (the educational and touring arm of the San Francisco Opera) where he manages personnel, operations, projects and events in a deadline-driven environment. Previously, Kent was Director of Operations and Media Technology for the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for many years.

Kent met his wife, a flutist, while on a national tour with Western Opera Theater, the touring affiliate of the San Francisco Opera. They live in San Mateo with their two sons who play percussion and cello.

Composer/performer Stephen Ruppenthal is Co-Principal Trumpet, Contemporary Music Advisor, and former Board President for the Redwood Symphony. A trumpet student of Dwight Cannon and Chris Bogios formerly with the San Francisco Symphony, Stephen graduated with a Performance Degree and a Master of Arts Degree in Contemporary Musicology from San Jose State University, and participated in the Executive Technical Management Program at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Stephen performs with many major ensembles throughout the Bay Area, and currently with his own Brass Act Quintet (www.brassact.com). He was featured at the 2008 Electronic Music Midwest Festival in Chicago, the SEAMUS 2009 Electro-Acoustic Music Festival at Sweetwater Sound in Indiana, and at the ICMC in New York City, and the KISS Symposium in Vienna, Austria in 2010. He is also a founding member of the new electro-acoustic music group, SoundProof.

Stephen has written on text-sound composition and music for the New Grove Dictionary of American Music. His work “A History of the Development and Techniques of Sound Poetry in the Twentieth Century in Western Culture” constituted the first comprehensive documentation of the genre in English.

In addition to performance and composition, Stephen has taught at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University (Center for Experimental and Interdisciplinary Art, Electronic Music Studio/Composition), and for many years was Technical Publications Senior Director for Fortune 500 companies such as Oracle, Sybase, BEA, and Adobe Systems.

Ann Yvonne Walker is a corporate securities partner in the law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California, where she has practiced law since graduating from law school in 1979. She primarily represents high technology companies located in Silicon Valley and specializes in corporate and securities law, including public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance matters and general corporate representation, with a particular emphasis on public company disclosure obligations and SEC compliance issues.

Ann is an active member of a number of committees of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association and is also a former Chair of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of California.

In her spare time, Ann plays violin in Redwood Symphony and and serves on its Board of Directors. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fremont Opera, Inc., a non-profit regional opera company, and sings with Schola Cantorum, an 80-voice choir. She enjoys traveling and spending time with her husband, David M. Jones, and her son, Charles Richard (“Rick”) Walker Jones at their home in Atherton, California.