The Sierra Nevada
Balalaika Society

 

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SNB Orchestra, Feb. 2009

Zeny N. Ocean

  • President, Sierra Nevada Balalaika Society
  • Prima Balalaika, Kontrabass Balalaika
  • Member since 1992

Dr. Zeny Ocean is the founder of the Sierra Nevada Balalaika Society, and a past president of the Balalaika and Domra Association of America. He has performed with various balalaika orchestras in the USA and in Russia, as well as at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. He plays domra, piano, guitar, accordion, and saxophone. Dr. Ocean has over 20 years of experience in traditional, biological, mercury safe and biocompatible dentistry; he pursues a holistic/biological dentistry philosophy in his practice at Zeny Ocean Dental. He is an avid mushroom hunter and the father of four children.

Margarita Bryant

  • Piano
  • Member since 2008

Margarita graduated from the Soviet Gov't Musical School (Kurganinsk, USSR), 1966-1974. She has a B.A. in music theory and piano from Vladimir Musical College, (Vladimir, USSR), 1975-1979 and an M.A. in choir direction and voice training from Altay University of Culture (Altay, USSR), 1981-1986. She has taught music theory, piano, voice, and choir direction in Russia and Reno, 1977-present. She has conducted several choirs in the USSR, produced musical and children’s shows, performed with different bands in the Soviet Union and performed  throughout the Reno area.


Jim Buehler

  • Alto Domra
  • Mandolin
  • Guitar
  • Member since 2003

Jim plays a wide variety of stringed instruments; when he's not strumming and pickin', he's vocalizing. Jim also helps provide the high-end sound on the banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin in a blue grass group, Homemade Jam, in the Reno area.

Rich Bremenour

  • Accordion
  • Member since 2001

Rich, an avid accordionist for many years, has been playing with the Sierra Balalaika Orchestra since early 2001. While he is of Polish heritage and enjoys and plays many genres of music, his favorite has always been the Cleveland-style Slovenian polkas/waltzes; however, after playing alongside balalaikas and domras he's tapping his foot to a different beat now and enjoying it tremendously. When he's not playing music, he works as Technical Services Director for a private newspaper corporation.

Margaret Dalrymple

  • Gusli
  • Piano
  • Flute
  • Member since 2008

Margaret is a press editor for the Univ. of Nevada Press. She has worked in the publishing industry for over 25 years as a freelance fact-checker and translator; as a manuscript editor, acquisitions editor, editor-in-chief, and assistant director at Louisiana State Univ. Press; and as editor-in-chief, acting director, and assistant director at the Univ. of Nevada Press. In addition to her work with the Univ. of Nevada Press, she serves as a freelance publishing consultant for university presses, trade publishers, and private clients.

Tom Dose

  • Kontrabass Balalaika
  • Member since 2003

Tom is originally from the banks of the Mississippi River in Clinton, IA. He and his wife Sharon, both Doctors of Veterinary Medicine, moved to Reno in 1985 and opened their own practice. Tom started playing the Contrabass Balalaika in September of 2003 and has been rocking ever since. One of Tom's first questions to Dr. Ocean, his Contrabass mentor was, "What is the name of the note on the top line?" While enjoying a number of different genres of music, Tom has come to love the joy, camaraderie, and beauty of Russian and Eastern European Folk music, song and dance.

Jessica Escobar

  • Prima Domra
  • Violin
  • Member since 2005

Jessica is of Colombian heritage. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Univ. of Nevada, Reno in 2003 with a B.A. in anthropology and French, and a minor in music. She earned an M.A. in social sciences from the Univ.of Chicago. Jessica has performed with the Reno Philharmonic since 1999, the Tahoe Symphony, the Nevada Opera, the Univ. of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles in the USA and France. She is a former Suzuki String Method coach. While at UNR, she studied violin under Phillip Ruder. She has served as archaeology exhibit curator, adjunct faculty at Truckee Meadows Community College and UNR, and English teacher in France. Currently, she is an interpreter and teacher for the N. Nevada Int’l Center.

Ketevan Dvali Konko

  • Vocalist
  • Member since 2006

Ketevan, a contralto, earned her Bachelor's Degree in Piano and Voice  from  Tbilisi Music College (Republic of Georgia) and a Master's in Music and Voice performance from  Pedagogical  University (Republic of Georgia). She holds a second  Master’s Degree in Music and Voice performance from Univ. of Nevada, Reno. She trained in the classics and performs in seven languages.  She has performed in six countries of the former USSR, National Opera House of Tbilisi and in Nevada, with  various orchestras as a soloist. She taught piano and voice at the music school in Georgia, in Reno and in the Lake Tahoe area.

R. Steven Murdoch

  • Vocalist
  • Member since 2004

Steven, a tenor, is the Controller for Fitzgeralds Casino/Hotel. He graduated from the Univ. of Utah with a BS in Accounting. At the University, he appeared in Fiddler on the Roof and Once Upon a Mattress. Steven has sung with the Sierra Nevada Master Chorale for more than 14 years as a soloist and as a chorus member. He has sung with the Nevada Opera chorus in many productions. He was Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury with the Nevada Opera for Artown. He played the role of Sam Polk in the opera Susannah, with the Lyric Opera Theatre at UNR. He performed the role of Jinx in Forever Plaid with the Western Nevada Musical Theatre Co. He performed as Gaston in La Traviata with the Nevada Opera.
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Janis Ocean

  • Secretary & Treasurer, Sierra Nevada Balalaika Society
  • Bass Balalaika
  • Member since 1992

Janis brings some sensibility to our practice and our performance programs. She's our behind-the-scenes-leader, even though our founder, and her husband, Zeny, thinks he's in charge.


Mike Sherrick

  • Prima Balalaika
  • Guitar
  • Member since 1995

Since Mike retired in 2008, he says that he's practicing a lot more; he's also doing a lot more folk dancing with his wife, Natalie. He's often featured as a soloist on the balalaika or the guitar at our performances.  At a recent performance of Lara's Theme, some in the audience could be seen with tears in their eyes, in part due to Mike's excellent balalaika solo part.  

Natalie Sherrick

  • Prima Domra
  • Member since 1995

As a child, Natalie performed with the San Francisco Ballet and she was a student of Russian ballet with Bronislav Nijinsky. She has performed with the Roger Wagner Chorale, The Los Angeles Int’l Folk Ensemble – Westwind, The Liberty Assembly - Aman, the Fiolice Women’s Chorus and the Balalaika and Domra Association of America. She has studied domra, classical piano and voice. Natalie has an M.A. in microbiology from UCLA. Natalie’s parents came from Siberia and the Urals, emigrating to China and then to San Francisco. Her father, Dimitri Koovshinoff, was a professional music copyist and arranger for stage and screen in Hollywood. Her mother was a pianist and her brother was a Julliard Music School graduate, a recipient of a Fullbright Scholarship and a music teacher for 40 years.