Keith Gates: Music

Cellist Margaret Tait has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony since 1974. Ms. Tait began her study of cello at the age of eight, and by fourteen, she was giving recitals while studying with Roger Drinkall. She completed her high school studies and began her college education at the North Carolina School of the Arts under the instruction of Irving Klein. After receiving her undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California under Gabor Rejto, Ms. Tait moved to Alabama and was awarded a position in the Birmingham (Alabama) Symphony, and became Principal of the section two years later. While with the Birmingham Symphony, Ms. Tait enrolled in the master's program at USC and completed her degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the direction of Margaret Rowell and Bonnie Hampton a year after becoming a member of the San Francisco Symphony. Ms. Tait was a founding member of the renowned Aurora String Quartet that performed in London, New York, and throughout the Bay Area. In 1980, the Quartet was featured in a National Public Radio broadcast with Quartessence, and in 1982, they appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in performances of The Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra by Louis Spohr. The Quartet recorded the complete quartets of Mendelssohn and the two quartets by Prokofieff on the Naxos label. Ms. Tait has been working with other chamber repertoire and during the past season, has performed the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with pianist William Corbett Jones.