The San Francisco Classical Guitar Society is an all-volunteer organization that depends heavily on the energy and creativity of its members to make a contribution to the world of classical guitar. Following are short biographies of some of those members who make it happen.

Tim Hall
Farinaz Agharabi
Lawrence Ferrara

Former Staff Members

Tim Hall    timhguitar@aol.com
Founder and Host of the Society

From his earliest recollections, Tim has always wanted to play the guitar, from his childhood in San Francisco's Chinatown where he practiced with a broom in his arms, until the age of sixteen when a summer job allowed him to purchase his first real guitar. A few guitars later he found himself in the music program at San Francisco State University where he graduated with a B.A. degree in music in 1976. During that time he studied with George Sakellariou and Rani Cochran.Today he continues his guitar studies with Lawrence Ferrara while keeping busy as an active husband and father as well as a guitarist in the Maynard Street Guitar Trio.

Tim works in the field of visual marketing products, where he has been making print displays for the last 30 years. Currently he manages a photo/digital lab called Color3Lab, located at 560 Nineteenth Street in San Francisco. It is where the Guitar Society has its administrative offices and where it held its first concerts. It is also where the Society's television program is filmed and recorded.

Farinaz Agharabi sfguitarsociety@yahoo.com    
President

Farinaz's bio will be added shortly.

Lawrence Ferrara    lferrara@aol.com,
Vice-President

Lawrence Ferrara has the distinction of being the first guitarist to receive a master's degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His teachers have included Julian Bream and George Sakellariou. An active teacher himself, Mr. Ferrara teaches guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, UC Berkeley and also serves as full time music professor at City College of San Francisco.

He has performed major recitals in San Francisco, Toronto, Barcelona, Los Angeles and at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. He has performed with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the Bay Chamber Symphony, the Classical Philharmonic and the San Francisco Conservatory's Chamber Orchestra and New Music Ensemble.

Among many awards, Mr. Ferrara was twice prize winner at the Carmel Classic Guitar Competition and received special recognition at the Toronto International Guitar Competition. He has served on the Music Advisory Panel to the National Endowment of the Arts and recently received a prize for the most outstanding online Music Appreciation course given by the California Virtual Campus. Mr. Ferrara is the author and performer of a sequence of music books titled The Student Repertoire Series for Guitar, with accompanying CD's, published by Guitar Solo of San Francisco and has a solo CD of American Guitar Works on the VGo recordings label.

Former Staff Members

Gyan Riley, Artistic Director

Ignacio Gonzalez, Treasurer

Tom Leisek, Vice President

Ernest Culver, Secretary

Matt Hopkins, Treasurer