Agarita Chamber Players

Valentine’s Dinner Menu

Salad of Bibb Lettuce & Frisée

Stilton Crumbles - Balsamic Vinaigrette - Poached Quail Egg

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Braised Boneless Wagyu Short Ribs

Italian Burgundy Black Truffle

Whipped Potatoes - Grilled Asparagus - Crew Cut Carrots

- or the alternate entrée-

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

Fresh Basil - Parmesan, Cottage, and Mozzarella Cheese

Eggplant - Zucchini - Yellow Squash - Baby Spinach

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Dessert Duo

Valrhona Chocolate Mousse

Passionfruit Panna Cotta

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Wine

Louis Jadot Mâcon-Villages Chardonnay

Mâcon-Villages, Burgundy, France

Educated Guess Cabernet Sauvignon

Napa Valley, California

Kraemer Rose Vin Mousseux

Loire Valley, France

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The RL Dining Difference

100% Beeswax Candles & Silver Candelabra

Silver Plated Charger Plates

Personalized Place Cards

100% Cotton Italian Napkins

Strasbourg Sterling Silver Cutlery

Laguiole Style Wood Handled Steak Knives

Hand Polished Riedel Wine & Water Glasses

Complimentary Aqua Panna Bottled Water

Restrooms with Individual Use Towels & Fine Perfumes

Uniformed, White Gloved Servers

Low Front of House Staff to Guest Ratio of about 1 to 8

Temperature Controlled Well-stocked Wine Cellar

Collection of Exceptionally Fine Spirits

Complimentary Parking and SAPD Officer

Agarita Valentine’s Program

Piano Quartet no. 2 in E-flat Major, 3rd Movement by Dvorak

Waltz Op. 64 No. 2 by Chopin

Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, 2nd Movement by Grieg

La Calle 92 by Piazzolla

Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, 3rd Movement by Schumann

Piano Quartet in A major, 4th Movement by Brahms

All proceeds benefit Agarita Inspires!, Agarita’s educational initiative providing innovative music education to over 12,000 students in Bexar County at no charge.

In addition, there will be a silent auction featuring an 18 hole round of golf at the Oak Hills Country Club with Daniel Anastasio, an Agarita House Concert, and other items. 

An innovative chamber ensemble dedicated to producing bold, collaborative musical events, Agarita offers a new way to experience classical and contemporary music. Founded by Daniel Anastasio (piano), Marisa Bushman (viola), Ignacio Gallego (cello) and Sarah Silver Manzke (violin), Agarita nourishes the local community through artistic collaborations, education, community engagement, and free, adventurous programming. With concise, eclectic performances that are “splendid – unified, spirited, [and] well prepared” (Greenberg, Incident Light), the young chamber group offers a new, open-armed experience for listeners.

Rooted in San Antonio, Texas, Agarita works intimately with local artists of various genres to weave cross-artistic narratives for each concert. One program with lighting artist Chuck Drew turned the Granary at historic Mission San Jose into a kaleidoscope of color set to music; another with PharmTable chef Elizabeth Johnson paired musical selections with dishes for the audience; another with the educational arts institution SAY Sí wove students’ spoken word into the program. Other partnerships and collaborations have included the McNay and San Antonio Art Museums, bass singer Cameron Beauchamp from the Grammy Award-winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth, poet Laura Van Prooyen, sculptor Danville Chadbourne, members of the Escher String Quartet, jazz pianist Aaron Prado, writer and Guggenheim fellow Oscar Casares, San Antonio poet laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, the Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival, glassblower Gini Garcia, composer Nadia Botello (for a concert experienced inside of a pool), Clementine restaurant, the City of San Antonio, Opera San Antonio, and more. These concerts have taken place in 41 unique venues across all 10 San Antonio districts, all free of charge, making the music accessible to the whole of the San Antonio community.

In its 5th year, Agarita continues to expand its scope, reach, and impact. Between large-scale community concerts, outdoor shows with its portable concert stage the Humble Hall, and its new educational program Agarita Inspires!, Agarita is giving 46+ concerts across the year, including 30 educational programs for more than 15,000 young student — all free of charge.

As a nonprofit organization, Agarita believes that the arts should be accessible to everyone in its community. Agarita presents free public concerts, performs at local schools, and offers opportunities for other artists through its collaborations. Follow Agarita’s upcoming projects and future performances at www.agarita.org or for any questions, email agaritachamberplayers@gmail.com.

A native New Yorker, violist Marisa Bushman’s musical career has reached all corners of the world. Ms. Bushman is currently a member of the San Antonio Symphony’s viola section, where she also serves as the delegate to the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. As a founding member of Agarita and an avid and active chamber music collaborator across her career, she has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South and Central America, South Africa, and China.

Ms. Bushman received her Bachelor’s Degree in Viola Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Masters in Viola Performance at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her principal teachers have included Atar Arad, and Paul Coletti. From 2008 to 2010, she was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, where she frequently sat principal under Michael Tilson Thomas and was a prominent fixture in the New World Symphony’s Chamber Music Series. This summer, Marisa is looking forward to her third summer at the Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. In her free time, Marisa enjoys taking walks with her husband Ignacio and their dogs, Maggie and Emma, riding her tandem road bike on the mission trail, cooking up a storm, collecting wine, and shopping for shoes.

The Spanish-American cellist Ignacio Gallego Fernandez has an active performance career that has taken him around the world, from Europe to Asia to the Americas.

As a select scholarship recipient from the Spanish government, Ignacio received his Bachelor of Arts from the Manhattan School of Music in New York as a student of Nathaniel Rosen and Marion Feldman. After receiving a scholarship to Indiana University, Bloomington’s Jacobs School of Music, Mr. Gallego completed his Masters of Music degree, where he was a disciple of Janos Starker and a member of the prestigious Kuttner Quartet. He furthered his education at Indiana University by obtaining a Performance Diploma under the tutelage of Eric Kim.

Recent career highlights include solo appearances with the National Orchestra of El Salvador, which culminated in a solo recital at their National Museum of Art and solo performances with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas tour of China. Ignacio has also performed several times at Carnegie Hall, including a solo performance as part of the 100th year celebration of the Hispanic Society of America. Ignacio can also be heard in one of the latest Mercedes-Benz commercials.

Ignacio resides in San Antonio, Texas where, along with being a founding member of Agarita, he serves as the Education Coordinator for the ensemble. He is a familiar face in the cello section of the San Antonio Symphony and maintains a distinguished private studio.

Described as an “eloquent soloist” (Boston Globe) who plays “with lucid heat” (New York Times), violinist Sarah Silver has a multifaceted and international musical career as a soloist, chamber musiDescribed as an “eloquent soloist” (Boston Globe) who plays “with lucid heat” (New York Times), violinist Sarah Silver has a multifaceted and international musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and teacher. After spending the past four seasons as Assistant Concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony, she is currently the Acting Associate Concertmaster.

Championing contemporary music, Ms. Silver is particularly passionate about sharing the works of living and recent composers. As part of the 2014 Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music, she became only the second violinist to perform Steven Mackey’s violin concerto, Beautiful Passing. After spending three summers as a fellow, where she won the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize, Ms. Silver was invited back to be a member of the New Fromm Players, a distinguished chamber music ensemble devoted to performing contemporary music. Performances of Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 1 as well as the United States premiere of Epigrams, Carter’s last written work, prompted Musical America to feature her as the New Artist of the Month for September 2013.

Residencies have included a teaching fellowship at Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Colombia as well as two seasons in Hong Kong as an artist-in-residence for The Intimacy of Creativity: The Bright Sheng Partnership. Ms. Silver has also performed as a soloist with the San Antonio Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, and Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra. Other music festivals she has performed at include Kneisel Hall, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, Spoleto Festival USA, and Aspen Music Festival.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Ms. Silver received a Bachelor of Music degree from Carnegie Mellon University, studying with Andrés Cárdenes, followed by a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory, studying with Malcolm Lowe. An avid teacher, she also pursued a minor in music education, earning K-12 certification as an undergraduate following student teaching placements in both general music and instrumental instruction. Following graduate school, Ms. Silver was a fellow for two years at the New World Symphony in Miami.

Ms. Silver is thrilled to be a founding member of Agarita, an innovative chamber music series in her new and beloved home of San Antonio. Simultaneously expanding her career into the business world, Ms. Silver has also served as Marketing Coordinator for the San Antonio Symphony since November 2017 and is pursuing a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance at the University of Texas San Antonio.

A soloist and chamber musician based in San Antonio, Texas, pianist Daniel Anastasio combines an intellectual curiosity with “technical prowess and emotional sensitivity” (Rivard Report). His performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3, conducted by Leon Fleisher with the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra, was “the highlight to everyone’s ears, if the full-house of standing ovation were any indication” (ECM reviews). Anastasio was a concerto competition finalist at Cornell University, Stony Brook University, and The Juilliard School, where he won the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He received fellowships to Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall, and Yellow Barn Music Festival.

In addition to co-founding Agarita, Anastasio is an active proponent of new music, and is the co-founder and pianist of Unheard-of//Ensemble, a group that creates engaging interdisciplinary works in direct collaboration with emerging artists and composers across the United States, and tours actively.

The Director of Keyboard Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at San Antonio College, Anastasio received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Philosophy at Cornell University under Xak Bjerken, a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School under Jerome Lowenthal, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University, under Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl.