Our Team

Rem Djemilev

Music Director and Conductor

We are particularly lucky to have as our music director and conductor Rem Djemilev, who is well known in the Bay Area for his superior musicianship and wonderful, positive work with young musicians.

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in the former USSR, Rem Djemilev began his musical studies at age five and by the age of seven had won first prize in the All-Republican violin competition. Rem went on to study violin at the Moscow Conservatory under the great virtuoso Leonid Kogan and viola under Feodor Druzhinin.

In 1988 he toured the United States as a member of the American-Soviet Youth Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta and Dmitri Kataenko. After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, Rem moved to the United States. He has toured extensively throughout Europe and the US with the Arlekin String Quartet.

Along with teaching private violin and viola lessons, Rem teaches at the Crowden School in Berkeley and the Marin Academy in San Rafael. He conducts the Young Performers’ String Orchestra and the Diablo Regional Youth Orchestra in Walnut Creek, and plays in many chamber groups and orchestras in the Bay Area.

Ben Spilman

Assistant Conductor

Ben Spilman has been with YPCO since 1983, when he brought his seven-year-old daughter, Leah, to her first rehearsal. He offered to help conductor Ellen Mindel tune the students’ instruments and stayed on to become an enduring and dearly loved mainstay of the organization.

Ben began playing violin when he was seven, studying first under his father and then with other teachers in the Chicago area. His most influential teacher was here in Berkeley: Vincent DiBianca, a former member of the San Francisco Symphony. Ben has played with a number of local orchestras over the years, including the Berkeley Opera and Berkeley and Vallejo symphonies.

Ben started teaching in 1986 at Ecole Bilingue, the French/English school in Berkeley. Since then, in addition to private students, he has coached string ensembles and sectionals at Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Le Conte Schools, Berkeley Hight School, East Bay Suzuki Association group classes, Berkeley Youth Orchestra, Oakland Youth Orchestra, and, of course, YPCO. A man of many talents, Ben also makes fine violins and violas!

Sofia Card-Lopez

Orchestra Manager

Sofia Card-Lopez began studying violin at the age of 7. She joined YPCO at the age of 10 and is Principal Second Violinist and a Violin Coach, she will be continuing as a student at YPCO for one more year while she finishes her senior year of high school. She plays classical and folk music under the instruction of Lila Sklar.

Rob Shafer

Cello Coach

Rob has many years of experience teaching cello lessons and string ensembles classes. He also composes, arranges and publishes music for teaching groups with diverse skill levels. Rob offers an instrument rental service as well.