Paul Binkley

I am a guitarist and plucked string player. I play concert classical guitar, classical mandolin and other fretted instruments. I enjoy many styles of music including chamber music, early music, and new music. As a freelance musician in the San Francisco Bay Area, I constantly play in duos and trios with flute, violin, cello and other instruments, and I have taken to arranging music for these ensembles. These are the arrangements I am making available here.

When I was in school I was asked to play mandolin in a performance of George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children, which led to many performances of classical and contemporary works on mandolin family instruments. I also play mandola in the Modern Mandolin Quartet, which has toured nationwide and in Europe and recorded five CD's. I will be making some mandolin arrangements available here as well.

I have performed as an ensemble player with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the San Francisco Opera, Ballet, and Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony and many other local orchestras. I am guitar instructor at Mills College where I was guitar soloist on the Mills College Centennial Album. I have also recorded contemporary pieces for Opus One Records and Centaur Records. Other recording credits include mandolin on the San Francisco Symphony recording of Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet' with Michael Tilson Thomas.