THE FESTIVAL RELIES ON

a strong community.


THANK YOU!

Our Board

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Albert Marshall, President —Albert’s first experience of chamber music was as a freshman in college, where he heard the Juilliard perform Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4 and found himself entranced by witnessing the live performance and on the edge of his seat during the fourth movement pizzicato. He was hooked! Albert has been an advocate for the WWCMF since its inaugural concert and is pleased to say he has rarely missed Festival performances. Albert recently retired from his roles as an investor relations officer and corporate secretary at Banner Bank. He is a current and long-term board member and treasurer of the Walla Walla Symphony, as well as chair of the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation Design Committee. His musical training included the piano and violin, but he has many more performance credits as a chorister. In Walla Walla since 1978, he resides in a century-old home with his husband, Robert Warren.

Ryan Barnes, Vice-President—Ryan is the director of creative services at Whitman College. He is a strategic marketing and communications leader with nearly 20 years of experience in brand building, messaging, and creative process. He served as a board member to Simple Measures, the Washington State Bar Association’s Disciplinary Board, and the Seattle Opera's BRAVO! Club and others. He was previously the assistant director for design & brand marketing at Seattle University School of Law. He holds a BFA in Digital Design and an MFA in Arts Leadership.

Karen Hedine, Interim Treasurer — Bio coming soon.

Vicky McClellan, Secretary — Vicky moved to Walla Walla in 1988 to co-found our valley’s fifth winery with her husband. The following 28 years flew by as they raised three daughters, developed the vineyard, expanded the winery, and helped build the Walla Walla Valley AVA in camaraderie with fellow growers, winemakers, and all lovers of food and wine. Now happily retired, with the winery sold, Vicky devotes her time to family, gardening, community, and, at last, music!

BOARD MEMBERS

Jamie Guerin

John Jamison — John Jamison – John is a Walla Walla native (almost: arrived at age 2) who spent his career as a teacher at a private secondary school in Seattle. His musical interests have been primarily in classical guitar and renaissance lute, but since his retirement and return to Walla Walla in 2003 he has been primarily devoted to the Symphony and the Chamber Music Festival. He keeps busy by teaching in the Quest program for seniors at Walla Walla Community College.

Heather Morado — Heather Morado is an intellectual property and entertainment lawyer with more than 20 years in private practice, who earlier studied classical violin on a music scholarship at the University of Puget Sound and performed with Symphony Tacoma. After a 2024 wine-tasting getaway to Walla Walla, she and her husband found a home they loved and, sealed by a sold-out winter chamber music festival performance at Echolands Winery, moved from Seattle in spring 2025 after 25 years there. In her spare time, Heather enjoys cooking, traveling, and performing with the Walla Walla Symphony.

Timothy Machonkin — Tim Machonkin grew up in a two-chemist family in Rochester, NY, where he began violin at age 6, switched to viola in ninth grade to try for the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and soaked up concerts at the Eastman Theater and Eastman School of Music. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry and Cellular & Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford, did a postdoc in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, and taught at the University of Rochester before joining Whitman College's chemistry faculty in 2006 to focus on working with talented undergraduates alongside his research. A lifelong classical music enthusiast, he has been a frequent attendee at WWCMF since its early days.

Will Marengo

Nathan Viavant

Timothy Christie, ex officio— View bio.

Jamey Lamar, ex officio— View bio.

FOUNDER & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

  • Timothy Christie

Violinist and violist Timothy Christie enjoys a multifaceted career as performer, teacher, public speaker, and recording artist. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival (WWCMF), a nonprofit organization in southeastern Washington presenting more than 40 public chamber music events annually. He also serves on the faculty of the School of Music at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and was a member of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in Seattle for 15 years.

In demand as a recitalist and chamber musician, Christie regularly collaborates with some of the most exciting artists and ensembles in the industry, including Third Coast Percussion, Spektral Quartet, PRISM Quartet, PROJECT Trio, Sybarite5, Turtle Island Quartet, the Harlem Quartet, and The Westerlies. The solo violist of new-music ensemble Brave New Works since the group’s inception in 1997, Christie can be heard on recordings of William Bolcom’s Piano Quintet and William Albright’s Clarinet Quintet on AMP Records.

Christie earned dual undergraduate degrees in Music and English Literature at the University of Michigan, and a Master of Music degree, also from U of M. His principal teachers include Andrew Jennings and Paul Kantor (violin), and Yizhak Schotten (viola).

Christie occasionally dips a toe in the for-profit wing of the music business, having recorded countless film, television, and video game scores over the years. Away from music, Christie frequently dips a toe in cold mountain streams. His favorite fly in the box is a Parachute Adams. On land, Christie sometimes hits the ball straight. If you are his friend, you call his slice a “fade.” There’s no accounting for the occasional snap hook… It just happens.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

  • Jamey Lamar

    Jamey Lamar first came to the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival in 2010 with a microphone in hand, producing a recording session for Dave Glenn’s Sculpture Garden in Whitman College’s Chism Hall. Over the following years, as the Festival’s chief recording engineer, he heard nearly every note the Festival played, and he fell for the town that made it all possible. He has since made Walla Walla his home, and since April 2025 he has served as the Festival’s Executive Director, championing world-class chamber music in the Walla Walla Valley.

    Jamey’s path to arts leadership has been anything but a straight line. He began his formal training in high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts (now UNCSA), then followed his curiosity to a degree in Audio Recording from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Master of Music in Musicology from the University of Memphis. He went on to work as a staff engineer and editor at Classic Digital in Chicago and the Manhattan School of Music, and spent his summers recording at festivals across the country, including Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, and the Aspen Music Festival.

    In 2006 he founded Art Music Recording, whose releases on the Naxos label include the complete string quartets of Sergei Taneyev with the Carpe Diem String Quartet. His first commercial release, a disc of Stephen Hartke’s music with IRIS Orchestra, was named one of the ten best classical recordings of 2003 by the New York Times, and his recordings are regularly heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

    Jamey has spent more than 35 years in the arts, and he’s never stopped wanting to share the music. As Director of Education and Outreach for the Boise Philharmonic, he managed venues, musician contracts, and programs of every size. He also produced and hosted a weekly series on Boise State Radio, taught graduate seminars at Boise State University and music history courses for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and for many years gave pre-concert talks for IRIS Orchestra. Today he also serves as Concert Commentator for Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. That mix of backstage know-how and front-of-house enthusiasm now drives his work with the Festival, where he works alongside founder and Artistic Director Timothy Christie to connect audiences, artists, and donors.

    Jamey sits on the steering committee of the CoWalla Creative District and is a devoted supporter of the arts in all its forms. When he’s not at a concert, he’s probably traveling or in the kitchen, where cooking is his favorite way to unwind.

BOOKKEEPER

  • Elaine Jomwe

TRANSPORTATION & PRODUCTION SUPPORT

  • Nathan Fairbanks

VOLUNTEERS

  • Timothy Bowen

  • Suzanne Johnson

  • Laura Sellens

RECORDING ENGINEERS

  • Jamey Lamar

  • Andrew Meyer

LIGHTING DESIGN

  • Jay McAleer

  • Connie Yun

GRAPHIC DESIGN