- About Us
Concertmaster
Kathleen Comalli Dillon
Kathleen Comalli Dillon is the daughter of educators. Her father taught music and Spanish; every orchestral instrument could be found in her home when her dad brought them home for her to try. Her mom was a proud first-generation Italian-American; Kathleen learned Italian from her grandmother. Kathleen began begging for piano lessons at age 3; her parents gave in when she was 6. She gave piano recitals and won competitions in her young years. Her father played bass in the Santa Rosa Symphony; hearing that group inspired her to study an orchestral instrument. She began viola studies at age 13, and after studying at the San Francisco Conservatory, in New York, and in Europe, won positions in the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and the Oakland Symphony at age 19. She left viola in favor of the violin in 1989, when she successfully auditioned for a violin position with New York City Opera National Company. In her 10 years of service to the Company, she was privileged to serve as concertmaster for the last four.
Kathleen's Bay Area artistic activities include performing as concertmaster of Festival Opera, playing in the first violin sections of the Santa Rosa and Marin Symphonies, and sometimes performing as a substitute player with the San Francisco Opera. On the soundstage at Skywalker Ranch in Marin, she recorded Predator II, Ricochet, and the 2007 motion picture Zodiac. She has been concertmaster of the Vallejo Symphony since 1994.
Kathleen began the study of medicine in her late 30s, becoming a sonographer with specialties in physics, abdomen, and OB/GYN. At this time she is a well published editor doing medical editing and writing in, and from, French, Spanish, and Italian. She also teaches medical writing to non-native-English-speaking physicians. She does patient advocacy and education, medico-legal consulting, and social media management through her business, www.comalliwrites.com. Her hobbies are kayaking, practicing French and Italian, dogs and cats, support for live classical music, Buddhist philosophy, and the New York Times crossword puzzle. Her favorite places are Hawaii, Italy, and France.
Her violin is a copy of "the Nightingale" Stradivarius, made in 1993 by noted Bay Area violinmaker Thomas Croen (www.croenini.com). It was first heard in public on the Vallejo Symphony's trip to Akashi, Japan, in November 1993.
