About Us
Founded in 1997, Pacific International Concert Artists, Inc. (PICA) is a non-profit, performing arts organization dedicated to presenting chamber music concerts in distinctive and intimate venues. Acting as ambassadors, we bring together professional musicians from diverse musical backgrounds and geographic regions to acquaint audiences with a wide range of the music literature. Our featured guest artists have come from New York, Minnesota, Virginia, Connecticut, Oregon, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Japan and Brisbane, Australia.
Our programs have featured violin/piano duos, string duos, trios, quartets, sextets and octets, clarinet quintets, oboe quartets, music for piano and strings, harp and strings, and other mixed combinations of instruments. A wide range of repertoire has been performed including the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bartok, Gershwin, Puccini, Kodály, Debussy, Ravel and Richard Strauss. In 1999 we were privileged to commission and present the world premier of a string quartet by award-winning composer and University of Hawaii professor Donald Reid Womack. His music has been performed by the Honolulu Symphony and other orchestras on the mainland and abroad.
The performances are preceded by musical and historical commentaries by the Artistic Director and musicians. This ultimately affords the audience a better understanding of the music and greater appreciation for the performance. Following the concert, the audience is invited to meet and interact with the musicians and one another at a reception.
PICA also supports youth outreach programs, with its musicians performing for children in public schools and youth-related social service organizations. The PICA Chamber Players, a string quartet of professional musicians, has performed numerous holiday concerts for the children and teenagers at Hale Kipa and Kids Hurt Too.
Through our chamber music concerts and youth outreach programs we seek to foster a greater sense of community and appreciation for our island home.
Mission Statement
To educate the general public in music and other art forms. The means of providing such education includes, but is not limited to, public performances of music and other art forms.
Our Team
Board of Trustees
David Keli`ikuli, President
Shelley Silverman, Vice President
Lucia J. Berrones
Patricia A. Card
Sylvia Cook
Executive & Artistic Director
Gregory C. Wrenn
Executive Assistant
Anna S. Womack
Staff Biographies
Gregory C. Wrenn
Gregory C. Wrenn is the founder and Artistic Director of Pacific International Concert Artists. A native of Honolulu, Mr. Wrenn graduated from Punahou School and went on to receive his B.A. in music from Pomona College and an M.M. in violin performance from the Yale School of Music. While at Pomona he was the founder and first violinist of the Orfeo String Quartet. His orchestral experience has included positions with the Waterbury and Wallingford Symphonies (CT), the Pasadena Pops Orchestra (CA), and the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada in Spain. His early violin studies were with Sandra Wong in Honolulu. In college he studied with Yoko Matsuda of the Sequoia String Quartet and at Yale with Syoko Aki. He was a member of the first violin section of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (subsequently the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra) from 1995-2015. He currently resides in Oakland, CA, and commutes to Honolulu on a regular basis to perform with his colleagues in the islands.
Anna Womack
Anna Womack is a core performer with Pacific International Concert Artists and a violist with the former Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. Her career as an orchestral player began at the age of 12 with the Rome Symphony (Rome, Georgia, that is). While at Furman University in South Carolina, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and served as concertmaster of the school’s orchestra. After switching from violin to viola she received a Master’s degree in Viola Performance from Northwestern University studying with Peter Slowik and performing with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Civic Chamber Program. Anna began her first professional appointment with the Shreveport Symphony, but soon moved to Hawaii with her husband, composer Donald Reid Womack. While in the islands she has dabbled in Taiko (Japanese Drumming) with the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble, concertized with PICA, Chamber Music Hawaii, and Red Hot Lava Chamber Music Festival, and performed as soloist with the University of Hawai’i Chamber Orchestra and the Lutheran Church of Honolulu’s Abendmusiken Concert Series. Anna is the founder, violist and manager of the Pacific String Quartet. She teaches viola at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and in her spare time enjoys playing tennis and hiking.