Last January concert pianist Audrey Vardanega founded a nonprofit called Musiacs of the Bay to present top-tier chamber music concerts to Bay Area audiences and encourage talented music students from less affluent backgrounds to realize that they can have a life in music too.

Smiling students and teachers with Enriching Lives through Music poured out of the brightly colored van parked outside of the Marin Community Foundation last month. They’d arrived to perform a special concert for MCF staff in appreciation of a dream come true…

An instrumental ensemble featuring six of the original students in the Enriching Lives Through Music (ELM) program in the Canal Neighborhood of San Rafael showed how far they’ve come as musicians over the past decade, turning in a dynamic performance of classical music in the IJ Lobby Lounge…