NANCY BONAR, daughter of MERRILL GRUENBERG-BONAR and SANDRA KANTOFF-GREEN, was born February 06, 1959 in Los Angeles, CA. She married CHARLES-DAVID LEHRER, son of Antoinette Matacia and Charles John Lehrer, on September 04, 1983 in North Hollywood, CA.
Nancy Bonar Lehrer in 2011. Photo by Darrel Priebe
Nancy Bonar Lehrer’s paternal great-grandmother, Nechama Szteynman, with her three children: Nancy’s grandmother, Masza ‘Margie’, is 2nd from left. Losice, Poland c. 1908
Jacob ‘Jack’ Gruenberg and Masza ‘Margie’ Szteynman (in front); Nancy’s paternal grandparents on the beach in Santa Monica in 1926
Nancy’s maternal great-grandparents, Wolf and Jennie Brin, with their children. Nancy’s maternal grandmother Leila ‘Tutu’ Brin is 3rd from the right. c. 1910.
Sandra Kantoff-Green and Merrill Gruenberg-Bonar, Nancy Bonar’s parents. c. 1950
Nancy in 6th grade: North Hollywood, CA
Nancy is the youngest of three gifted children born to Merrill Gruenberg-Bonar and Sandra Kantoff-Green. As a young child, Nancy demonstrated a superior talent for Music, at first studying the flute, before eventually switching to the oboe.
While in high school, Nancy played the oboe in the California Institute of the Arts Youth Orchestra, an outstanding ensemble founded by Cesere Pascarella. On several occasions, Nancy was a featured soloist with the orchestra.
Nancy with Cesere Pascarella, conductor of the California Institute of the Arts Youth Orchestra
Nancy as oboe soloist with the California Institute of the Arts Youth Orchestra
Nancy received her Bachelor of Music degree in oboe at San Francisco State University in 1980. From there she headed to Boston University to study with the renowned principal oboist of the Boston Symphony, Ralph Gomberg. After completing her first year of studies with Gomberg for the Master of Music degree, Nancy ran out of money to pay for room & board and tuition. On Gomberg’s recommendation, Nancy then auditioned for Chick Lehrer at UMass in Amherst. Chick, who had studied with Gomberg some 18 years previous to this, accepted Nancy as his teaching assistant. Nancy completed her Master of Music degree at UMass in 1983, and in Fall of that year, Nancy and Chick got married.
One of Nancy’s UMass recitals.
After a period of concertizing in the Amherst area, Nancy began to take courses towards a degree in Computer Science, and graduated with a Master of Science in that area after 3 years of study. Shortly thereafter, she was employed by Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles. During the latter time period, Chick pursued the Ph. D in Music History at UCLA, graduating in 1990, and going on to teach at UCSB and CSUN.
Other fruitful positions followed for Nancy with companies primarily in the Thousand Oaks, CA area: ISX Corporation, Ernst & Young, GoTo.Com, Homestore.Com, JumpStart Wireless (her brother Jeff’s company) and Amgen. In December of 2007, Nancy was promoted to Director, in the Department of Information Services in the Enterprise Architecture Organization Unit at Amgen. In mid-2009, Nancy became the head of Enterprise Architecture.
During the Spring of 1983, after a year of study with Saul Perlmutter, the Hillel Rabbi at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Chick converted to Judaism. He and Nancy married on September 4, 1983.
Chick preparing his English horn part for a performance of Bach’s Matthew Passion
Chick playing honky-tonk piano in a hotel in Skagway, AK . c. 1982
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In addition to being an oboist and computer scientist, Nancy is a talented photographer.
Nancy & Chick Lehrer
The Matacia Family History Site 
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