New England Suzuki Institute

Clorinda Noyes - Director

Clorinda Noyes (Violin/Director) teaches from her home studio in Portland (ME) with her cellist husband where she has been established since 1983. She is a violinist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. She and her husband form the duo core of "Encore!" a service providing classical music for special occasions. Originally from Long Island, NY, she has had private Suzuki studios in Arlington Heights, Illinois and in Brewer, ME. She and husband Dick have three adult children, all professional musicians. Her Suzuki training has been with John Kendall, Helen Brunner, and Ronda Cole. She attended Hartt College of Music, University of Hartford, (CT) for several years, and then acquired her BA degree from the State University of New York at Albany. She has directed the New England Suzuki Institute since June 1989 and has been a faculty member of the Western Massachusetts Suzuki Institute in Northampton, MA since July of 1995 and the Greater Washington Suzuki Institute 2004 -2008.

Carlough Faulkner-Carroll - Violin Faculy

Carlough Faulkner-Carroll (Violin)discovered her love of teaching when she began tutoring younger violin students as a high school student. After 15 years teaching full-time, she still gets just as excited every time a student gets the shining look that says "I've got it!" A sought after clinician who is known for her ability to connect with children, Carlough strives to help students reach their full potential and to enjoy the process with them. She is on on the faculty of the New England Suzuki Institute and the New Jersey Suzuki Workshop, and has taught at numerous other workshops. In addition to performance degrees from New England Conservatory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a winner of the School of Music Concerto Competition, Carlough has pursued long-term Suzuki teacher training with Teri Einfeldt as well as short courses with Ronda Cole, Edmund Sprunger, and Ed Kreitman among others. She also has received training from Dorothy Jones in Suzuki Early Childhood Education, a curriculum for newborns through three year olds. Carlough has been very active in the Boston area Suzuki community since 2001, when she first joined the board of the Massachusetts chapter of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. She has served as the director of the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival, then as volunteer coordinator, and recently as the president of this regional organization. As a soloist, Carlough has performed the concertos of Barber and Sibelius among others, and has performed many recitals and chamber concerts. At the moment, her performing is focused on Hungarian and Transylvanian village music. She resides and teaches in Bedford, MA, with her husband, her little boy, and pet corgi, where she gets inspiration daily from her 40 students.

Susan Fuller - Violin Faculy

Susan Fuller (Violin) received her Masters in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan and her Bachelor of Music degree from Vanderbilt University with majors in Violin Performance and German. She has participated in many music festivals including the Meadowmount School for Strings, Encore, and the Aspen Music Festival where she served as Concertmaster of the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra. She has soloed with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, the Vanderbilt University Orchestra, the Evansville Philharmonic and the Southeastern University Chamber Orchestra. She has competed at the State, Regional and National level in the Music Teachers National Association Competition. In 2003, she was runner-up at the national competition in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her performances were described by Paul Kantor, Professor of Music at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as "of the highest technical level with the ability to establish an immediate rapport with audiences and speak to them through her artistry." Her main teachers have been Paul Kantor, Christian Teal, and Carol Dallinger. Before moving to the DC area, Susan served as Assistant Professor of Music at Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL and is also a faculty member of the Tennessee Valley Music Festival and Western Kentucky University's Suzuki String Festival. Susan is currently the chair of the Suzuki Strings Department at the Levine School of Music where she teaches Suzuki and traditional violin.

Joanne Keefe - Violin Faculy

Joanne Keefe (Violin) teaches Suzuki violin and directs the Suzuki Ensemble violin group at the Community Music School of Webster University in St. Louis. Under her direction, the Suzuki Ensemble has performed in the St. Louis area and has traveled to Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Europe. She received her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance, cum laude, from Lawrence University Conservatory. Her M.M. is in Violin Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she completed Suzuki teacher training with William Starr. Other instructors have included John Kendall and Calvin Wiersma. Joanne has taught privately in Boulder, Colorado, served on the violin faculty as String Coordinator at the Lawrence Arts Academy in Appleton, Wisconsin, and was an elementary string specialist at Ladue and Webster Groves school districts in St. Louis. She also enjoys teaching at music institutes and workshops.

Rachel Walker - Violin Faculy

Rachel Walker (Violin) earned her Masters in Violin Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy at University of Maryland, College Park, where she was a student of Ronda Cole and David Salness, and her Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music with academic honors, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and David Updegraff. She has participated at festivals such as Tanglewood's BUTI program, Musicorda (MA), and the Aspen (CO) Center for Quartet Studies. Rachel has had extensive experience as a chamber musician. As a founding violinist of the Chiara Quartet, she studied with members of the American, Audubon, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, and Orion string quartets. Born into a musical family, she began playing the violin at the age of three in her mother's Suzuki program. She enjoys performing both chamber and orchestral music and is currently teaching and performing in the Bay Area.

Aimee Morrill Briant - Violin Faculy

Aimee Morrill Briant (Violin) graduated with a BA degree in violin performance from the Hartt School of Music (Hartford, CT). She completed her long-term teacher training from the Suzuki pedagogy program at Hartt, where she was a student of Linda Fiore, Teri Einfeldt, and Brian Lewis. She has taken additional Suzuki teacher training with Ronda Cole, Michele George, and Carrie Reuning. A Maine native and "Suzuki kid" herself, Aimee began violin at age three with Clorinda Noyes. She started her first violin studio in Bangor, ME in 1996 and since has taught in East Hartford, CT, and at the Suzuki School of Newton in Newton, MA . Upon moving to New Jersey in 2006, Aimee opened the Crescendo Suzuki Studio and joined the faculty at the Westminster Conservatory in Princeton. She currently teaches her Suzuki violin program at her studio in Mine Hill, NJ. She is a former assistant director for the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival, former coordinator for the Portland String Quartet Workshop at Colby College, and is the director for the New Jersey Suzuki Workshop in Princeton, NJ. She is an energetic chamber musician and freelances as an orchestral, chamber, and English folk dance musician.

Beverly Shin - Violin Faculy

Beverly Shin made her solo debut with the Houston Symphony at age 17 and has since appeared with numerous orchestras throughout the United States. As an active chamber musician, she has performed at Bargemusic, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Yellow Barn, and Kneisel Hall. Recently she completed a residency at the Interlochen Arts Academy with the Avalon Quartet. She is also a member of the IRIS Orchestra and a frequent guest performer with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra. An avid proponent of music by living composers, she has also performed frequently with Boston Musica Viva, the Harvard Group for New Music, and Boston's Callithumpian Consort.

Ms. Shin has been a Teaching Artist for the Philadelphia Orchestra and is currently on the chamber music faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. She has also been Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Memphis and Donald Weilerstein's teaching assistant at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Ms. Shin has a pending doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music, as well as Master's Degrees in both Violin Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Nathan Kolosko - Suzuki Guitar Faculty

Nathan Kolosko (Guitar) (www.nathankolosko.com), University of Buffalo; M.M., University of Denver. Critically acclaimed guitarist/composer, Nathan Kolosko has performed throughout the US, Europe and Asia. As a musician, Nathan is compelled to expand the voice of the guitar through composition, improvisation, and collaborations with both musicians and visual artists. He is currently collaborating with visual artist Ling-Wen Tsai on several inter-disciplinary projects, and performs regularly with flute player Carl Dimow. Nathan has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including grants from the Allied Arts Foundation and D'Addario Strings. As a composer, Nathan has made numerous contributions to the repertoire for the guitar. Doberman-Yppan & Productions D'Oz currently publishes his works. In addition to being a performer and composer Nathan is a teacher dedicated to furthering the pedagogy of the guitar.

Dick Noyes - Cello Faculty

Dick Noyes (Cello, Teen Orchestra) attended the Hartt College of Music, University of Hartford (CT), then acquired a BA from the State University of New York at Albany, and went on to earn a Master of Music from the University of Maine, Orono. His Suzuki teacher training was with Jean Dexter and Yvonne Tait. He was the public school string instrumental teacher for Brewer, ME public schools from 1975-1983 and then held the same position in the Windham, ME public schools from 1983-1992. He conducted the Portland Youth Symphony and its string training orchestra component from Sept 1983 to June 1997. He has held the assistant principal cello chair position of the Portland Symphony Orchestra since September 1983 and is a cellist with PORT, the opera in Maine. He is founder and performer for Encore! providing music for special occasions. He has had a private Suzuki cello studio in Portland since 1983. He has been a faculty member of the New England Suzuki Institute since the late 1980's and of the Western Massachusetts Suzuki Institute in Northampton since July 1999.

Malgosia Lis - Piano Faculty

Malgosia Lis (Piano) Malgosia Lis (Piano) earned her MM in piano pedagogy at the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poland. She was a piano faculty at the School for Gifted Youth in Poznan, Poland. She has given numerous recitals in the United States, Poland and France. She is a faculty member at the Hartt Community Division at The Hartt School in West Hartford CT, where she is the Coordinator for the Suzuki Piano Department. In addition she is the Piano Coordinator for the Hartt Suzuki Institute. Her Suzuki training has been with Yasuko Joichi, Francoise Pierredon, Doris Koppelman, Doris Harrel, and Mary Craig Powell. She has been a faculty member of New England Suzuki Institute (since 2003), Maine Suzuki Workshop (since 2004) and Queens Piano Workshop (since 2005). She has been active in the Hartford Chapter of Connecticut State Music Teachers Association where she served as a Vice-President, Newsletter Editor, and a Chairman of the Audrey Thayer Piano Competition. She was the Assistant Coordinator for the 2010 Biennial Suzuki Conference in Minneapolis and the Coordinator for the 2012 Conference.

She maintains an active studio of 40 students. Her students participate every year in many concerts and competitions in the Tri-State area.

Malgosia lives in West Hartford with her handsome husband and her three lovely children, ages 20, 16, and 10 - all Suzuki musicians.

Marina Obukovsky - Piano Faculty

Marina Obukovsky (Piano) received her Masters in Music degree with highest honors from Kharkov Conservatory (Ukraine). While a student she won First Prize in the Kharkov College Competition. She was a piano faculty at Kharkov Conservatory and Special Music School for Gifted Children, and performed solo and chamber music recitals throughout Ukraine and Russia. She has lived in New York . Since 1993, and is currently a Piano Faculty and former Chair for the Department for the Young at Mannes College of Music (Preparatory Division), and a Piano Faculty at The School for Strings (New York City). She completed her long-term Suzuki training at The School for Strings with Sheila Keats, and some supplementary pedagogy course with Mary Craig Powell. In addition she is a faculty at Hartt Suzuki Institute and frequently teaches workshops at Queens College in New York.

Anthony Antolini, PhD

Anthony Antolini , PhD, (Sightsinging) is currently on the faculty at Bowdoin College, where he conducts the Bowdoin Chorus and teaches music theory classes. His specialty is Russian choral music. In 1988, he published the first modern edition of Sergei Rachmaninoff's 'Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom' and toured the east coast of the US and major cities in the former USSR with acclaimed performances of the work. His award-winning documentary, 'Rediscovering Rachmaninoff', has been aired nationally on public television and is being broadcast overseas. Tony is also the music director at St. John's Church in Thomaston and artistic director of Down East Singers and the Rachmaninoff Choir. Tony was named the Maine ACDA Distinguished Choral Director for 1999-2000. In the summer of 2002 he conducted the Rachmaninoff Choir in a concert tour of Russia with performances in Siberia and the Russian Far East. In May of 2003 he received the Bowdoin College Alumni Award for Faculty and Staff. In February 2008, he was a featured speaker on Greek Choral Music at the Eastern Division Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Hartford, Conn. His latest publication is a new performance edition of Rachmaninoff's 'All-Night Vigil' (also known as the 'Vespers'), was published in 2011. His next publishing project is a bilingual edition of Stravinsky's 'Les Noces' (The Village Wedding) for two pianists, percussion, chorus and soloists. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College and holds graduate degrees from Stanford University. He is editor of Russian choral music published by E.C. Schirmer-Boston and of the Icons in Sound series published by Paraclete Press. In July 2009 he led the Rachmaninoff Choir on a concert tour of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. His latest musical venture is the Mozart Mentors Orchestra, founded in 2010 and now in its second season. The Orchestra features NESI string faculty and their top students. The ensemble accompanies large-scale choral works Tony conducts with the Bowdoin Chorus and Down East Singers. Last season's featured work was the Mozart Vespers with MPBN's Suzanne Nance as soprano soloist. The Mozart Mentors Orchestra recently performed at Bowdoin's Studzinski Recital Hall in Handel's Music for the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Tony has been a NESI faculty member since 1997.

Elizabeth Berg

Liz Berg (Taiko Drumming) began studying Taiko in 2001 with Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka, at the San Francisco Taiko Dojo. She was inspired by performances of the SFTD, the San Jose Taiko group, and Kodo. Elizabeth has performed with the San Francisco Taiko Dojo in California, Arizona, Japan, and in 2006, at the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine, with the San Francisco Taiko Dojo. She has also performed with Burlington Taiko Group across New England, under the leadership of Stuart Paton, also an alumnus of the SFTD. Elizabeth lives in Portland, Maine and teaches Taiko classes at the Taiko Maine Dojo, located on Commercial St, Hobson's Wharf, Portland, as well as at Colby and Bates Colleges. For further information please email elizberg2001@yahoo.com.

Greg Boardman

Greg Boardman holds a BM in Viola Performance from the University of Southern Maine and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. Currently on the applied music faculty of Bates College, string specialist for the Lewiston Public Schools, and on the staff of Maine Fiddle Camp, which he founded, he has performed and taught fiddling extensively on all string instruments throughout Maine and beyond for more than three decades. For the past two years he has been a recipient of the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program grant of the Maine Arts Commission, being recognized as a Traditional Arts Master on fiddle. Greg is very pleased to return to the New England Suzuki Institute! Fiddling for cello class will include learning repertoire for the contradance at the end of the institute. Cellists will learn the melodies and work on style appropriate to the music, as well as rhythmic accompaniments based on chords.

Nancy Cash-Cobb

Nancy Cash-Cobb (Orff, Children's Choir) has been teaching general music for over 30 years. She is currently a general music teacher for the Windham School Department in Windham, Maine. In 1999, she was named Maine Music Educator of the Year. Nancy is president of the Maine chapter, American Orff-Schulwerk Association and the conference chairperson for the Maine Music Educators Association. She holds a M.Ed from USM and a Level 3 Certification in Orff-Schulwerk from the University of Illinois. She is a NESI faculty member since 1989 and a member of the board of directors since 2006.

Ellen Gawler

Ellen Gawler is a celebrated fiddler conversant in many styles of fiddling including New England, Quebecois, Irish, Scottish and Maritime. She began fiddling at a young age traveling to Ireland, Britain, and the Shetland Islands to study with the masters and collect tunes. She has toured the Northeast, Northwest and Europe and has recorded on 8 occasions with groups such as Pineland Fiddlers, Village Harmony, The Gawler Family, Trillium, and Childsplay. She is a Suzuki violin/fiddle teacher of two decades and teaches at fiddle workshops, music camps and at her home in Belgrade. She has been on the NESI faculty since 1992.

Chiharu Naruse

Chiharu (Piano) holds a Master Degree in Music Performance and a Masters Degree in Music Instruction from the Hochschule Fur Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin. In Berlin, Chiharu studied piano under Klaus Baessler and Lied Accompaniment under Wolfram Rieger. Chiharu has performed throughout the world in recitals and piano competitions including the Hyogo Piano Competition in Japan(silver prize), the Clara Haskil piano competition in Switzerland,the Pescara Academie piano competition in Italy and International Mozart Wettbewerb in Salzburg, Austria.

In the spring of 2002,Chiharu moved to the United States to study under Frank Glazer. Since her arrival, Chiharu has given several recitals at Bates college and University of Maine at Farmington and at Augusta. She has also played concerts with the Portland String Quartet, with the DaPonte String Quartet, and with Frank Glazer. She has performed Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, Mozart's Piano Concerto K466, and Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Augusta Symphony. Also, she has performed as a featured artist at the Ocean Park Music Festival and at the Franco-American Heritage Center.

In addition to maintaining a regular performance schedule, Chiharu is also a well-respected music teacher, chamber music coach, music competion adjudicator and accompanist, with many of her students receiving competition prizes. Chiharu currently is a member of the applied music faculties at Bates college and the Portland Conservatory of Music.

Benjamin Noyes

Benjamin Noyes (Cello)grew up in Portland, inheriting a rich musical/pedagogical heritage from his parents. He found local acclaim immediately and while attending Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Irene Sharp invited him to study in San Francisco where he attended the School of the Arts and San Francisco Conservatory's preparatory division. He won numerous awards, including top prizes in NFAA's ARTS Recognition, National Federation of Music Clubs, and National ASTA competitions, as well as being selected by Yo-Yo Ma to participate as soloist and recitalist throughout China to perform with the Beijing, Chengdu, Shenzen and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. As a fellowship recipient he attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, Yale's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota Chamber Music Festival, the Aspen Festival, and Meadowmount. As an undergraduate, he attended Eastman School of Music, received his BM from Rice University and his MM from Northwestern University where he participated in the Chicago Symphony's Civic Orchestra program playing under maestros Pierre Boulez, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Daniel Barenboim, amongst others. He held a position with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and various summer opera orchestras for five years before moving to Virginia to focus on teaching and performing. A multi-faceted individual, Benjamin has as many talents as interests. After a year playing with the Roanoke Symphony, Roanoke Opera Orchestra, Miami Symphony and adjunct faculty at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA where Ben met the love of his life the beautiful Pauline Bonnet, Ben and Pauline have moved to Maine where he is building a private studio and continues to garner acclaim for performances of solo recital programs, chamber ensemble concerts as well as various non-classical ventures. Pursuing the artist's life has led him to collaborations and performances throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as teaching, coaching, and motivating individuals of all ages and professions. He also finds joy in many areas including but not limited to composing, recording, producing, drawing and writing.

Chuck Speicher

Chuck Speicher (Musical History Mystery Tour, Blues Harmony and Improvisation) currently teaches piano privately from his home studio in Montclair, New Jersey and is keyboard and technology director for "Little Kids Rock", a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching instrumental music in hundreds of public schools across the country. He was Suzuki piano coordinator for Montclair State University Preparatory Center for the Arts between 1996 and 2005, also teaching music history and music theory. His guest teaching and performing engagements have included the Wellington Suzuki Workshop in New Zealand, the Suzuki Institute of Alaska, the International Music Festival in Ohio, the South Carolina Suzuki Institute at Furman University, the New England Suzuki Institute in Maine, the Summer Jazz Workshop at Montclair State University, and the Stokes State Forest Music Festival in New Jersey. In 2006 he was a judge in the Alaska State MTNA piano competition and adjudicator for piano students in the cities of Anchorage and Homer. Chuck freelances regularly on piano and keyboard and in 2002 traveled with the "Crazy Energy Orchestra" to Morocco to perform at the wedding of King Mohammad VI. He also performs throughout New York and New Jersey with jazz guitarist Ritchie Duraney and has had solo piano performances at New Jersey Festival of the Atlantic, William Patterson University and Montclair State University. In 1989 Chuck was the recipient of the New Jersey State Governor's Award in Arts Education. Chuck is currently on the faculty of the Indianapolis Academy of Music Summer Festival in Indiana as well as the Lecturer in Residence for the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival in Massachusetts.

David Yang

David Yang (Viola, Amateur Chamber Music) has been heard throughout North America and Europe in collaboration with members of the Borromeo, Brentano, Lark, Miro and Tokyo String Quartets. Recent concert highlights include performances of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra in Canada and in England. As an advocate of new music he has commissioned and premiered dozens of works and as leader of the storytelling/music troupe Auricolae, David developed a residency program to foster the creation of new compositions by public school students. He is currently Artistic Director of the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival and Director of Chamber Music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Martha Shackford - Teacher Trainer

Martha Shackford currently lives in Portland, OR, where she has a small private studio and is in the first year of launching a Suzuki violin program in a Portland Public School kindergarten. As a violin teacher trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Martha offers a 2-year course for violin and viola for area teachers, including the optional internship which staffs the Portland Suzuki Project. Martha has had private studios in Philadelphia, PA, Fayetteville, AK, the Washington DC area, and Mount Vernon, IA. She has taught in inner city public schools, conducted youth orchestras, directed and founded a Suzuki School at the University of Arkansas, served on the board of directors of many organizations, been involved in several Latin American Suzuki projects, writes for professional journals, and travels extensively doing Suzuki workshops and summer institutes. Martha particularly enjoys reading, knitting, movies, meditating, socializing, hiking, and traveling. Her greatest passion is in finding ways to develop community and is thus dedicated to reaching children who do not have enough money to join a private tuition-based studio.

Dean Stein - Violin

Dean Arthur Stein , violinist, has performed throughout the world in recital, with orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and as soloist. This season's highlights included a concerto performance with the Maine Music Society and an invitation to travel to Seoul, Korea, where he taught and performed in recital with pianist Jinho Kim. Audiences throughout America have heard Mr. Stein through his past performances as violinist with the DaPonte String Quartet. His work with the Quartet frequently garnered critical acclaim, as in a DaPonte recording of which The Strad magazine wrote, "'Dean Arthur Stein excels in the first violin's improvisatory cadenza, his fierce yet luxuriant tone setting the mood of bitter intensity." In 2003, Mr. Stein was invited to direct the Arcady Music Festival in Bar Harbor, Maine. At Arcady, Mr. Stein performed in chamber ensembles, set the programming for the internationally renowned artists he invited, and gave high priority to educational programs, bringing musicians to schools to perform regularly for Maine schoolchildren. More recently, in partnership with oboist Kathleen McNerney, Mr. Stein has launched VentiCordi, a string/wind chamber music concert series. He also currently performs as violinist with the Atlantic Piano Trio, concertmaster of the Maine Music Society, and enjoys a violin/piano partnership with Pamela Mia Paul. His passion for the solo violin music of Bach has resulted in many performances of Bach's masterpieces, of which one reviewer wrote, "Stein gave a superb and impressive performance of the unaccompanied Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2..." A highly sought after teacher and clinician, Mr. Stein is on the faculty of Bates College and has taught at New England Conservatory's Preparatory Division, Bowdoin College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Maryland at College Park. He joined the faculty of the New England Suzuki Institute in 2009. Among his orchestra positions Mr. Stein has been Concertmaster of the Harrisburg (PA) Symphony, and toured with the Singapore Symphony, including concerts in New York's Lincoln Center, France and Spain, with soloists Yo Yo Ma, and Gil Shaham. Mr. Stein is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he received his Bachelor and Master's degrees studying with Lewis Kaplan and Ivan Galamian. He also studied with Dr. Gerald Fischbach and members of the Guarneri String Quartet at the University of Maryland.

Sera Smolen - Cello

Sera Smolen (Cello) , soloist, collaborator, chamber musician, improviser, orchestral musician and recording artist, is an active performer of numerous genres of music, including four centuries of classical music. She has studied improvisation extensively with many teachers, and has performed in the US, Canada, Europe and India in numerous collaborations as an improvising musician. In addition to premiering new music, interdisciplinarity is a passion, bringing her to collaborate with dancers, sculptors, painters and poets. She composes and records original music with her husband, Tom Mank with whom she will tour the Netherlands and Belgium - and a fifth time in November 2011. Smolen received her PhD in music education from the Union Institute in 2000. She currently teaches in her Suzuki cello studio in Ithaca, NY, and as a guest clinician around the US and Canada. She has taught at Mansfield University, Alfred University, and Hobart and William Smith College. She is the assistant director of the New Directions Cello Festival and recently completed a book, "Improvising String Quartets" with Alice Kanack to be published by Alfred Publications.

Mark Smith - Violin

Mark Smith (Violin, Viola) I have been a strings teacher for the last 25 years. I have a Bachelor of Music degree in Viola Performance from Indiana University, and a Master of Music degree in Viola Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. I have played with the Portland (ME) Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony and the Boston Pops Orchestra as well as numerous solo and chamber music concerts. I have been a Suzuki teacher for the past 25 years, and have taught at Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts, the Suzuki School of Newton, New England Conservatory of Music, MIT, the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, and my own private music studio in my home. I have also taught at Suzuki summer music camps in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC. I currently teach strings, grade 3 through 8, for the Needham Public Schools. I continue to teach private violin and viola students in my home. I am married and have two children Chris and Evan.

Wendy Sawicki - Assistant Director

Wendy Sawicki is mom to 4 Suzuki daughters. She has a private practice in pediatric occupational therapy and has found the Suzuki approach to closely tie in with early intervention. She has pulled inspiration from Dr. Suzuki's philosophy to teach families about the importance of the parent-teacher-child triangle in her practice and she has pulled information from the world of occupational therapy to promote the connections of fine motor and sensory motor development in relation to learning an instrument with her children and with others in the Suzuki community in Maine. Wendy has served on the board of the Maine Suzuki Association, including a term as president, and on the board of the New England Suzuki Institute. Wendy enjoys working with all the wonderful faculty and families that attend the institute each year!

Jim Rickevicius - Guitar

Jim Rickevicius (Guitar) has been an active member of the Suzuki community since 1996. He teaches Suzuki Guitar at The Hartt Community Division at The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT, where he is also the guitar coordinator for the Hartt Suzuki Institute. Jim received a BA in music and BS in Elementary Education from Central Connecticut State University and a MM in guitar performance from The Hartt School. He has taken Suzuki training with Frank Longay, Bill Kossler and David Madsen and maintains a very active studio of 30 students at all points of the Suzuki Guitar literature. He enjoys working with students and families to make music a rewarding part of their lives. Jim lives in East Granby, CT with his wife and two sons who are both young Suzuki guitarists.

Laura Harris - Children's Choir

To Infinity and Beyond with Song! Does your child like to sing? How about going on an imaginary adventure and singing? On one of our adventures we'll go to outer space. We'll sing "The Planets" song (with model planets), "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" from Seasame Street, "Fly Me to the Moon" etc. On another adventure we'll go out to sea and sing "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean," (great movement song) then maybe we take on some water in our boat and decide to bail it out, only there's a problem: "There's a Hole in the Bucket." And who could go to sea without singing "A Sailor went to Sea, Sea, Sea." Lots of fun, lots of singing and a whole lot of imagination. Laura Harris hosts KinderKonzerts for the Portland Symphony Orchestra, for which she has also written a number of scripts. Recently she taught MusikGarten classes at the Little Log Cabin Montessori School. She has been a featured artist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Independence Pops), North Shore Philharmonic, Atlantic Chamber Orchestra, Best of Broadway, and the Portland Museum of Art�s Jazz Brunch. She has performed in opera, cabaret, and musical theater throughout the region, including productions at Maine State Music Theatre, Good Theater, PORTopera, and Hackmatack Playhouse.

Betsy Kobayashi - Violin Faculy

Betsy Kobayashi, (Violin) B.A. University of New Hampshire, studied with Shinichi Suzuki and graduated from Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto, Japan. She maintains a studio in the Augusta area where she has taught for 15 years. She is director of Pineland Suzuki School in Augusta. She has been active in the Maine Suzuki Association, co-directing the fall workshop for several years and starting a Sonata Festival for advanced students.

Kaity Newell

Kaity Newell teaches Suzuki violin and fiddling at her home in Damariscotta, Maine. She teaches music at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine, is co-founder and manager of the Seacoast Youth and Community Orchestras and teaches at the Maine Fiddle camp. She loves to teach the old time country-dance music to new generations. She has been on the NESI faculty since 1992.