2013 Summer String Academy Faculty
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Mimi Zweig, Program Director
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Richard Aaron (Week One)
- David Gillham
- Ching-Yi Lin
- Peter Stumpf
- Pacifica Quartet
Master Class Faculty
- Atar Arad
- Mark Kaplan
- Clancy Newman
- Peter Opie
- Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio
Mimi Zweig Director of the Academy, Violin and Viola
Mimi Zweig is currently a professor of violin and director of the Indiana University String Academy. Since 1972 she has developed pre-college string programs across the United States. She has given master classes and pedagogy workshops in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Israel, Japan and Europe. She has recently produced StringPedagogy.com, an innovative web-based teaching tool. In the spring of 2006, American Public Television released the documentary, "Circling Around-The Violin Virtuosi" which features String Academy students. The String Academy and Mimi Zweig are recent recipients of a Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation grant which supports the teaching of gifted violinists. Her students have won numerous competitions, and teach and perform worldwide.
Richard Aaron
Richard Aaron has traveled extensively, giving master classes in Madrid, Spain, Manheim, Germany, Seoul, Korea, Matsumoto, Japan, and Paris, France. He has presented master classes in the U.S. at many leading schools, including Rice, Eastman, Michigan and Oberlin. During summers, he has taught at the Aspen Music Festival, Indiana University String Academy, Calgary Music Bridge, Aria, Innsbruck, the Chautauqua Festival and Idyllwild. Mr. Aaron's students have won numerous national and international competitions and have performed as soloists with prestigious orchestras, including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Seattle Symphonies. Award-winning quartets, including the Biava, Fry Street and American, include his students. He is a member of the Elysian Trio, in residence at Baldwin-Wallace College. Mr. Aaron served on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and ENCORE School for Strings faculties for fourteen years prior to his appointment at the University of Michigan.
Erin Aldridge, Violin
Erin Aldridge has won numerous awards as both soloist and chamber musician and has been featured throughout Europe, South America, and the United States. She continues to maintain an active performance schedule as a soloist, and as a chamber musician she has performed numerous concerts throughout Uruguay as well as throughout the United States with the Dorothea Trio. Dr. Aldridge received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Violin Performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Aldridge currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin, Director of Orchestras, and violinist of the faculty piano trio Trillium at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She is also concertmaster of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, a position she has held since 2005.
Brenda Brenner, Violin
Brenda Brenner is Associate Professor of Music Education in the IU Jacobs School of Music and Assistant Director of the IU String Academy. She specializes in the area of string music education, teaching applied violin and courses in violin and string pedagogy. Her String Academy students have been featured in concerts in major venues throughout the United States and Europe. Prior to her arrival at IU, Dr. Brenner was Assistant Professor of Music at Carleton College. Active as a performer, she received her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg, Donald Weilerstein, and the Cleveland Quartet. A member of the award-winning Augustine Quartet, she was a finalist or prize winner in several competitions, including the Banff International Quartet Competition, Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Cleveland Competition, and has worked with the Cleveland, Tokyo, Juilliard, American and Emerson Quartets.
Chih-Yi Chen, Piano
Chih-Yi Chen, pianist, is currently director of Collaborative Piano at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. During her studies at IU, she worked with Lev Vlasenko, Michel Block, and the pianist of former Borodin Trio Luba Edlina Dubinsky. Active in chamber music, accompanying and teaching, she performs often in the States, Europe and Asia, and was the pianist for the String Academy for 14 years.
David Gillham, Violin
Described as a “violinist with a lean tone, a supple technique, and an amazing talent for sustaining a long line” (All Music Guide Magazine), Canadian Violinist David Gillham enjoys a multifaceted career as soloist, chamber musician and teacher that has taken him across four continents. A prominent chamber musician, he is a founding member of both the Ridge Piano Trio and the violin/piano duo “Gillham-Iinuma” and was for many years, a member of the Arianna String Quartet. A dedicated teacher, Mr. Gillham has been invited to conduct master classes in Canada, the United States, Brazil, China, Taiwan and South Africa. He is currently on the faculty at the School of Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The recipient of several awards Mr. Gillham received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and the 2006 Missouri Chapter of the American String Teachers Association’s Distinguished Service award.
Jeannette Koekkoek, Chamber Music
Jeanette Koekkoek, pianist, graduated from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and studied with the illustrious Aube Tzerko in Aspen and Los Angeles. She performs worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. In addition, Ms. Koekkoek, a devoted pedagogue, teaches piano and chamber music from her studio in Tuscany, Italy, where she resides. She has been a faculty member of the Indiana University String Academy since 1990.
Ching-Yi Lin, Junior String Academy
Ching-Yi Lin is Violin-Professional-In-Residence at Western Kentucky University, where she teaches violin, heads the Pre-College Violin/Viola Program, and serves as concertmaster of the Symphony. Dr. Lin holds performance degrees from Indiana University, where she was an assistant to Professor Mauricio Fuks and taught his undergraduate and graduate students at the Jacobs School of Music. At the Pre-College level, she has been featured as an instructor at the IU String Academy, teaching violin and group lessons while working closely with her mentors, Mimi Zweig and Brenda Brenner. Her other principal teachers include Fredell Lack (University of Houston), Nelli Shkolnikova (IU), and Boris Kuschnir (Vienna Conservatory).
Susan Moses, Cello
Susan Moses earned her degrees with the highest honors at Indiana and Yale Universities before completing her studies at the renowned Jascha-Heifetz-Gregor Piatigorsky Master Classes at the University of Southern California. She was awarded a Ford Foundation Prize and has performed throughout the world in recital, with orchestra and as the solo violoncellist of the celebrated I SOLISTI VENETI. While living in Europe she taught for Boston University, in the Conservatoires Regionales de France and founded the Chicago String Trio that was awarded a special Prize by the University of Milan for outstanding contributions in chamber music. She records for ERATO and CONCERTO and was nominated for a Grand Prix du Disque. Susan also was recognized by the University of Padua for her outstanding research on the school of Giuseppe Tartini in the 1700's and created for Trinity College a special music program for their Italian Elderhostel where she is principal lecturer and performer. She currently heads the cello department of the String Academy at Indiana University, has been on the faculty of Oberlin College and represents the United States in International cello competitions.
Csaba Onczay, cello
Mr. Csaba Onczay was awarded the Kossuth Prize, the highest award given to any performing artist in all of Hungary, and was awarded the prestigious Bartók-Pásztory Prize in 2004. He was also awarded the Liszt Prize and Distinguished Artist in Hungary. Mr. Onczay has won first prize at the International Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest, Hungary (1973), first prize at the International Villa Lobos Competition of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1976), and appears as a soloist in some of the most prestigious concert halls of Europe, America, Korea, and Japan. In addition to numerous recordings of concerts for radio and television, Mr. Onczay recorded for CD’s: concertos of C.P.E. Bach, Schumann, Lalo, Villa Lobos, Dohnányi, and also all the sonatas of Beethoven and all the solo suites of Bach. He regularly holds master-courses in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, USA, Japan, and Hungary; and is invited as a soloist and chamber music player to many international festivals. They include: Pablo Casals Festival Prades, Kronberg, Springfestival Budapest, Beaumaris Festival, Bergamo, and Springfestival in Prague, in Japan Gifu and Ishikawa. In 2001, Mr. Onczay was a Visiting Professor at Oberlin Conservatory and from 2006-2009 he was a Visiting Professor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Mr. Onczay is Professor of Cello at the Liszt University of Music in Budapest, Hungary, where he resides today.
James Przygocki, Viola and Chamber Music
James Przygocki is Professor of Music at the University of Wyoming where he teaches viola, violin, pedagogy and music education courses. In addition to his work with university students Mr. Przygocki teaches pre-college students for the String Academy of Wyoming and is the director of University of Wyoming String Project. Mr. Przygocki is active as a performer, conductor and clinician. He performs regularly with University of Wyoming faculty as a member of the Summit Chamber Players and serves as principal violist with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra. He is active as a soloist and chamber musician, having performed in Europe, China, and Brazil and around the U.S. He has recorded for AK/Coburg, CRI and Indiana University Press.His viola transcriptions have been published by One World Strings.
Evan Rothstein, Chamber Music
Evan Rothstein studied chamber music with members and ex-members of the Cleveland, Tokyo, Juilliard, Fine Arts and Borodin string quartets. A grant from the Foundation des Etats-Unis gave him the opportunity to study in Paris with famed pedagogue Veda Reynolds, and he afterwards performed on French radio and in major festivals in France and across Europe. After completing his doctorate at Indiana University and several degrees in musicology, he was named instructor at the University of Paris 8 - Saint Denis, and has been invited for lectures and residencies internationally. In 2004 he was appointed as pedagogical consultant to the Pro quartet-European Center for Chamber Music. In 2009, he was elected to a three-year term as Chairman of the European Chamber Music Teachers Association (ECMTA). He is currently Deputy Head of Strings at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London.
Sherry Sinift, Violin
Sherry Sinift is the director of the String Academy of Wyoming, and a member of the University of Wyoming faculty. At UW she is a member of the Summit Chamber Players, and Supervising Teacher for the UW String Project, as well as teaching violin and viola pedagogy and studio violin. Ms. Sinift is former associate concertmaster of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra and performed throughout the U.S. and Europe as a member of the Hawthorne Quartet. She has built exceptional violin classes at the String Academy of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Lawrence University Preparatory Program and Indiana University String Academy. Ms. Sinift holds a MM in performance from Indiana University and a BM in performance from Western Michigan University. Her influential teachers included Tadeusz Wronski, Mimi Zweig, Rostislav Dubinsky, and Gerald Fischbach. In the summer Ms. Sinift serves on the faculty of the IU Summer String Academy and the IU Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists.
Cory Smythe, Chamber Music
Cory Smythe, pianist, is a graduate of the music schools at Indiana University and the University of Southern California. He currently resides in New York City, where he is active as a chamber musician, improviser, and composer. Recently, Cory has performed alongside flutist Dora Seres, violinist Timothy Fain, at the Jazz Standard with the Greg Osby Four, and at the Bang On A Can Marathon with the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a member of the Oblique quartet founded by drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey, with whom he recently finished recording an album for the Firehouse 12 label. Cory's principal teachers have included Luba Edlina-Dubinsky and Stewart Gordon.
Elizabeth Zempel, Violin
Elizabeth (VanGelderen) Zempel has studied the violin with Mimi Zweig at the String Academy of Wisconsin and received her MM degree from Indiana University. She currently oversees a large and active string program in Milwaukee.
Rebecca Henry, Violin, Viola
Rebecca Henry holds the Scott Bendann Chair in Classical Music at The Peabody Institute, where she teaches violin pedagogy and mentors students in the Masters of Performance/Pedagogy degree in The Conservatory, and chairs the Peabody Preparatory String Department where she teaches violin and viola and directs Peabody’s Pre-Conservatory Violin Program, for which she received funding from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Viola at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA and performs with the Kegelstatt Trio. Ms. Henry has given master classes and teacher workshops throughout the U.S. and her former students are performing and teaching around the world.
Sarah Kapustin, Violin
Sarah Kapustin’s musical activities have taken her across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia in performances as both soloist and chamber musician. Born in 1981 in Milwaukee, WI, she has performed with such orchestras as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, and the Vogtland Philharmonie in Germany. Ms. Kapustin has received prizes and honors in numerous competitions, including 1st prize of the International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen. She has appeared in such prestigious concert venues as New York's Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Mexico City’s Sala Nezahualcoyotl.
A devoted and passionate chamber musician, Ms. Kapustin has appeared at various international festivals, notably Musique de Chambre à Giverny (France), Sitka Summer Music Festival (AK), El Paso ProMusica (TX), Peter de Grote Festival (Netherlands) and Marlboro Music Festival (VT) where she has performed with such distinguished artists as Claude Frank, Joseph Silverstein, David Soyer, and Kim Kashkashian. She was formerly a member of the Atlas Trio and the Dubinsky Quartet, prizewinner at the Fischoff and Coleman Chamber Music Competitions. Ms. Kapustin shows great interest in contemporary music, and has had the honor to work with several composers on their own compositions, including Henri Dutilleux, Kryzstof Penderecki, Jörg Widmann and Ned Rorem. For the past several years, she has performed duo recitals with pianist Jeannette Koekkoek; in April 2010 the duo released the complete recordings of the ten Beethoven Sonatas for the Olive Music label, distributed by Et'cetera/Codaex, which has received international praise.
Ms. Kapustin received a Masters degree in violin performance at The Juilliard School with Robert Mann in May 2005. She previously received a Bachelor of Music and an Artist Diploma from Indiana University as a pupil of Mauricio Fuks, and formerly studied with Mimi Zweig and James Przygocki at the String Academy of Wisconsin. She has participated in masterclasses with Joshua Bell, Midori, Leonidas Kavakos, Mihaela Martin and William Preucil. After receiving a Fulbright Scholarship, Ms. Kapustin spent 2006-2008 in Paris as a student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, studying chamber music with Michel Strauss and Vladimir Mendelssohn as member of the Trio Archiduc. She also served as concertmaster of the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire during the 2007-08 season.
Since 2008 Ms. Kapustin resides in the Hague, the Netherlands, where she is 1st violinist of the Rubens Quartet, and since 2011 she is a professor of violin and chamber music at the ArtEZ Conservatorium in Zwolle, the Netherlands. She also performs and tours regularly with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Kapustin plays on the ”Nico Richter and Hetta Rester” G.B. Rogeri, Brescia, ca. 1690, on loan to her from the Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds in Amsterdam.
William Harvey, violin and chamber music
American violinist, conductor, and composer William Harvey has appeared as violin soloist at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony and has performed concerti with orchestras in the Philippines, Mexico, and USA. Since March 2010, he has served as the Violin and Viola Teacher at Afghanistan National Institute of Music. He is one of the two founding conductors of the Afghan Youth Orchestra, which he has conducted six times for President Hamid Karzai. He has served as concertmaster of the Spokane Symphony and a Fellow at Carnegie Hall’s Academy. As a conductor, he has led youth orchestras in Afghanistan, Qatar, Mexico, Tunisia, the Philippines, and the USA. Mr. Harvey’s compositions have received over a hundred performances. In 2011, acclaimed soprano Susanna Phillips commissioned him to write a song cycle setting poetry by Afghan women to music. In 2006, his Cuerpo Garrido won Columbia University's Bearns Prize. Mr. Harvey earned his M.M. from The Juilliard School and B.M. from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. In 2005, Mr. Harvey founded Cultures in Harmony (CiH), an NGO that promotes cultural understanding through music. In 2010, CiH was named a Best Practice in International Cultural Engagement (along with the Kennedy Center & Library of Congress) by the US Center for Citizen Diplomacy. CiH workshops in Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt, the Philippines, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, and Mexico have benefited thousands of young musicians.
