The
Boston Public Quartet Creating
a community of musicians, students and
families in the neighborhoods of Boston through
music performance and education
Betsy Hinkle began her violin studies at the age
of five in Winter
Park, FL, as a Suzuki student of Kathleen Weidley. The daughter and
granddaughter of professional musicians and educators, her path was
naturally but not purposefully fostered at an early age. She attended
the Florida State University as a violin performance major on full
music and academic scholarships, and while at FSU played in an Honors
Piano Trio as a Liberace Scholar. She has been devoted to performing
chamber music since High School, playing for two years in the "Real
Quartet," who could be heard playing her arrangements of Cyndi Lauper
tunes alongside Mendelssohn and Corelli at the Barnes and Noble on
Saturday nights.
Betsy relocated to the Boston area in 1999 to study at the New England
Conservatory. There she studied with Nicholas Kitchen of the renowned
Borromeo String Quartet, and received a Music in Education
Concentration along with her Master of Music in 2001. While
at
NEC, she co-founded (with colleague Mona Rashad) the student
organization "Playing for Change," which organized and performed
benefit concerts for non-profit organizations.
Since 2001, Betsy has been free-lancing and teaching in the Greater
Boston area. She created a successful strings program at the Chestnut
Hill School in Newton, MA, growing the program from 5 students to more
than 70 during her 4-year tenure. In addition to her work with the BPQ
and its residency at the Chittick School, Betsy is on the faculty of
the Rivers School Conservatory and has a home studio in Roslindale.
Betsy performs regularly with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, the
Boston Ballet Orchestra and the Boston Classical Orchestra.
In
addition to directing the program, Betsy teaches violin, viola and
chamber music in our Chittick residency, and is a violinist in the
Boston Public Quartet. Marji Gere, Resident Musician
As
a performer, artist, and teacher, Marji Gere has found a home at the
intersection of the visual, musical, and literary arts. In a given
week, you may find Marji rehearsing contemporary piano/violin duos,
writing wacky rounds, or building puppets and writing music for another
episode of the Shelly and Zipper Show (a weekly presentation of music
and shadow puppetry) with fellow composer/performer and husband Dan
Sedgwick. You may also find her teaching private music lessons and
classes in puppetry, composition, and creative writing at the
non-profit Charlestown Working Theater. Now and then, you may find her
developing and performing extravagant dramatic musical works with her
ensemble An Exciting Event; directing summer sessions at the Apple Hill
Center for Chamber Music in Nelson, New Hampshire; and traveling to the
Eastern Mediterranean island country of Cyprus to organize Apple
Hill-style Playing for Peace chamber music workshops with fellow
musicians from the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities. Marji
received a B.M. in Violin Performance and a B.A. in English at the
University of Iowa in 2002, and an Ed. M. in Arts in Education from
Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2007. Marji is thrilled to
teach violin and chamber music at the Chittick Elementary School with
the Boston Public Quartet.
Margi teaches Violin and Chamber Music as part of our Chittick School
Residency, and is a violinist in the
Boston Public Quartet. Jason Amos, Resident Musician
Jason began his viola studies at age eleven in the public school system
of his hometown of Southfield, Michigan. He completed his undergraduate
studies at the University of Michigan and received a Graduate Diploma
at the New England Conservatory of Music.
He has received honors in several competitions, including 4th place in
the 2007 Sphinx Competition and 1st place in the 2006 Detroit Symphony
Orchestra's Bradlin Scholarship Concerto Competition. In addition,
Jason appeared as soloist with the Ann Arbor Symphony, played in the
Flint Symphony, and performed as Principal Viola for many other
orchestras throughout Michigan. In past summers, Jason has attended
Aspen Music Festival, International Music Academy of Pilsen (Czech
Republic). He has also served as faculty for the Sphinx Performance
Academy at Walnut Hill, and Four Strings Academy.
Jason enjoys participating in the Sphinx Organization’s musical
outreach programs—all programs aimed toward increasing the presence of
minorities in classical music. His teachers include Martha Strongin
Katz, Yizhak Schotten, Caroline Coade, and Catherine Carroll.
Jason completed a fellowship at Community MusicWorks in Providence in 2010.
Jason teaches Viola and Chamber Music as part of our Chittick School Residency, and is the violist of the Boston Public Quartet.
Adrienne Taylor, Cello
Adrienne received a Bachelor of Music Degree and Performer Diploma from
Indiana University and completed her Master of Music degree at
Northwestern University. Her teachers include David Szepessy, Hans
Jørgen Jensen, and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi.
Adrienne has performed in recitals and chamber music concerts
throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and Japan. As a member of the
Chicago Civic Orchestra from 2005-2007, Adrienne participated in the
orchestra’s Musicorps program which presents educational concerts to
schools and colleges throughout the city. Adrienne enjoyed various
performance opportunities during her time in Chicago, including
performances with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble during their visit to
the city in 2006.
In 2007, Adrienne accepted a position as assistant principal cellist of
Orchestra do Norte in Portugal, where she had the opportunity to
perform throughout the country. Adrienne completed a fellowship at
Community MusicWorks in Providence in 2010, and will begin the Abreu
Fellowship program in Boston in September, 2010.
The Boston Public Quartet Guild
The BPQ Guild are musician/educators who teach
and perform with the quartet in many capacities while expertly
upholding our mission.
Ashleigh Gordon, Viola
Originally
from upstate New York with a new address of Boston, MA, violist
Ashleigh Gordon has performed throughout the United States, Paris,
France and Florence, Italy on Radio Papesse. She is an active
performer of classical and contemporary music with a solo and chamber
music repertoire ranging from Bach, Schubert and Debussy to Cage,
Gubadulina and Andreissen. Ashleigh has performed with the
Callithumpium Consort in Jordan Hall, Juventas New Music Ensemble,
Xanthos Ensemble and the New England Philharmonic, all of whom
specialize in contemporary music. Her strong desire to promote
new music has led her to work with such composers as Steve Reich, David
Lang, Augusta Read Thomas, Christian Wolff, Frederic Rzewski and
Krzysztof Penderecki.
Also active in the orchestral field,
Ashleigh has performed with the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra (CO),
Atlantic Symphony (MA), Pierre Monteux School Orchestra (ME), Ohio
Light Opera Company and Glens Falls Symphony (NY), with whom she has
recorded under Mode Record Label. Off stage, Ashleigh maintains
an active violin and viola studio at the South Shore Conservatory and
North End Music and Performing Arts Center located in Boston's own
Little Italy.
Ashleigh is a recent graduate of the New England
Conservatory where she earned her Masters Degree. Her primary teachers
have included Carol Rodland, Louise Zeitlin and Jeffrey Irvine with
supplemental solo and chamber music studies with Peter Slowik, Karen
Ritscher, Eric Rosenblith and Mai Motobuchi of the Borromeo String
Quartet.
Jennifer Bewerse, Cello
A
native of Florida, Jennifer Bewerse received her Bachelors of Arts
magna cum laude from the University of South Florida and is currently
pursing her Masters of Music from The Boston Conservatory. Her
principal teachers include Joan Markstein, Scott Kluksdahl and Rhonda
Rider.
Jennifer is a devoted champion of the music of our
generation and is enthusiastically involved with numerous emerging
young composers. As a result of her collaborations, she has
premiered many works including Drew Cutler’s Authentic Interruption for
cello and percussion (2007) and Daniel Frantz’s Sech Kleine Tanze for
solo cello (2008). Other composers she has had the privilege to
work with include Augusta Read Thomas, Michael Sydney Timpson, Kenji
Bunch, Gunther Schuller, Jonathan Harvey, and David Del Tredici.
She has also participated in the Sound Encounters, SICPP, Music from
Salem: the Cello Seminar, and the Oregon Bach Festival: Composer
Symposium modern music festivals, and as a guest soloist for the Robert
Helps Festival and International Composition Competition.
Jennifer
is an avid chamber musician and is currently the cellist of the Boston
Conservatory Honors String Quartet. Her other projects include
the Solaris Duet with marimbist Alex Delgado, the commission and
premier of works for solo cello by Mischa Saklind-Pearl and Justin
Ralls, and teaching in her private studio.
Nina Vansuch
A Boston native and “ham”
since childhood,
Nina Vansuch has performed with many musical groups and as a solo
performer, singer, director, comedian, and actor. As a
self-taught musician with learning disabilities, Nina loves the
learning and teaching process, especially working with children who
start out saying ”It’s too hard” and
helping them
discover that “I can play music”.
(She’s been
there.). She extended the self-taught route to study with Karen
Shepard, Kate Judd, Ric Poulin, and Marla Blakey among
others.
Nina has worked extensively with arts organizations, and educational
programs as a consultant, teacher, grant writer, and as director of
arts programming and curriculum for children and adults. She
is
the recipient of 15 grant awards, including one from the American
Business Collaboration for excellence in children’s arts
programming.
Nina is currently resurrecting a program she developed in the 1990s,
the Neighborhood Arts Exchange, which places college student interns in
after school programs and community centers and also serves as a
consulting resource for these organizations.
Zachary, Lydia and Miranda Burrage-Goodwin, and their mom, Melissa
Burrage live in Weston, MA. Zach and Lydia are sophomores at Weston
High, and Miranda is in 8th grade at Weston Middle. All four are
accomplished musicians. Miranda, Lydia and Zach participate in many
Weston musical groups, including the Rivers School Conservatory Youth
Orchestras, Weston Public School orchestral and choral programs, and
have been invited to attend All-State and District Festivals. All three
are members of the Bass River string ensemble.
Melissa Burrage received her Bachelor of Music Degree from Keene State
College in 1984, studying voice with Carlesta Henderson-Spearman,
Carroll J. Lehman, and piano with Chonghyo Shin. She received
her
Masters Degree in History from Harvard University in 2004, and is
currently working on her doctoral dissertation on the life of Dr. Karl
Muck, Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor during the anti-German
hysteria years of World War I.
The Burrage-Goodwin family enjoy working with the students at the
Chittick School in Mattapan and are happy to give back to the community
whatever skills and lessons they've learned along the way.
Thank
you for this opportunity!
For
translations into different
languages --
Arabic, Chinese, Italian, French, German, Russian, Spanish or others
visit the web site: http://babel.altavista.com