Malcom Brooks
Private Instructor, composition/theory
Malcolm Brooks composes music for films, churches, and performing artists. Films he has scored are televised throughout the world and have earned numerous honors, including two Emmy nominations and a Peabody award. His works for churches are performed regularly, including his sanctus, which has been sung at over 300 services. His songs, primarily folk in style, have been recorded on compilations in Greenwich Village and in cafes in San Francisco. His song "House of Stone" has seen performances by folk artists for over 25 years. Malcolm holds degrees from Columbia and Berkeley and is currently working on a doctoral thesis through Prescott College about creating
folk songs from the ethnographies of people in Maine.

Kathryn DerMarderosian
Private Instructor, voice
Kathryn DerMarderosian began singing at an early age, accompanied by her father on piano.  As a young soloist she performed Celtic, Folk, and Sacred music.  She received her music degree from Rhode Island College, where she studied with Mary Beck, and her Orff-Schulwerk certification from the Hartt School of Music. Kathryn has performed as a soloist with Opera Rhode Island, The Newgate Theater, the Brown Jazz Chorus, and numerous chamber groups both here and abroad.  She is also active as a featured soloist in church services. She currently sings with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.  In addition to Kathryn’s vocal career, she has served as a music educator and artist in residence in several independent schools throughout the Eastern United States, Ecuador and Italy. She most recently taught at Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before moving to Maine.  As an educator, she has directed musicals, choral concerts, and taught voice, drama,  and music theory.  Her overseas teaching and performing experiences have served to broaden her understanding of languages and cultural repertoire, which enriches her work with the voice.    Now, as a permanent resident of Maine, Kathryn welcomes the opportunity to share her skills and experience with such a vibrant community. 

Mary Anne Driscoll
Private Instructor, piano
California native Mary Anne Driscoll learned jazz standards and scatting from her Uncle Charley at home while singing sacred music in church.  She taught herself to play piano and during high school studied choral literature and conducting with Suzanne Toolan.  Attending College of San Mateo and San Francisco State, Mary Anne worked with John Hancock and Paul Hanley on piano, and independent vocal study with Marie Gibson.  In the early 70s she taught innovative approaches for understanding music theory, received attention for her new music with percussionist Paul Murphy in San Francisco and moved to New York City.  Cecil Taylor introduced her to performing in New York on the loft scene.  She studied and worked with legendary musicians including Jimmy Lyons, Dewey Johnson and Rashied Ali while continuing with Murphy.  She composed, arranged and produced live recordings of new music at CBS and RCA in New York.  Mary Anne moved to Maine in 1990.  She performs as a soloist, leads an ensemble, collaborates with musicians around the globe and enjoys teaching the universal language of music to all ages and backgrounds.

Lydia Forbes
Private Instructor, violin and viola
Lydia Forbes, who was born in Boston, joined the DaPonte String Quartet on June 15, 2005. Until her move to Maine, she lived in the Netherlands. Lydia graduated from Yale College, where she studied with Dorothy Delay and won the Weckstrom Prize for Musical Performance, and the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Masuko Ushioda and received a Master's Degree with honors. She also studied in Austria with the Alban Berg Quartet and in Amsterdam, on a Beebe fund Grant, with Vera Beths. Lydia was a former member of the new music Zephyr Kwartet in Amsterdam, as well as the acclaimed early music group, L'Archibudelii.

Gilda Joffe
Bay Chamber Concerts Music Director of Education
Music Director, Odeon Chamber Orchestra
Private Instructor, violin
Gilda Joffe, violinist, received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School of Music in New York where her principal teachers included Joseph Fuchs as well as Joel Krosnick and Robert Mann of The Juilliard String Quartet. During her 10-year tenure in Sweden as a 1st violinist of the Swedish Radio Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen, she performed and toured frequently including performances at the London Proms Festival, The Paris Opera and the Musikverein in Vienna. Gilda resides in Lincolnville, Maine.

Eliza Jacques
Private Instructor, cello
Cellist Eliza Jacques performs regularly with chamber and orchestral ensembles around Maine and in the Boston area, and is a member of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. She specializes in music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and was a core member of Ludovico Ensemble, a new music ensemble-in-residence at The Boston Conservatory, for five years, serving as its Artistic Director for two seasons. She received her Bachelor of Music Degree and a Performer Diploma from the Indiana University School of Music, where she was a recipient of the Eva Heinitz Scholarship, and her Master of Music Degree from The Boston Conservatory, where she was a member of the Honors String Quartet and a winner of the String Idol contest. She has studied with Andrew Mark, Rhonda Rider, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Helga Winold. Since moving to Vassalboro in 2009, Eliza is happy to call Maine her home.

Kathie Johnson
Artistic Director,
Next Generation Youth Chamber Music Program
Private Instructor, Suzuki piano
Kathie Johnson (B.M. & M.M. Eastman School of Music, D.M.A work Indiana University) moved permanently to Maine in 2007 after many successful years in Chicago as a professional pianist, chamber musician, writer of two books of/on music, fund-raiser, director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Program, and, most importantly, a teacher of  piano as well as of chamber music.

Thanks to her own children becoming Suzuki music students, she soon added the Suzuki method of teaching to her traditional approach.  She has been a member of many Suzuki Institute faculties and her ensemble work with young children was featured several times at the National Suzuki Association conventions. 

In 1975 she started accompanying and chamber music classes, which were held in private, institutional and summer camp settings. She became founder and director of a Chamber music competition for Performing Arts Chicago and organized/led two chamber music tours (nationally and internationally).  Many of her chamber music groups became participants and prize-winners in the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, Young Stars of Maine, and the nationally acclaimed radio program “From the Top.”  In recognition of this work, the Chamber Music America awarded her their most prestigious chamber music teaching award in 2000.  In Maine’s Mid Coast area, Kathie and her husband Marc Johnson (cellist of the Vermeer String Quartet) founded the Next Generation program under the auspices of Bay Chamber Concerts, and have run it successfully for the past 20 years. 

Marc Johnson
Artistic Director,
Next Generation Youth Chamber Music Program
Marc Johnson, cellist, was a long-time member of Bay Chamber Concerts’ former resident ensemble, the Vermeer Quartet, and is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music.  While still a student, he was the youngest member of the Rochester Philharmonic and subsequently performed as a soloist with that orchestra.  In addition to numerous awards, Marc won the first prize in the prestigious Washington International Competition.  Before joining the Vermeer Quartet, he was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  As a member of the Vermeer Quartet, he served on the Resident Artist Faculty at Northern Illinois University at DeKalb.  In September of 2007, he joined the faculty of Boston University.

Deirdre McClure
Conductor
Odeon Youth Orchestras and Adult Orchestra

Kirsten Monke
Private Instructor, viola & violin
Before returning to her home state of Maine to join the DaPonte String Quartet in 2008, Kirsten Monke served as Principal Violist of both the Santa Barbara Symphony and the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. She was also a founding member of the award winning Anacapa String Quartet, based in southern California.  Ms. Monke has taught at UCSB and Westmont College, in addition to a variety of chamber music workshops across the country. She maintained a large private teaching studio for nearly 20 years in Santa Barbara. Ms. Monke received her B.M. and M.M. degrees at Indiana University, where her principal teachers were Kim Kashkashian and Georges Janzer.  She also studied at UCSB with Heiichiro Ohyama. She has received coaching from many great string quartets, including the Colorado, Emerson, Juilliard and Muir, as well as from notable chamber musicians Michael Tree, Martin Lovett, Marc Johnson and Bernard Zaslav. 

Michael Reynolds
Music Director,
Odeon Chamber Orchestra
Artistic Director, Fall Foliage Adult Chamber Music Weekend
Michael Reynolds, cellist, attended the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale University and began his career as a founding member of the Muir String Quartet. He has appeared as recital and orchestral soloist throughout the United States. He is the director of the Montana Chamber Music Festival and the Executive Director of Classics for Kids Foundation which gives quality student instruments to communities and schools around America. Mike has been a professor of music at Boston University since 1983 and received an honorary doctorate from Rhode Island College in 1995.

Jeffrey Rojo
Private Instructor, guitar
Jeffrey Rojo began private  courses in Guitar Technique, Music Theory, History of Traditional Music and Music Production at age 13. At age sixteen he enrolled at the Escuela Superior de Musica in Mexico City, completing a 3 year undergraduate program in Guitar Music Performance and Music Theory, later enrolling at Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Música, where he completed a graduate degree in Guitar Music Performance, Music Theory and Music Composition. In 2001 he was certified in Guitar Music Performance and Music Theory from the Royal Board of Schools of Music, an affiliated program of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He currently teaches out of his private music studio in Jefferson Maine.

Mesa Schubeck
Private Instructor, piano
Mesa Schubeck is a recent graduate of University of Maine, Orono with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a minor in Business Administration.  She began teaching piano privately in 2008.  She grew up in Blue Hill, ME with her parents and two younger sisters in a house full of music.  Mesa’s mother and father have been playing in a contra dance band since before she was born and recently Mesa has joined the band on keyboard.  She began piano lessons when she was 7 and continued through high school, studying with Win Pusey of Brooklin, ME, Ginger Hwalek of Bangor and Baycka Voronietsky at UMO.  In 2003 Mesa won first place in the Ocy Downs Piano Competition.  She was a participant in the Kneisel Hall Young Musician’s Program as well as Bay Chamber’s Next Generation Youth Program.  Mesa is a self taught jazz musician, playing piano and singing in the Jazzband and Jazz Combos at George Stevens Academy as well as the UMaine Jazz Ensemble at UMO.  Mesa is currently living in Portland, ME.

Patricia Stowell
Private Instructor, piano
Pianist Patricia Stowell maintains an active schedule regionally as a chamber musician and competition adjudicator.  Her European performances include concerts in Bulgaria, Austria, Poland and Germany, in addition to lecturing in Moscow on composer Alexander Scriabin and the Russian Symbolist Movement.  Regionally she has performed in numerous concert series, including the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, Husson University’s Kenduskeag Series, The VanderKay and All Souls Steinway Series, with soprano Suzanne Nance, and in collaboration with pianist Lorin Hollander. 

Patricia loves teaching and also enjoys giving master classes, including working with teachers and students together in a studio or master class setting.  She also brings expertise in chamber music as the director of the Kneisel Hall Maine Young Musicians Program. Her own educational background includes two degrees from Indiana University and a doctorate in piano performance & chamber music from Northwestern University. Further studies include one year as a Rotary International Scholar in Germany (Stuttgart Hochschule fur Musik) and a partial year of studying in Austria at the Vienna Hochschule fur Musik.