Recollections: My First Conference
Nov 15, 2013
SAA’s 16th Biennial Conference—Clinicians
Previously printed in American Suzuki Journal 42.1. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2013 Suzuki Association of the Americas, Inc.
Alyssa Hardie Beckmann is the Director of the Kansas City Suzuki Academy. Ms. Beckmann holds degrees from Vanderbilt (BM), and Boston University (MM), in Viola and Violin Performance, in addition to post-graduate studies in Lugano, Switzerland. She was a Fellow at the Tanglewood for three summers, and has worked closely with members of the Juilliard, Takacs and Guarneri String Quartets. She performed at the International Viola Congress, and has toured internationally with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel. She has been a guest clinician and faculty member at many institutes and workshops across the country. She was raised a Suzuki student and has been an active Suzuki teacher for the last two decades. Ms. Beckmann is a frequent substitute with the Kansas City and St. Louis Symphonies. She enjoys teaching yoga and spending time with her cellist husband Matt Beckmann and their two children.
Dr. Evenchick has been a cello teacher trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas since 1999, and in this capacity has trained hundreds of musicians internationally at their various stages of development.
Teamwork and organizational contribution are an important part of Dr. Evenchick’s role in teaching and bringing people together. He has held positions at the Preucil School of Music, Grinnell College (Iowa) and the Suzuki String School of Guelph (Ontario) .
Currently David is offering long-term string teacher development courses at Wilfrid Laurier University (Kitchener Waterloo, ON), the first program of this kind offered in Canada.
Dr. Sasha Garver teaches at the Preucil School in Iowa City. Sasha was Suzuki flute and piano faculty at Community School for Music and Arts and Dominican University of California from 20012-2015. Former chair of the music program at Northern New Mexico University. Second flute/solo piccolo of the Macau Orchestra (07-09). While in Asia, she studied at TERI with Mr. Takahashi. She has training in Suzuki Flute Books 1-9 and Practicum. Sasha has taught at SAA and Suzuki World Conferences, Desert Suzuki Institute, Mexico City Suzuki Institute, Santa Fe Suzuki Institute, Regis University and Colorado Christian University.
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Gail Gebhart maintains an active private studio, as well as teaching at Wayne State University and accompanying extensively throughout the Detroit metropolitan area.
Kevin S. Hart teaches guitar in Laramie, WY. He retired from teaching at the University of Wyoming for over 30 years to focus on his Suzuki studio. He has taught at institutes and workshops in Beaver Creek, CO, Ann Arbor, MI, Denver,CO, and Houston, TX. He served as the Assistant Guitar Area Coordinator for the 2012 SAA Conference, the Guitar Area Coordinator for the 2014 SAA Conference, and is the director of the Laramie Guitar Ensemble. He is the director of the Laramie Suzuki Guitar Institute.
James Hutchins lives in Maryland, with his gorgeous wife and his fabulous son. He is a former Suzuki student, has been a Suzuki teacher for over 25 years and is a proud Suzuki dad. James is a registered teacher trainer who has taught at workshops, institutes and classes on 5 continents and throughout the states. He also teaches Suzuki pedagogy at East Carolina University. In 2018, James was a guest Clinician at the 67th Suzuki Method Summer School in Matsumoto, Japan. His studio has performed for former First Lady Hillary Clinton at the White House, at the National Zoo, the U.S. Capitol,the Maryland State Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Aquarium, at the Kennedy Center and with the National Symphony. They have also played for the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Wizards and Nationals. James also had the honor of performing for Dr. and Mrs. Suzuki at their home in Japan.
A dedicated teacher of violin and chamber music, Jessica Meyer Foskitt is committed to enriching her students’ lives through music. Mrs. Foskitt has completed extensive training in Suzuki Pedagogy culminating in her long-term training with Teri Einfeldt at the Hartt School. She currently teaches at the Hartt Commuinty Division where she coached the string trio awarded first prize in the 2011 Rayburn Chamber Music Competition. In addition to teaching at Hartt, Mrs. Foskitt also teaches at Bay Path University, and Westfield State University. Other teaching experience includes several summer Suzuki institutes and workshops across the country. Mrs. Foskitt performs with the Hartford and Springfield symphony orchestras and Infinitango, a Hartford based Tango ensemble. Mrs. Foskitt received her MM from the University of Hartford in violin performance.
Tracy Rowell is an active performer and teacher in the Cleveland area. She teaches at Oberlin College & Conservatory as well as for the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Sato Center for Suzuki Studies. During the summers, Tracy enjoys teaching for programs such as Peabody Bass Works, George Vance’s Summer Bass Workshops, the Kansas City Bass Workshop, and the New Orleans Suzuki Institute. Formerly the assistant principal bassist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ontario, Ms. Rowell currently serves as principal bass in the Cleveland chamber orchestra, CityMusic Cleveland. She may be heard as a soloist on Telemann’s Grillen-Symphonie as recorded with Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra, and she has been a featured soloist with the Canton (OH) Symphony. Ms. Rowell studied with Paul Ellison at Rice University and with Edwin Barker at Boston University.
Carlynn Savot, cellist, teaches and performs in the Twin Cities, where she is on faculty at St. Joseph’s School of Music in St. Paul, the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, and Concordia University – St. Paul. She performs with The Bishop String Quartet and Strains New Music Ensemble and has presented a number of contemporary works in collaboration with their composers, including the commissioned piece Built on Gravel by Ruby Fulton (supported by the Zachs Endowment Fund). Dr. Savot holds performance degrees from St. Olaf College, the University of Hartford, and the University of Connecticut, where her doctoral studies emphasized the work of women composers and gender perspectives in musical analysis.
Mary Halverson Waldo BA Music—College of St Scholastica; MM—New England Conservatory in Performance of Early Music. Ms. Waldo is a seasoned performer in a variety of chamber groups and Baroque orchestras. A registered Recorder Teacher Trainer with SAA and ESA, she studied with Katherine White Units 1-5 and Practicum, Pandora Bryce Unit 1A & Unit 2, David Gerry Unit 1 & Unit 3, Kim Lorimier Unit 1 and Unit 4, Rebecca Paluzzi Unit 1B, and Edward Kreitman Units 1 A-B. She has served on the faculty at the MacPhail Center for Music, Saint Paul Conservatory, Whitewater Early Music Festival and a variety of Suzuki Institutes and Festivals throughout the Americas and the UK. SAA former Board member, Mary is also on the ISA and SAA Recorder Committees. Suzuki parent of three sons (now grown!)
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