Amy L. Gesmer-Packman

Amy Gesmer-Packman holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Tennessee and a Master of Music in performance and pedagogy from the University of Colorado. She is registered by the Suzuki Association of the Americas and is a former board member of the Suzuki Association of Colorado. She is former board member of the Boulder Youth Symphony, a member of American String Teachers Association, Boulder Area Music Teachers Association, Federated Music Teachers, and a member of Boulder Valley Suzuki Teachers. She is a founding board member of the High Plains Youth Symphony. She has taught at the Denver Suzuki Institute, the Intermountain Suzuki Institute in Utah, the Hawaii Suzuki Institute in Honolulu, and institutes in Fort Collins and Illinois. Amy founded Boulder Suzuki Strings (BSS) in 1982. As director of BSS, the program has grown to include a ten-member faculty teaching violin, viola, and cello to over 220 children. During the summer of 1982, Amy studied with Shinichi Suzuki in Matsumoto, Japan.

She has studied extensively since 1976 with Professor William Starr of the University of Colorado. She has also done training with numerous other teachers including John Kendall, Mary Cay Neal, Joanne Bath and Jim Maurer. With over 30 years of teaching experience, she continues to take classes to further her training and education in teaching students. In the summer of 1990, Amy organized and ran the highly successful Columbine Suzuki String Camp.

Her students have gone on to study at leading music schools including Julliard, Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Oberlin and the University of Colorado. Her students play in local orchestras including the High Plains Youth Symphony, Boulder Youth Symphony, Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and the Suzuki Youth Orchestra of the Americas.

In addition to teaching, Amy enjoys spending time with her husband and her son, a musical theatre graduate in Los Angeles and her daughter, a graduate of Vanderbilt in violin.