musiConnects Guild of Musicians & Educators

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Joshua Addison
Violin

Anna DeLoi
Arts Leader/Harpist

Anna DeLoi studies with Stephanie Curcio and Franziska Huhn. She is a student at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and plays principal harp in their Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. Anna has also served as principal harpist in the Greater Boston Youth Symphony under Federica Cortese, and in the New Hampshire Philharmonic. Anna made her solo debut at the age of 10, with the Timberlane Chamber Orchestra. She was later invited to perform as a soloist with the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra. Last spring, she won the New Hampshire Philharmonic’s Darald and Julie Libby Youth Concerto Competition and appeared as a featured soloist in March. She was also a featured soloist with the Lowell Philharmonic after winning their Jeanne Selander Concerto Competition. Anna has been seen on BBC and PBS in a documentary featuring exceptionally gifted young musicians. She has been heard on NPR’s From the Top both as a soloist and as part of Elan Duo with violinist and friend, Nash Ryder.
Anna was first introduced to musiConnects through From the Top’s Center for the Development of Arts Leaders – a program that pairs high school musicians with community partner-sites for intensive year-long outreach projects. In this program, Anna and her site partner, Nash, worked with musiConnects, assisting in chamber groups, planning curriculums, and fundraising. In June, they organized a field-trip for the musiConnects students to see a From the Top taping in Jordan Hall. After the FTT program ended, Anna continued to work at Chittick with two classrooms of kindergarten students, teaching music-appreciation and basic music-making skills. It is her hope to continue to pursue music in unique and transformative settings.

click here to read a blog posting by Anna about her experiences at Chittick.

Nina Vansuch
Artist/Educator

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.  
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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.  www.ninavansuch.com

Daniel Sedgwick
Composer/pianist

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Dan Sedgwick is a composer, pianist, and teacher living in Somerville, MA.  His current composition projects include a work for two bassoons and string orchestra (inspired by late chamber music of Gabriel Fauré, and commissioned by the Keene Chamber Orchestra of Keene, NH,) and a series of canons for mixed voices and instruments (flexible instrumentation), composed in collaboration with Marjorie Gere for the Sagittal Songbook, a collection of microtonal music soon to be published by Oddmusic of Urbana, IL.  Dan’s other recent and ongoing musical activities include singing and puppeteering with music/puppetry collective An Exciting Event in Charlestown, MA; touring internationally as keyboardist/vocoderist with disco-pop artist Kelley Polar; and performing piano chamber music at the Apple Hill Summer Workshop in Nelson, NH. 

Dan graduated with doctoral and master’s degrees in composition from Rice University, and A.B. degree with concentration in music from Harvard.  He has studied composition with Bernard Rands, Mario Davidovsky, Elliot Gyger, Shih-hui Chen, Kurt Stallmann, Anthony Brandt, and Karim Al-Zand, and piano chamber music performance with Eric Stumacher, Robert Levin, Jeanne Kierman-Fischer, and Brian Connelly, among others.  
He currently works as a teaching assistant in music theory at the Harvard Music Department.
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Laura Messina
Cello

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This fall, we are excited to welcome Laura, a wonderful musician with strong experience and training in music education. She received her B.M. in music education from Ithaca College, an M.S. in music education from Western Connecticut State University, and Suzuki Cello teacher training in books 1-4. From 2008-11, she taught elementary and middle school orchestra in Connecticut, in addition to teaching several private students. In 2011, she moved to Boston, and began freelancing and teaching privately full time. Currently she teaches through several programs in the area including: musiConnects, the After School Lesson program in Weston, and the Saturday morning music program in Belmont, in addition to her own private studio. She also plays with the Cape Ann Symphony as well as freelance performing gigs.

Laura on her teaching philosophy:
I am a passionate and dedicated teacher. Having grown up with my mother, also a music teacher, teaching violin, viola, and piano students in our home and nurturing my own music education, I decided at an early age to become a music teacher. To me there is nothing more amazing than children expressing themselves through music. I strongly believe that all children should have an opportunity to have music be a part of their lives, and that they all have the capability to learn. My teaching philosophy stems from the Suzuki principles of nurturing, ear training, and parental support, and I adjust my teaching to accommodate the needs of each individual student. My ultimate goal is to teach students to become lifelong lovers and supporters of music and to enjoy playing the cello along the way.
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Zoe Kemmerling
Viola

A native of Davis, California, violist Zoe Kemmerling holds degrees in performance and creative writing from the Boston Conservatory and UC Davis. Her musical studies have taken her from the Adriatic coast of Italy to the Pacific coast of British Columbia; recent New England residencies include Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in New Hampshire and the Tanglewood Music Center. Zoe enjoys wearing multiple performing hats: she appears regularly as an orchestral and chamber musician, as a baroque violinist with period ensembles, and as a violist and founding member of the new music-oriented Equilibrium Concert Series. A strong supporter of spreading string education far and wide, she has worked with young string players in community programs in Chelsea, Lawrence, and Mattapan. As a freelance writer, she specializes in program notes and regularly contributes reviews and articles to the online journal The Boston Musical Intelligencer.
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Michael Dahlberg
Cello
Michael Dahlberg, cellist, is emerging as an engaging performer and educator in Boston and New York. After graduating from the New England Conservatory in May 2011, where he studied with Yeesun Kim of the Borromeo Quartet, he has explored music as a community-building tool, maintained a regular performance schedule and private studio. From 2011-2013, Michael served as the cellist of the Boston Public Quartet and served as the managing director of musiConnects for the 2012-2013 school year. An active freelance cellist in Boston, Michael plays regularly with the Juventas New Music Ensemble and Discovery Ensemble. This summer was his fifth at the Tanglewood Music Center where he was awarded the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award (2009) and featured in contemporary chamber works as a New Fromm Player (2011-13). Recent projects emphasize the layered nature of Dahlberg’s early career. These range from collaborations with composers such as Oliver Knussen, Charles Wuorinen and John Zorn to shows with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Laura Grill Band. He has held leading positions as Mentor in the inaugural class of Arts Leaders at From the Top’s “Center for the Development of Arts Leaders,” faculty at the Community Music Center of Boston and guest teaching artist for the 7th annual Panama Jazz Festival. Michael now works as manager of the national tour for the Boston arts organization, From the Top.