Music Faculty
We strive to provide exceptional faculty to privately tutor, coach, and serve as role models for our campers. Our music faculty is composed of young professionals from all over the country who perform regularly, and who also have a passion for teaching and coaching.
During each summer camp session, our faculty perform public concerts at local venues. Their presentations of major works of the chamber music repertoire excite and motivate campers in their own musical growth. This popular series builds an intimate awareness of the discipline and joy of professional music making. The motivation and excitement is manifested in the many wonderful student performances.
We are proud to have an exceptional list of accomplished individuals joining the Point CounterPoint faculty for 2012.
2012 Faculty Bios
Karen Oosterbaan, Director Sessions 1 and 2, violinist: BM, Vanderbilt University; MM, New England Conservatory; GPD, Longy School of Music; AmSAT Certified Alexander Technique Training with Ted Dimon . Currently Ms. Oosterbaan teaches Chamber Music at Olin College and Violin and Chamber Music at the Winchester Community Music School. As a professional violinist, she performs with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music as a soloist and member. She has also performed with Pro Arte, Marsh Chapel, Polymnia, and Cantata Singers. She has appeared as a soloist with Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. For eight years she directed the Summer Chamber Music Festival of Winchester Community Music School.
In addition, she is committed to explore how the Alexander Technique can transform the performing artist’s career. She currently teaches Alexander Technique classes at New England Conservatory for graduate and undergraduate musicians to help them play their instruments with more comfort, freedom, and ease. She has presented a series of Alexander Technique workshops for musicians at Boston Symphony Orchestra, New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, and Guildhall School of Music, London. MM, New England Conservatory; GPD, Longy School of Music; BM, Vanderbilt University; AmSAT Certified Alexander Technique Training with Ted Dimon
Randy Hiller, Director – Session 3, violinist: BA Harvard University, MBA and PhD MIT. Recently retired from a career in Business, Mr. Hiller now pursues music full time. Randy is the Founder and Director of the Lexington Chamber Music Center, coaching small ensembles made up of local middle school and high school students and organizing performances at outreach facilities such as retirement communities, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and hospitals. As a freelance violinist, he has performed with many Boston ensembles, including Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the Lexington Symphony.
He was concertmaster of the Concord Orchestra between 1999 and 2004. An avid chamber musician, he has performed in small ensembles in and around Boston including the Winsor Outreach Quartet, The Auros ensemble, and The Alcyon Ensemble, and has studied chamber music with Raphael Hillyer, Robert Merfeld, and Leon Kirschner. Mr. Hiller serves on the board as immediate Past-President of Project STEP, a Boston-based program designed to provide string instrument training to talented minority children
Heather Adelsberger, pianist: BA Catholic University of America, MM University of Maryland. Ms. Adelsberger maintains an active career as a pianist, organist, vocal accompanist and piano instructor in the Washington D.C. area. She joined the faculty at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 2009 where she coaches and accompanies conservatory-bound vocal students. In spring 2012, she worked with DESA’s Opera Workshop. A sought-after music educator and member of MTNA, Ms. Adelsberger currently maintains private piano studios in Maryland and Virginia. Her upcoming engagements include a series of recitals with former Point CounterPoint cello faculty member, Sara Bennett Wolfe.
Lilian Belknap, viola: BM, Cleveland Institute of Music; MM, Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Principal teachers: Andre’ Roy, Roger Tapping, Jeffrey Irvine, Lynne Ramsey and Edward Gazouleas. Previous faculty at Tunis Summer Music Camp (Tunis, Tunisia) and Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (Boston, MA)
Belknap has participated in the following festivals: Gesher Music Festival of Emerging Artists (St. Louis, MO), Festival Geminiani di Follonica (Follonica, Italy), Scotia Festival of Music (Halifax, NS), Aspen Music Festival, (Aspen, CO), Musicorda Chamber Music Festival (South Hadley, MA), and the National Repertory Orchestra (Breckenridge, CO). Multiple artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, AB).
Lilian was a Point CounterPoint camper for two summers. She lives in Montréal, Quebec.
Anne Black, violist: University of California, Los Angeles; Yale University School of Music; Boston University; and Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, CA. Black enjoys an active career in the Boston area as both a classical musician and visual artist. She performs with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, as well as with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops as an extra violist. She is principal violist of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the orchestras of the Cantata Singers, Concord Chorus, and Metropolitan Chorale.
Appearing frequently as a performer of contemporary music, Black is violist of the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble. She performs with Collage New Music and can be heard on Collage’s Grammy-nominated recording of John Harbison’s Mottetti di Montale. She has presented solo and chamber works with Notariotous, Auros New Music Ensemble, Extension Works, Alea III, Phantom Arts Ensemble, Composers in Red Sneakers, the Boston Microtonal Society, and the Harvard University Fromm Foundation Concerts. She has been a guest artist with the Lydian Quartet, in residence at Brandeis University. She appeared as viola d’amore soloist in Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Hueguenots” with the American Symphony in 2009.
As a performer on period instruments, she is a member of the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra and performs with Boston Baroque and the Aston Magna Festival. She has been featured as viola d’amore soloist with Handel & Haydn Society, Chorus Pro Musica, Concord Chorus, and Cecilia Society. She was a founding member of the Mannheim Quartet, which can be heard on Titanic Records.
She has taught at Phillips Exeter Academy, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Merrywood Music School in Lenox, MA.
A prize-winning photographer and artist in multiple media, she has been a resident artist at the Arlington Center for the Arts since 2004.
Philip Boulanger, cellist: BM Boston University, Performance Certificate from the Krakow Academy of Music, Poland, and MM from Northwestern. While at Northwestern, Philip served as Assistant Principal Cello of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, as well as teaching assistant to Hans Jensen at the Meadowmount School of Music. A passionate chamber musician, Philip has performed numerous recitals with the Elan String Quartet, and organizes the chamber music program at Stevenson High School in Illinois.
Philip currently lives in Chicago, where he works as a Teaching Artist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, volunteers at the YOURS Project, Chicago’s only “El Sistema” program geared at providing free music education for lower income and underprivileged youth, and maintains a private cello studio. Philip was also a PCP camper for two summers.
Javier Caballero, cellist: BM University of South Florida; MM, GPD Boston Conservatory. Born in Puerto Rico, Mr. Caballero is a versatile freelancer, teacher and arts administrator based in Boston. His principal teachers have been Rhonda Rider and Scott Kluksdahl. While Mr. Caballero is equally at home performing musical theater shows at Boston Lyric Stage, early music with Florida Pro Musica or premiering a new contemporary opera with Guerilla Opera, he has also recorded several albums with Middle Eastern, New Age, Balkan and Indie Rock groups and has performed with Diana Ross and the Supremes.
Mr. Caballero has also toured China, Palestine, and Israel. In addition to performing, Mr. Caballero teaches strings and serves as the Artistic Administrator of Project STEP—a string education program for children from underrepresented communities in Boston.
Patrick Doane, violinist: BM Julliard 2006 Described as a ‘Compelling Violinist’ by the New York Times, violinist, composer and educator, Patrick Doane ‘s multifaceted career includes performances alongside diverse and renowned artists such as Savion Glover, Keith Lockhart, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Mark Dresser, and members of the Muir, Flux, and Portland String Quartets, and the Indie Music Bands Beirut, Wakey! Wakey!, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. As an educator, Patrick is a teaching Artist with the Noel Pointer Foundation, which brings young professional string players into Public and Charter Schools in Brooklyn, New York.
Doane’s voracious appetite for music has led him to appear in venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fischer Hall, Symphony Space, and Miller Theatre to MOMA, Joes Pub, Bowery Ballroom, Mercury Lounge, The Cheslea Art Museum, Salvador Dali Museum St. Petersburg FL, The New York Stock Exchange, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Bowery Poetry Club, The Copenhagen Jazz Festival in Denmark, Cornelia Street Café, The Stone, and Café Vivaldi. Awards include first prizes at the Rockport Young Artists and the National Federation of Music Clubs Competitions and the Portland String Quartet Chamber Music Competition. He has been awarded scholarships from the National Federation of Music Clubs for his studies at Meadowmount School of Music, as well as from the Banff Centre, Colby College.
He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad with String Quartet and as a member of Indie Rock and Pop bands, and with Savion Glover. He is an active member of performance ensembles in New York City such as the Continuum Ensemble, the Axiom Ensemble, Mimesis, and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Erin Ellis, cellist: BM, MM Cleveland Institute of Music, DMA Eastman School of Music. Ms. Ellis has studied cello with Richard Aaron, Alison Wells, and David Ying and Suzuki teacher training with Tanya Carey. She is a former Teaching Assistant at Eastman and cello faculty at the Hochstein School of Music in Rochester, NY. She has also studied Baroque Performance Practice at Vancouver, Amherst, and Longy Baroque Institutes. She is currently on faculty at the University of Georgia Community Music School and Waldorf School Atlanta. Ms. Ellis serves as Principal Cello of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (GA) and maintains a private studio in the Atlanta, GA area.
Omar Chen Guey, violin: BM Manhattan School of Music, MM The Juilliard School, DMA Stony Brook University. Brazilian violinst Omar Guey has performed internationally as a soloist with orchestras, in recitals and chamber concerts throught Brazel as well as in the United States, Europe, Qatar, Taiwan, Kenya and the Seychelles. He has been a soloist with the Brazilian, Campinas, Goiania, Minas Gerais, Claudio Santoro National Theater, Sao Paulo University, Sao Paulo Municipal, and the State of Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestras as well as the Amazonas Philharmonic, Petrobras Pro-Musica, Experimental Repertoire, Qatar Philharmonic, Manhattan School of Music, Stony Brook University Symphony, Maidstone Symphony and the Seychelles International Music Festival Orchestras.
Following a recital in Oslo, Norway, he had the honor of performing for the King of Norway, Harald V. He is a prize winnerat both Tibor Varga and Lipizer International Violin Competitions in Switzerland and Italy respectively.
Mr. Guey released the Bach Concerto for Two Violins on the Paulinas Label with the Brazilian soloist Elisa Fukuda and the Camerata Fukuda of which he was also concert master. He premiered and released a work for solo violin of renowned French Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife on Nagan records. He participated in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop and has collaborated with such renowned musicians as David Finckel, Lynn Harrell, Ani Kavafian, Lawrence Dutton and Colin Carr.
Mr. Guey’s principal teachers were Philip Setzer, Ani Kavafian and Pamela Frank, Robert Mann and Sylvia Roseberg. He received a scholarship from the Brazilian government, the Juilliard and the Aspen Musical Festival Fellowship. He was the assistant concertmaster of the Orquestra de la Comunidad Valencia, in Valencia, Spain under the direction of Lorin Maazel. He has served as concertmaster of the Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra in Israel, and guest assistant concertmaster with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Norwegian Opera and Ballet.
He has taught at the Bunol Music Festival in Spain, the Juiz de Fora International Music Festival and the International Winter Music Festival of Campos do Jordao in Brazil. Since moving to Boston, Omar has joined the Rhode Island Philharmonic and has performed with A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, Walden Chamber Players, Radius Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Boston Lyric Opera, New England Camerata and at the Monadnock Music Festival.
Arunesh Nadgir, pianist: BM New England Conservatory of Music, MM The Juilliard School, and DMA Eastman School of Music. Nadgir has performed as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. He has participated in several international music festivals such as the Millennium International Piano Festival, The Moulin d’Ande Festival, and the Kneisel Hall Summer Music Festival.
He has been heard on Nashville’s WPLN live radio broadcast entitled “Live from Studio C,” and New York’s WNYC broadcast, “A Global and Literary Salon: Beyond Bollywood.”
Nadgir began taking piano lessons at the age of seven with Michael Thomopoulos and later studied under Wha Kyung Byun, Robert McDonald, and Natalya Antonova.
Nadgir is currently an Assistant Professor of Piano at Middle Tennessee State University. He has also been on the faculties at several other music programs including New England Conservatory’s Preparatory and Continuing Education Departments, the Eastman School of Music, and the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. He frequently conducts solo piano and chamber music master classes around the world
Lauren Paul, violinist : BM, Northwestern University, MM, Cleveland Institute of Music, and is a graduate of long-term training in the Suzuki method, registered in books 1-10. Lauren is currently a freelance violinist and teacher. Previously, Ms. Paul served as faculty member at the Levine School of Music in Washington DC, spent three seasons playing full time in the Charleston Symphony and served as Concertmaster of the Mansfield Symphony. Lauren was a PCP camper and this will be her third summer as music faculty.
Shauna Smith, violinist/violist : BA-College of Idaho, MA-Aaron Copeland School of Music, City of New York. Ms. Smith is now a full time freelance violinist and violist, founder of Cellar Door String Ensembles and Harmony Intentions, a multi-media site. Interested in the healing aspects of music, Shauna is also gaining certification in therapeutic music. Her honors include College of Idaho’s most outstanding musician and concerto competition winner, 2000. In 2010 the Aaron Copland School of Music awarded her most outstanding chamber musician
and in 2011 she won the music school’s concerto competition on viola. She has studied with the world renowned pedagogue, Burton Kaplan. Ms. Smith has played section and principle violin and viola with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Boise Philharmonic, and the Spokane Symphony.
She served as principle violist of the Aaron Copland School of Music, and principle violinist of the College of Idaho and University of Alaska, Anchorage orchestras. Ms. Smith was the violinist/violist in residence for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival for 4 seasons. She has served as a chamber music instructor at the Birchwood Strings Camp in Alaska, Sun Valley Summer Symphony Arts Academy, the Idaho Viola Camp, and the Boise State University Summer music camp.
Marvin Suson, violinist/violist : BFA- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MM -University of Maryland-College Park. Among the many groups Suson plays with are the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, the Wisconsin Philharmonic, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Green Bay Symphony, the Kenosha Symphony, the Fox Valley Symphony, Festival City Symphony, and Racine Symphony. He is also a versatile performer, appearing as chamber musician, electric violinist, bluegrass fiddler, and he regularly leads worship at his church, Meadowbrook. Suson has studied with Gerald Fischbach and Daniel Heifetz.
Through his graduate fellowship, he also studied viola and chamber music under the Guarneri Quartet and baroque performance with members of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. While living in Maryland, Marvin participated in the National Orchestral Institute and performed with the Alexandria Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, and Prince George’s Philharmonic. After working on a Doctoral of Musical Arts for one year on full scholarship at the University of Texas in Austin, Marvin and his wife, Joie, moved back to Wisconsin to start raising a family.
He frequently attends practice retreats at Magic Mountain Music Farm in upstate New York where he studies with Burton Kaplan, professor of violin and viola at the Manhattan School of Music, author of “Practicing for Artistic Success: the Musicians Guide to Self -Empowerment.” Since 1998 he has appeared annually as a recitalist with the Millennium Strings in Gilbertsville, New York in association with Magic Mountain Music Farm.
Marvin has become known as a performer of “kundiman,” a genre of Filipino songs. “Kundiman” is a Tagalog word which means “serenade.” Being 100% Filipino, he grew up hearing this expressive style of music. He has appeared as a soloist, performing and promoting kundiman in Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.
Marvin is also passionate about teaching and has held positions at the Wisconsin Conservatory and has been adjunct faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. Currently he keeps a private studio of 25 students, and teaches orchestra in a public school. Marvin also enjoys serving as a sectional coach and chamber music coach for the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Rebecca Thornblade, cellist: BM Oberlin Conservatory, MM Juilliard School. Ms. Thornblade has worked with such renowned quartets as the Vermeer, Juilliard, Orion, Takacs and members of the Cleveland and Emerson Quartets. Ms. Thornblade was featured on WGBH’s “Classical Performances” with pianist Gilbert Kalish and has collaborated with flutist Carol Wincenc and pianist Randall Hodgkinson.
Rebecca is currently a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and performs with Opera Boston, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Cantata Singers. She has appeared as a chamber musician with Lyrica Boston, Lyrica Chamber Music in New Jersey, the Suzuki School of Newton’s Artist Concert Series, the New Gallery Concert Series, The Radius Ensemble, The Firebird Ensemble and the Worcester Chamber Music Society. In addition to her private teaching studio, she is on the chamber music faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division and an adjunct professor of cello at Wellesley College.
Her teaching experience includes work with the MusiCorps Program through the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Midori Foundation in New York, outreach programs with the New World Symphony and Chamber Music America’s Rural Residency Program and as Adjunct Professor of Cello at Rhode Island College.
Rebecca Thornblade is a grand prize winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition, and has had an active and versatile career as a chamber music and orchestral cellist. Ms. Thornblade has played with many ensembles throughout the country which include the award-winning Fry Street and Avalon quartets and as principal cellist of the New World Symphony in Miami and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She has participated in the Aspen Music Festival Advanced Quartet Studies Program, Chamber Music Encounters in Jerusalem with Isaac Stern, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo,Japan, the Britt Festival in Oregon, the Colorado Music Festival, the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Tanglewood Fellowship Program, the Sarasota Chamber Music Festival among others.