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The MAVI faculty is a internationally-trained and recognized group of performing musicians and teachers. Each member of the faculty brings a unique area of expertise to the Institute - including freelance skills, working in recording studios, symphony orchestras, performing chamber music, concerto repertoire, and solo recitals.


[Paula Fendler and Joyce Ramee]

Joyce A. Ramée, Co-director, Co-founder, violist,. is active throughout the Northwest as clinician, recitalist, teacher and coach. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Ms. Ramée was a student of Max Aronoff from 1975 until his death in 1981, attending both Curtis and the New School of Music. Ms. Ramée was the last Aronoff student to graduate from Curtis, completing her studies there with Joseph dePasquale. Later studies were with eminent violist Sol Greitzer, and as a fellowship scholar at Tanglewood and the Waterloo Music Festival. Joyce Ramée has been soloist with several northwest orchestras, performing concertos of Walton, Bartok and Hovhaness; she has also performed premiers of chamber and solo works by composers Daniel Ott, Dell Wade and Lawrence Ebert. She is violist of the Aronoff Trio, is a member of the Auburn Symphony and Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestras, and teaches at the University of Puget Sound. Her students have won positions in orchestras including the Oregon, Detroit, and Phoenix Symphonies. Ms. Ramée co-founded the Max Aronoff Viola Institute with Charles Noble in 1990, and has served as its Director ever since. to top

Paula and Joyce
picture courtesy of Masters Touch Photography of Auburn

 

 

 

Paula Fendler, Co director, received a Bachelor of Music from Pacific Lutheran University and Master of Music from Indiana University, both in organ performance, and she has performed in recitals throughout Washington. She studied piano and organ throughout her school years, singing in and accompanying church, school, and civic choirs, and the Choir of the West and Concert Chorus at Pacific Lutheran. Ms. Fendler has taught Music History, Music Theory and Choir; she has also held administrative positions in private schools and non-profit organizations. She served for many years as Organist and Choir Director at St. Luke's Episcopal Church and other churches throughout the Tacoma area, and has been a performer, section leader and board member of various civic choruses. Ms. Fendler is a violist with the Rainier Symphony, a community orchestra. In addition to her duties as Associate Director of the Max Aronoff Viola Institute, she maintains the MAVI web site and is on the MAVI Board of Directors.
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Betty Agent, violist, is a member of the Regency Faculty Quartet at Pacific Lutheran University. She was recently featured as viola soloist in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with Regency Quartet Violinist Svend Rønning. Ms. Agent has served for ten years on the faculty of the Max Aronoff Viola Institute Festival and is a performing artist on the Aronoff Chamber Music Series. She is principal violist of the Auburn Symphony and associate principal violist of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and frequently performs with Seattle Opera and Seattle Symphony. Ms. Agent is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Eastern Washington University. She has coached at the Marrowstone Festival and for Seattle Youth Symphonies, and maintains a large private teaching studio in Seattle. to top

 

Heather Blackburn, cellist, holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and from Washington State University where she held a teaching assistantship. She is a founding member of the ETHOS Quartet. Currently a member of Oregon Ballet Theater Orchestra and a frequent performer with Oregon Symphony, Ms. Blackburn has performed at festivals including Sunriver Music Festival, Cascade Festival of Music, the Ernest Bloch Festival and the Oregon Bach Festival. As a chamber musician, Ms. Blackburn has appeared on several chamber music series, including Mostly Nordic Series, Aronoff Chamber Music Series, Second City Series, Evergreen Music Festival, and Chamber Music on Tap. She has performed in master classes for Donald McInnes, Robert Mann and Zvi Zeitlin. In 1992 she participated in the first Winter Institute for String Quartets at the University of Delaware, and later that year won second prize at the regional (VA) National Society of Arts and Letters Cello Competition. Ms. Blackburn's teachers and chamber music coaches include Stephen Kates, Christopher von Baeyer, Sam Sanders, Earl Carlyss, and members of the American, Lydian and Mendelssohn String Quartets. Heather Blackburn joined the MAVI Faculty in 1997.to top

 

Sandra Bleiweiss, pianist, is the official accompanist for the Northwest Regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions, and is accompanist for both Seattle and Tacoma Opera Companies. Ms. Bleiweiss studied at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, after earning a Bachelor of Music from Whitman College. By invitation of the Mozarteum's Director, Sandra Bleiweiss accompanied master classes for Kim Borg, Ivry Gitlis and Henryk Szeryng. Performance opportunities in Salzburg, Vienna and Munich followed. Ms. Bleiweiss' teachers have included Dalton Baldwin, David Burge and Gwendolyn Koldofsky. Ms. Bleiweiss teaches piano at Seattle's Bush School and joined the Max Aronoff Viola Institute faculty in 1996. She is pianist of the Aronoff Trio and has performed on Seattle Symphony's Taste of Mozart Series, Second City Chamber Series and the Dame Myra Hess Series, Chicago.  to top

 

Scott Ligocki, violist, is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied viola and chamber music with acclaimed violist Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet and with the eminent pedagogue Karen Tuttle. Since returning to his native Seattle, Mr. Ligocki has enjoyed a varied career that includes orchestral and chamber music performances, recording for major motion pictures, and teaching. He is currently the principal violist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and was formerly principal violist with the Northwest Sinfonietta, where he also appeared as soloist. He frequently performs with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, and the Oregon Symphony. Chamber music performances include Belle Arte, Bellevue; Musical Experiences, Seattle; Second City, Tacoma; and Chamber Music in the San Juans. Besides his performing activities, Mr. Ligocki maintains a large studio of violin and viola students. His two books, Hodgepodge College of Violin Knowledge and Hodgepodge College of Viola Knowledge, have been well received by students and teachers. Mr. Ligocki joined the MAVI faculty in 1994. to top

 

Charles Noble, co-founder, violist, has been the Assistant principal violist of the Oregon Symphony since 1995, with which he has appeared as soloist on four occasions. In 1993 he was first-prize winner of the Seattle Ladies Musical Club Competition. In 1995 he received the C.D. Jackson Award at the Tanglewood Music Center, and was awarded the Israel Dorman String Prize at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He was a founding member of the acclaimed Ethos Quartet from 1999 to 2004. He has written articles for The Strad magazine - two on orchestral audition preparation, and one profiling Philadelphia Orchestra Principal violist Roberto Díaz. He was one of three American violists invited to tour Japan with the Super World Orchestra 2000, whose roster included members of the Vienna Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Noble has taught at the National Youth Orchestra Festival at Interlochen, and was a visiting master teacher at the University of Nevada at Reno. In June of 2002 he was a featured performer at the International Viola Congress in Seattle, WA, where he and OSO colleague Joël Belgique performed George Benjamin's Viola, viola. Mr. Noble will perform as part of The Four Violas, of which he is a founding member, at the International Viola Congress in June, 2004. Mr. Noble holds degrees from the University of Puget Sound, the University of Maryland and the Peabody Conservatory of Music. His primary teachers were William Watson, Joyce A. Ramée, Michael Tree and Roberto Díaz. Mr. Noble co-founded the Max Aronoff Viola Institute in 1990 with Joyce Ramée and has served on the faculty ever since. He was the MAVI Associate Director and a founding Board member from 1991-1993. to top

 

Daniel Ott, composer, theory, has received recent commissions from the National Symphony, the New York City Ballet’s New York Choreographic Institute, and the Northwest Sinfonietta, where he served as composer-in-residence for the 2000-01 season and was the recipient of an N.E.A. grant. Dr. Ott has received honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the ASCAP Foundation. He has been selected for residencies including the Seaside Institute’s “Escape to Create,” the Kyoto International Music Students Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. Dr. Ott’s catalogue of music includes works for orchestra, assorted chamber, vocal, and choral pieces, an opera and several ballet scores, for which he has an ongoing, critically-acclaimed collaboration with choreographer and New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Benjamin Millepied. Dr. Ott received a B.Mus. from The Curtis Institute  as a student of Ned Rorem, and both an M.Mus. and D.M.A. from The Juilliard School, where his teachers included John Corigliano and Robert Beaser. Currently on the faculty at Julliard, Dr. Ott joined the MAVI faculty in 1993. to top

 

Marcia F. Ott, violinist, graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and received a Master of Music from Pacific Lutheran University, where she currently serves on the faculty. Her teachers have included Stuart Canin, Joseph Silverstein, John Daly and Ann Tremaine. Ms. Ott was concertmaster of the North Carolina Symphony, and has been a member of many symphony orchestras here and abroad including the Florida Orchestra, and the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. She has concertized throughout the United States and Europe. Ms. Ott has performed on the Second City Chamber Series, the Jacobsen Concert Series, the Methow Music Festival, and with Andor Toth at Chamber Music in the San Juans. She has premiered works by Northwest composers including her son, Daniel Ott, and Lawrence Ebert and Dell Wade. Ms. Ott is a first violinist with the Auburn Symphony, the Northwest Sinfonietta, and Pacific Northwest Ballet, and violinist of the Aronoff Trio. She joined the MAVI faculty in 1992 and served on its Board of Directors from 1992-2001.  to top

 

Nancy Roth, violinist, violist, is currently concertmaster of the Carson Symphony and Culver City-Marina-Westchester Symphony, principal second violinist of the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay, and a member of the Pasadena Symphony. Dr. Roth has been a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and was co-principal violist of the Graz Philharmonic in Austria. She has been a featured soloist with numerous Southern California orchestras including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay, Carson Symphony, San Fernando Valley Symphony, Valley Symphony, and Rio Hondo Symphony. She has given numerous recitals and radio broadcasts in the United States, Austria and Mexico. Dr. Roth is a member of the String Family Players (quintet) and the Blackbird (Piano) Trio. She has played baroque violin and viols with Los Angeles Musica Viva and the London Early Music Group. Dr. Roth holds a Bachelor of Music from California State University Northridge, a Master of Music from the Juilliard School and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California. She joined the MAVI faculty in 2001.  to top

 

John T. Scanlon, violist, has recently moved to Tacoma, WA, thus achieving his desire to have lived in all four corners of the continental US. He was born in Boston and holds degrees from the University of Michigan and UC Santa Barbara. After a year with the Florida Philharmonic he settled in the Los Angeles area as a freelancer; during that time he subbed with the LA Philharmonic and LA Chamber Orchestra, and was a member of the Pacific Symphony, LA Opera Orchestra and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He also played for some 500 Motion Pictures, Television programs and commercials, and hundreds of pop albums for everyone from Mel Torme to Ashlee Simpson. John was Director of Instrumental Chamber Music and Professor of Viola at UC Irvine and is a founding-faculty member of MAVI. to top

 

Richard Treat, cellist, is a recent addition to the Tacoma area music scene. Richard is a native of Pasadena, CA and studied at Cal State LA with teachers such as Eleonore Schoenfeld and Lucien Laporte. Richard played with virtually every orchestra and chamber music organization in the Los Angeles area, from the Santa Barbara Symphony to the LA Philharmonic. He played with the Pacific Symphony for 16 years, and spent several seasons as Acting Principal Cello of the Opera Pacific Orchestra. Most recently he played with the LA Opera Orchestra and was Professor of Cello at Chapman University. Richard also played in the Hollywood studios and show pits. He is a founding-faculty member of MAVI. to top