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![[Paula Fendler and Joyce Ramee]](http://home.earthlink.net/~pf28/mavi/images/jr_pf.jpg)
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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
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Paula and Joyce
picture courtesy of Masters Touch Photography of Auburn
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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.
to top
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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