OUR FACULTY

DIRECTOR/VIOLIN

VIOLIN

Liza Barley is a Suzuki violin teacher who is curious about making music with everyone, everywhere. She has taught, performed, and led workshops all over the world and regularly produces new work in collaboration with artists of different disciplines. Liza grew up as a violin student of Michele Higa George and holds a BM in Violin Performance from Vanderbilt University and an MM in Music Leadership (Collaborative Composition) from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. She has a passion for leading processes that charge communities to think creatively together, amplify their voices, and make new work that is authentic. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and two children.

VIOLIN

Michael McLean, based in Los Angeles, is an internationally acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. He teaches at the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts, where he specializes in violin, composition, and ensemble direction. With a Bachelor of Music in violin performance from Northwestern University and a certificate from USC's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program, McLean is renowned for his orchestral, chamber, and film compositions.

VIOLIN/VIOLA

Sarah attended the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where she received a BA with honors and continued her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her musical studies eventually took her to the Hartt School, where she studied with the Emerson String Quartet and obtained her MM in viola performance, also her Suzuki teacher training with Linda Fiore and Teri Einfeldt. Ms. Smale has won several awards, including the Birmingham Conservatoire string quartet scholarship and the Herbert Lumby Viola prize. She has worked with world-renowned artists such as Pierre Boulez, Yuri Bashmet, Nicholas Kramer, Steve Reich, Sir Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev. Her experience includes numerous concerts and seminars with talented quartets and orchestras including: Takacs Quartet, European Chamber Opera, Russian National Ballet, and the Emerson Quartet, to which she was the assistant while in Hartford. Ms. Smale has also played with numerous choral societies as principal viola, recorded television work for the BBC, and recorded extensively for Radio Suisse. She also performs with L’Orchestre des Jardins Musicaux in Switzerland, where she is principal viola. Sarah is a longstanding member of the Ogontz White Mountain Suzuki family, and is in demand as a guest teacher at various workshops and summer institutes around the country.

VIOLIN

Originating from Gainesville, Florida, Abbie Ringdahl is a performing and teaching violinist based in Boston. She holds a MM in Performance from Boston University and a BM in Performance from Florida State University. She completed Suzuki teacher training for Units I and II with James Hutchins and Linda Fiore respectively. Her primary teachers include Bayla Keyes, Shannon Thomas, and Linda Fiore.

Abbie is a section violinist in the Boston Chamber Symphony. She played in the Tallahassee

Symphony Orchestra and the Panama City Symphony during her time at Florida State. She currently teaches violin and viola lessons in the Public Schools of Brookline and maintains a private studio in the Greater Boston area. Her love of teaching began in high school when she started teaching lessons to other violin students in Gainesville.

At the age of five, Abbie was introduced to the violin through the Suzuki Method and became active in her local Suzuki groups. She attended Ogontz White Mountain Suzuki Institute in the

summers of 2010-2018 as a camper, and as of 2024 is now on faculty. She spent many summers studying at Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and also attended the Richard Luby Violin Symposium at UNC-Chapel Hill and Brancaleoni International Music Festival. She is extremely grateful for the artistic guidance, supportive communities, and lifelong friends these experiences have given her.

VIOLIN

Kristen began violin at the age of three with her parents Tim and Kim Barrett at the Academy of Strings.

Ms. Barrett has been heard with several orchestras and chamber ensembles, such as Ensemble Affettuoso, the Amadeus Chamber Ensemble, the Brevard Philharmonic, the Apollo Ensemble, and the Horizon Ensemble. Additionally, she was invited as a guest soloist with Hemenway Strings for both Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ from The Four Seasons and J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. Ms. Barrett also performed abroad in Lithuania and Germany, concertizing works from Mozart, Bach and Ravel.

As an energizing and passionate collaborator, Ms. Barrett has served as Concertmaster for Boston Conservatory’s Sinfonietta, Symphony Orchestra, Opera Orchestra, and Conductor’s Orchestra. Notably, she recently made her debut in Boston’s Symphony Hall performingRimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. In the world of chamber music, her Aulos String Quartet were laureates of the 2021 MTNA Chamber Music Competition, and her current Felix Quartet in Boston has been recognized with honors by the Boston Conservatory.

Ms. Barrett holds a Bachelor’s degree from The University of Tennessee and Master’s degree from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She is currently pursuing an additional postgraduate degree under the tutelage of Dr. Katie Lansdale.

CELLO

CELLO

PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT

Alexis Zingale began her piano studies at the age of four and presented her first solo recital program at age nine. Ms. Zingale has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada as soloist and collaborator, and is among the most actively sought-after collaborators in New England. Her collaborative repertoire includes hundreds of sonatas, concert pieces, art songs, arias and orchestral transcriptions.

Ms. Zingale has performed as soloist and collaborator with the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra, the Hamden Symphony Orchestra, and the Brevard Music Center Festival Orchestra, and with the Brevard Music Center faculty chamber ensemble. Ms. Zingale has given international and local premieres of new works by young composers. She performed on reed organ with the New Haven Oratorio Choir, and on harpsichord with new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. Ms. Zingale has recorded for Peer Music Classical and the Charles Ives Society, and her performances have been broadcast on Connecticut Public Radio.

Her students have won prizes and top ratings in local, state, and regional competitions and festivals. Currently, Ms. Zingale is an adjunct professor of piano and chamber music at the University of Bridgeport, an accompanist at Southern Connecticut State University, accompanist of the New Haven Oratorio Choir, and a faculty member at the Suzuki Music Schools of Westport and Orange. Previously, she was a faculty member and staff accompanist at Neighborhood Music School, an instrumental accompanist at Western Connecticut State University, and a choral accompanist at Sacred Heart University. In the summer, she is an accompanist at Ogontz Suzuki Institute and White Mountain Suzuki Institute in New Hampshire.

PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT

A native of New York, Jack Kurutz is a performer, educator, and advocate of contemporary music. He is a founding member of Duo Junction (along with pianist Becky Billock), Piano4te, and the Living Room Chamber Music Project. He is also a member of IonSound Project, which recently performed at St. Vincent’s College (PA) and Music on the Hill (RI) . 

Mr. Kurutz received his undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and earned his Master of Music from New England Conservatory. In 2005, Kurutz completed an Artist Diploma from Carnegie Mellon University, and coached with Ralph Zitterbart.

In September 2007, Mr. Kurutz won First Prize, Artist Division, in the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition. He was a finalist in the 2009 Simone Belsky Competition and the 2010 Steinway Society of Massachusetts Competition. In addition to maintaining a private piano studio, he holds a teaching position at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12.