Dr. Nicole Wright is an award-winning violinist, violist, arranger, and music educator who has worked with renowned artists such as Rick Ross, Miley Cyrus, Mark Ronson, Jon Batiste, Metro Boomin, Yebba Smith, and Madonna. She has performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner Pre-party, hosted by Google and the Atlantic, under the Obama administration,
appeared as an on-stage musician at the Metropolitan Opera; and, in a series of television shows such as the David Letterman show, Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and in the Netflix’s limited series, the High and the Hog.

As a world traveling artist she has performed in Guadeloupe, France with Ensemble du Monde, in Panama City Panama with the Funsincopa organization, and the Tri-state area with the Wordless Orchestra. Passionate about performing, arranging, and teaching, Dr. Wright was reached out to by the Bronxnet Television station to be their spotlight artist. There, she shared
her teaching philosophy and performed her arrangement of Michael Jackson’s ‘Heal the World’. The Bronxnet Television station also shared her arrangement of Lean on Me, in honor of Black History Month.

Ms. Wright holds a Master of Music Degree from Mannes College of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Rutgers University. Along with performing Dr. Wright is a passionate educator. Currently, she is the teaching master at Opus 118, Harlem School of Music. There, she leads the violin program at a public school in Harlem and trains aspiring violin teachers.
Dr. Wright resides in New York City and enjoys traveling, reading, cooking, and fashion.

Venezuelan pianist Elena Abend has performed and toured throughout her native country. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Ms. Abend has performed at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Merkin Concert Hall, the Corcoran Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center, the Pabst Theater, Atlanta Historical Society and the Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Performances in Europe include London’s Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Toulouse Conservatoire, Theatre Luxembourg, University of Glasgow and “Musicales de Montsoreau” in France.

An active chamber musician, she has collaborated at the Marlboro and Ravinia Music Festivals, Frankly Music, Present Music, Milwaukee Musaik, Chamber Music Milwaukee, Rembrandt Chamber Players in Chicago, “Classical Progressions” at the Wilson Center, “Four Seasons” in Berkley, California, Music Institute of Chicago, Washington Island Music Festival and with the Philomusica, Mendelsohn, and Fine Arts Quartets.

Recordings include soloist with the Filarmonica Nacional in Venezuela, INNOVA recording, Albany Records and Avie label. Her latest recording “Fierce Lyricism” in collaboration with flutist Caen Thomason-Redus is now available on Spotify, Amazon and other digital music platforms. Pedagogically Ms. Abend has worked on numerous recording and editing projects for the Hal Leonard Corporation. She is chair of piano studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches piano performance, collaborative piano and chamber music, as well as faculty at the Collaborative Piano Institute at Louisiana State University.

KAIA QUARTET:

Victoria Moreira, violin 
Naomi Culp, violin
Susan Bengtson Price, viola
Hope DeCelle, cello

From the tango of the Rio de la Plata to the string quartets of Silvestre Revueltas, the KAIA String Quartet is an ensemble devoted to promoting the rich and colorful music of Latin America. Active performers in both the US and abroad, highlights of the 2019-2020 season include a residency at the Avaloch Farm Institute, a concert tour in Uruguay and Argentina including a performance at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, as well as performances at various concert series in North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

The Quartet plays an active role in Chicago's music scene where they are regular guests at the Chicago Latino Music Festival and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. In 2017, KAIA was the first ensemble in residence at Chicago's classical radio station, WFMT. During this residency they explored the world of Latin classical music with audiences through daily radio segments, performances and broadcasts around the city and the production of KAIA Kids, a series of children's education videos.

Celebrated by Downbeat magazine for its ability to "beautifully blur the lines between jazz, classical, Latin and world music" KAIA’s album collaboration with Fareed Haque was chosen by Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich as one of the top ten classical recordings of 2018. Their album, Sureño, explores the music and relationship of Argentinian composers Astor Piazzolla and José Bragato. The latest recording project released in 2020 includes a collaboration with jazz pianist Ryan Cohan in his work Originations. KAIA together with Cohan and his chamber ensemble were featured performing this piece at 2019 Chicago's Jazz Fest main stage. 

KAIA is deeply devoted to music education. From 2013-2017, the quartet traveled to Tijuana, Mexico to present and perform in schools through the sponsorship of the Mainly Mozart Festival. They are teaching artists for Ravinia's Reach*Teach*Play program and for the International Music Foundation's Live Music Now program. KAIA is currently in residence at DePaul University’s Community Music Division.

Chamber Music Intensive 

2025 Faculty

Thiago Ancelmo Clarinet	Daphne Gerling Viola	Simón Gollo Program Coordinator Violin
Dr. Charles Huang Oboe	Ryan Romine Bassoon	Eduardo Rojas Piano
Qiao Chen Solomon Violin		Dominique Soucy-Piscitelli Flute

Brazilian clarinetist, Thiago Ancelmo, has an active career as an educator, chamber musician, and orchestral player. Awarded in more than ten competitions, including the prestigious “New Talents of Brazilian Music”, he has performed in twelve countries in Europe, South America, and North America, and more than twenty-two states in the US.

Dr. Charles Huang has concertized throughout North and South America, Brazil, Germany, and Asia. He has performed with the Miami String Quartet, the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, the Hartford and New Haven Symphonies, and with soloists Humbert Lucarelli, Henrique Pinto, Angel Romero and others. A founding member of Oboe Duo Agosto, he is active in commissioning diverse new repertoire. Their project, Daughter of the Sea, composed by Andrea Clearfield and choreographed by Katie Stevinson-Nollet, features music, movement, and poetry, all performed by the duo. 

Dr. Huang has been a Fulbright Scholar in Stuttgart, Germany, semi-finalist in the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, scholarship recipient to the Music Academy of the West and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and a winner of the Miami String Quartet Competition. He has recorded music by Phil Salathé, released by PARMA records, and Keith Kramer, on Navona Records and released by the Society of Composer’s Inc. He currently teaches at the Hartt School Community Division and at Smith, Mount Holyoke and Williams Colleges. As a clinician and performer, he has given masterclasses at the University of Michigan, Alabama, SUNY Purchase and Chiayi University in Taiwan. Dr. Huang has also been on the faculty of the Lucarelli Oboe Masterclass, and at Festival Eleazar de Carvalho in Fortaleza, Brazil. His teachers include Nancy Ambrose King, Humbert Lucarelli, Ray Still and Ingo Goritzki. 

Dr. Rachel Hockenberry is the Assistant Professor of Horn at Illinois State University, where she teaches horn lessons, horn pedagogy, warmup class, and studio class, conducts the ISU horn choir, and performs regularly with the ISU Faculty Brass Quintet. An active freelance musician, Rachel has performed with the Cincinnati, Columbus, Santa Barbara, Illinois, Quad Cities, Peoria, and Dubuque Symphonies, Orchestra Kentucky, and many others. She has also performed with artists such as Billy Idol, Pete Townshend, and Jon Batiste, and has recorded for television series. She is principal horn of the Queen City Opera, where in October of 2015 she performed the “Long Call” from Act II of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried. She is a hornist with the Maryland Chamber Winds and can be heard on both of the group’s albums. She has toured with the Stiletto Brass Quintet and is the hornist on their album, Scarpe!

Before Illinois State, Rachel was the horn professor at Pasadena City College and Los Angeles City College, and kept a large private studio of young hornists throughout Los Angeles County who successfully auditioned into the California All State and All Southern Bands and the Colburn Youth Orchestra. She incorporates elements of El Sistema - a music education philosophy based on the belief that music is a transformative and fundamental human right for all people - into every aspect of her teaching career. Rachel is a graduate of the Sistema Fellows Program at the New England Conservatory of Music, and has completed residencies with El Sistema programs in Venezuela and across the United States. Upon graduation from the Sistema Fellowship, she became the founding director of Kentucky’s first El Sistema inspired program, North Limestone MusicWorks.

A Virginia native, Rachel received her bachelor's degree in horn performance from James Madison University. She earned her masters and doctoral degrees in horn performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, with cognate studies in arts administration. Primary teachers include Randy Gardner, Tom Sherwood, Liz Freimuth, Duane Dugger and Abigail Pack, with additional instruction from David Ohanian and Roger Kaza.

In her free time, Rachel enjoys teaching yoga classes, doing gymnastics, eating vegan food, and hanging out with her dogs and cats.

Bassoonist and educator Ryan D. Romine serves as Associate Professor of Bassoon and Music Theory at Shenandoah Conservatory (Winchester, VA, USA). An in-demand orchestral bassoonist, he regularly performs with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Opera Roanoke, and the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. As a solo performer and avid researcher, he has dedicated himself to a career of presenting rediscovered works to audiences worldwide. His debut solo album of French contest pieces, Première, was hailed as “an absolutely brilliant CD…bringing back from oblivion some truly beautiful music, played with precision and lyricism…” and his rediscovery of Jacques Ibert’s Morceau de lecture for bassoon and piano in 2018 made international news.

An active supporter of contemporary composers, Ryan has premiered numerous works—including his own—for audiences worldwide. Stemming from these interests, in 2019 he published Bassoon Reimagined, a comprehensive bassoon extended technique resource designed for both performers and composers. Ryan contributes to the academic side of his profession as only the third bassoon editor in the history of the International Double Reed Society (IDRS).

Originally from Newark, OH, Ryan holds his undergraduate degree in music education from The Ohio State University and his MM and DMA in bassoon performance from Michigan State University. His primary teachers include Christopher Weait and Michael Kroth. For more info about Ryan and his musical endeavors, visit www.ryanromine.net.

Keaton Garrett is a collaborative composer and saxophonist based in Michigan. His work is informed by his experiences performing in chamber ensembles as a classical saxophonist, while also being influenced by whatever he is listening to at the moment. His musical grammar is dynamic from work to work but at its core synthesizes concepts of collaboration, timbre, texture, line, and audible/tangible processes.

Keaton completed graduate studies in composition and saxophone performance at Michigan State University with Dr. David Biedenbender, Dr. Alexis Bacon, Dr. Lyn Goeringer, and Professor Joseph Lulloff. Keaton also completed a music education degree from Stephen F. Austin State University, studying composition and saxophone under Dr. Stephen Lias and Dr. Nathan Nabb. Keaton is currently the saxophonist for the Zenith Reed Quintet and Cadre Trio. His saxophone and wind ensemble music is published by MurphyMusicPress.

Andrew David Sotomayor is an award-winning musician based in NYC. Music directing credits include Tootsie and Escape to Margaritaville (First National Tours), and Curvy Widow (Off-Broadway Premiere). As a composer, he has provided music and lyrics for the original musicals 50 Shades of F***d Up, Committed, Sarah Crewe, The Circus Animals, Guardians, and Third Party Ruling, as well as scores for the audiobook The Influential Voice, the short film Cuba 1961: A Love Story, and the independent feature film, BX3M.

A passionate educator, he has enjoyed several years on the teaching faculty at Paper Mill Playhouse - teaching at both their July Conservatory and August Intensive. He is a proud graduate of Stetson University, Florida.

Aimee Radics (she/her) is a music director, conductor, pianist and educator currently serving as Head of Music Direction for the BFA Musical Theatre Program at Texas State University. She teaches Singing for the Actor, a musical theatre performance course, and teaches collaboratively as in-class music director for Pop Rock Repertoire Building, Musical Theatre Through Musicianship, and a variety of core BFA classes in the Musical Theatre Program. Aimee is also a Certified One Voice Coach.

Prior to joining the faculty at Texas State, Aimee held a faculty position at East Carolina University as a teaching instructor, music director and vocal coach. As a professional music director and conductor, she has worked extensively in regional, cruise ship and educational theatre across the country. Professional highlights include Red Mountain Theatre Company, Cortland Repertory Theatre, Post Playhouse, Florida Studio Theatre, and Norwegian Cruise Line, with favorite music directing and conducting credits including Next to Normal, 9 to 5, A Chorus Line, A New Brain, Into the Woods, and Sunday in the Park with George.  

Aimee holds a bachelor’s degree in music and theatre as well as a Master of Music in Musical Theatre and Opera Conducting from Ithaca College, has studied with Sheri Sanders in the Rock the Audition Training Program, attended the CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah University, and is a member of Maestra and Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance.

Jackson Perrin is a performer, singer-songwriter, and vocal coach on faculty for Texas State University’s Musical Theater program. He currently teaches private sessions for Sophomores through Seniors as well as a Pop Rock Repertoire building class. Since attending Texas State for Musical Theater Jackson received his certification and master certification in One Voice and has taught privately for nine years. He’s helped hundreds of singers from various training backgrounds and genres achieve their vocal goals while passionately focused on applying technical theories and into practical use on the field.

Jackson has also co-founded Presence a Brooklyn-based musician collective, they provide a weekly improvised live-music session for emerging artists throughout Brooklyn with a focus on inclusivity and intentional creativity.

Aaron Henry is a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer, specializing in modern and contemporary improvisation. He has performed at venues including Lincoln Center, The North Sea Jazz Festival, and the Istanbul Jazz Festival, and recorded with artists including Dave Liebman, Miguel Zanon, Anat Cohen, Antonio Sanchez, Matthew Stevens, Esperanza Spalding, and Tiger Okoshi. As a composer he has written and produced music for Fox International, National Geographic, and Elias Music, and has placed tracks in international catalogs, libraries, and commercial streaming markets. Selected recording and production credits include Grammy-nominated NEC faculty member Mehmet Ali Sanlikol’s large ensemble What’sNext?, Louis Cato (Jon Batiste and Stay Human of The Tonight Show) and guitarist Matt Stevens, and Maine-grown artists Adam Agati (Corey Henry, Marcus Miller), Lyle Divinsky (The Motet, Model Airplane), Nick Falk (Hiss Golden Messenger), and Anna Lombard.

NEMC JAZZ INTENSIVE DAILY SCHEDULE SAMPLE 2024

8am Breakfast

8:15-8:30am Warm up

8:45-10:15am Small Group Rehearsals

10:30-11:15 Masterclass

11:20 - 12pmChart Reading

12-1pm Lunch

1pm-1:45p Rest Hour

1:45p-2.:30p Theory/Improvisation

2:30-4pm Rec Time

3-4p Private Lessons/Individual Practice

4-6p Big Band Rehearsal

6-6:45p Dinner

7-7:50p Jam Sessions/Free Time

8p Campus Activities

2024 NEMC Summer Concert Schedule

Free Weekly Concerts - Bowl in the Pines

July 5, 6, 19, 20, 26, 27, August 11* - 3:00pm

*Intensive & Prelude Showcase Concert

44th Annual NEMC POPS Concerts - Bowl in the Pines

July 13 - 7:30pm - TICKETED EVENT*

*This event will showcase Pianist Jeffrey Biegel, soloing with the NEMC Symphony Orchestra in the Maine Premier of “Rhapsody in Red, White & Blue.”

Free Weekly Recitals - Alumni Hall

Snow Pond Chamber Players Welcome Recital

June 30 - 5:00pm

Faculty Recitals 

July 4, 11, 16 & August 7 - 7:30pm

Student Recitals 

Counselor Recital 

July 2 - 7:30pm

Musical Theater Showcase (Core Camp) - Alumni Hall

July 27 - 1:00pm

Prelude Recital - Bowl in the Pines

August 9 - 2:00pm 

Chamber Music Recitals - Alumni Hall

August 9 & 10 - 4:00pm

Jazz Concert - Bowl in the Pines

August 9 - 8:00pm

Musical Theater Intensive Showcase - Alumni Hall

August 10 - 8:00pm

Freddy is a Venezuelan-born musician who enjoys a versatile career as a chamber player, pedagogue and organizational leader. Currently based in Philadelphia, Freddy serves as Associate Artistic Director of Trenton Music Makers –A creative youth development organization focusing on empowering its students through high-quality music education.

Ana María Quintero was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1993 and began her studies at the age of six with her mother, Clara Muñoz. Ms. Quintero graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music degree from Fundación Universitaria Juan N. Corpas School of Music, where she studied Violin Performance and Chamber Music under the tutelage of Maestro Fabio Santana. She holds a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance from New Mexico State University, where she studied with Professor Simón Gollo.

Dr. Jeffrey Barudin is a dynamic and innovative percussion performer and pedagogue currently based in Philadelphia, PA. He has performed as a soloist and ensemble member around the world, including several performances at PASICs and PAS Days of Percussion. He has also participated in numerous world premiere performances and recordings. His playing has been praised as having "...the naturalness of conversation" with "joy that cascades from every note."