Peter Arventely
Peter Arvantely, a father to three amazing teenagers, has loved playing music for as long as he can remember. After graduating from Yale and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Peter played actively in the Bay Area and taught clarinet and chamber music at the SF Community Music Center in the city's vibrant Mission neighborhood. Peter maintains ties with his Bay Area community by playing with SF's Brass Liberation Orchestra, a street band that brings music to direct actions for social justice. Currently living in central Massachusetts, Peter teaches a variety of subjects at St. Mark's School in Southborough and plays with the Assabet Valley Mastersingers. Peter looks forward every summer to his work at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, where he works as Camp Director and plays with amazing people from around the world.
Pablo Escalante
Pablo Escalante (Pol Escalante) is from Medellín, Colombia and currently resides in Providence, RI. He is a graphic designer/photographer by profession, but his real passions are music and instrument making. Pol is primarily a singer songwriter / sitarist/ producer/ sound engineer, but also plays many instruments from all over the world such as Native Flute, Saz, Shamisen, Sarod, etc. These instruments add many flavors and hints of traditions to his original and versatile styles of music. He is also a founding member of Humming Owl, a duo with his wife - violinist, singer and composer, Roseminna Watson.
Ashley Frith
Ashley Lauren Frith is a violist, singer, composer, anti-oppression facilitator and music educator. Focusing on care partnerships, her belonging work particularly addresses how racism affects our individual and collective interiority as it amplifies all other forms of oppression. Her work is held and supported by a contemplative end of life practice, yogic training and play process, and is driven by deep healing and total liberation for all beings. Currently, Ashley is the Facilitator of Community Culture and Being(ness) at Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI, a faculty member of the LA Philharmonic’s YOLA National Institute, and writes music for theatre. She is working on an album surrounding the embodied process of grief.
Marji Gere
Marji Gere is a violinist based in Somerville, MA. She and her husband Dan Sedgwick are co-founders of Around Hear, an organization with the mission to enrich the life of the City of Somerville by offering innovative, uplifting, free chamber music concerts and community music classes to generationally, culturally, and economically diverse audiences. Toward the goal of offering their listeners multiple entry points into the ever-expanding, expressive realm of classical music, they have cultivated an artistic language which interweaves chamber music with a variety of art forms, including: dance, puppetry, theater, storytelling, visual art, video, poetry, as well as non-classical musical styles. Marji grew up among free-thinking musicians in Davenport, Iowa and studied at University of Iowa and Harvard University. When she is not playing and teaching music, Marji is working on her first novel, which features a cast of eight talkative pigeons.
Jesse Holstein
Jesse Holstein, violinist and violist, has been a Resident Musician at CMW since 2001. He was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. Prior to studying with Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin and James Buswell at New England Conservatory, he worked with Philipp Naegele in Northampton, MA. Jesse is currently concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony. He has performed at the Bravo! Festival in Vail, Colorado, the Montana Chamber Music Festival, the Bay Chamber Concerts, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, The South Coast Chamber Music Series, the Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, and the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, among others. In 2009 Jesse was a Violin Professeur at L’Ecole de Musique, Dessaix Baptiste in Haiti and is currently on the faculty at Brown University. One of his interests is how Buddhist mindfulness practice and meditation intersects with teaching and performing music..
Becca Kasdan
Becca Kasdan is currently a Teaching Associate at Brown University and holds a Violin Faculty position at New England Conservatory Preparatory/Expanded Education and Project STEP in Boston, MA. Dr. Kasdan is an active freelancer in Rhode Island and Boston performing with groups such as the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Civic Chorale, The Orchestra on the Hill, among others. During the summers, Becca is a faculty member at the Easton Chamber Music Festival and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Summer Chamber Music Workshop.
Becca received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she studied with Meg Freivogel of the Jupiter String Quartet and served as the Violin Teaching Assistant. Previously, Becca studied with Violaine Melancon at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University where she received her MM and BM in Violin Performance.
She is extremely invested in community outreach and engagement and currently serves on the board for Volunteer Musicians for the Arts.
Becca lives in Providence with her husband, Korei, and their adorable mini poodle, Pedro. As a family, they enjoy long nature walks and chicken.
Dan Sedgwick
Dan Sedgwick is a pianist, composer, and teacher with wide-ranging musical interests and a special devotion to instrumental and vocal chamber music. Nurtured by Burncoat High School’s ear-opening music department in Worcester, MA, Dan studied music at Harvard and then Rice University, graduating with a doctorate in composition in 2009. Together with violinist Marji Gere, he co-directs, performs, and teaches for Around Hear, a nonprofit organization offering free chamber music concerts and music education in the public housing of Somerville, MA. Since 2017, Around Hear has presented thirty unique concert programs (featuring over fifty guest artists) for its generationally, culturally, and economically diverse audiences.
Roseminna Watson
Roseminna Watson, best known as a classical violinist, has recently begun to emerge as a singer, composer, and multimedia artist as well. Ms. Watson is fascinated by the human body as a vehicle that can carry us closer to the divine. Her artistry is imbued with haunting immediacy. She is a member of the Providence-based new music collective Verdant Vibes and, founder of the Pandemic Polyphony project, and curator of the Cape Cod concert series MUSIC IN THE STUDIO in collaboration with painter Cammie Watson. She holds a B.A in Visual Art from Yale University, an M.M. in Violin Performance from Stony Brook University, and an A.D. in Chamber Music from San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is the former first violinist of the prize-winning Aiana String Quartet.
Ms. Watson has recently returned from performing the world premieres of two commissioned works — Crucible / Beloved for violin and voice, and Triptych, A Priori : Logic of the Interior for violin, clarinet, piano and track. roseminnawatson.com