Our Faculty

Cellist Julia Goudimova was born in Moscow. She began studying piano at the age of five and cello at the age of seven. After nine years of music school she studied at Tiraspol College of Music with Prof. G. A. Balykbaev. Julia received her master’s degree from Belarus Academy of Music under the instruction of E. L. Ksaveriev, professor of cello, who was a student of M. Rostropovich and N. Gutman. She has performed in recitals and chamber music concerts in Belarus, Moldova, Germany, South Korea, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Since moving to the United States, Julia has been actively participating in the music life of Western Virginia and is involved in symphony orchestra and chamber music performances in Lexington, Roanoke, Lynchburg, and Buena Vista, as well as Bath and Rockbridge Counties. Currently Julia is principal cellist of the University-Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra and a cello instructor at Washington and Lee University and Southern Virginia University.

An accomplished performer, collaborator, teacher and instrumentalist, cellist Katharine Knight co-founded the Colorado-based Da Vinci Quartet, with whom she performed and recorded extensively from 1980 to 2005. For the past two decades she has coached string quartets and other chamber ensembles as a member of the faculty of the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. She has served as a faculty member at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and Colorado College as well as teaching as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities throughout America while on tour. Her advocacy for chamber music engagement extends to musicians of all levels of expertise and age. While maintaining a private studio of adult cello students, she supports avocational as well as professional ensemble work, coaching groups from many of the Denver area orchestras, such as Evergreen Chamber Orchestra, the Arapahoe and Denver Philharmonic Orchestras.
 

Violist Lois Martin completed her undergraduate work at the Eastman School of Music, where she was a scholarship student of Francis Tursi, and went on to graduate studies at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Lillian Fuchs. She is Principal Violist of the Stamford Symphony, Amici New York, and The Little Orchestra Society, a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Chamber Ensemble, and frequently appears with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and New York City Ballet Orchestra. She is also on the faculty of the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College, and has taught at Princeton University. A founding member of the Atlantic String Quartet, which is dedicated to the performance of newly written compositions, her commitment to contemporary music includes performances with the Group for Contemporary Music, ISCM Chamber Players, Ensemble Sospeso, Ensemble 21, New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, Composers' Guild, Da Capo Chamber Players, Composers Forum, and Steve Reich and Musicians. Lois has recorded the works of over 50 contemporary composers. On the Jazz and Popular circuit, she has performed with artists including Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Chris Potter, Ornette Coleman, Esperanza Spalding, String Fever, Shirley Bassey, Elton John, Paul Simon, Tyne Daley, Gil Goldstein, Don Alias, Richard Bona, Mike Mainieri, Judy Collins and Roberta Flack.
 

Flutist Jayn Rosenfeld plays with the League of Composers/ISCM Ensemble and the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society.  She has taught flute at Princeton University for more than 35 years, and coaches chamber music there, runs PUO wind rehearsals, and performs with the Richardson Chamber Players, the faculty instrumental ensemble.  She formed and led the Flute Workshop at Greenwich House for nearly a decade, and conducts flute workshops privately.  Ms. Rosenfeld was the flutist and executive director of The New York New Music Ensemble for many years, and first flute of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.  She gives master classes in flute and chamber music at Westminster Choir College , around the country and abroad, most recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and. Notre Dame University.  She has recorded concerti by Cimarosa, Steiger, Kraft, Gilbert, et al,  the flute chamber music of Albert Roussel, and many contemporary chamber works and is active on the boards of the League of Composers and the New York Flute Club.
 

Violinist Sebu Sirinian was born in Bucharest, Romania, and has toured internationally. He held residences at Queens College, Bard College, and the Turtle Bay Music School as the first violinist of the award-winning Meridian String Quartet. He has won distinctions at the Evian International Competition and Chamber Music America and has performed chamber music with Paul Neubauer, Seymour Lipkin, Daniel Phillips, and William Sharp. He has performed as soloist with the New York Chamber Orchestra, Bach Aria Festival Orchestra, and the Barbad Chamber Orchestra.  Mr. Sirinian has performed as a principal player for the American Symphony Orchestra, Stamford Symphony, and the Princeton Chamber Orchestra, and is a member of Brooklyn Philharmonic and Amici New York. He is on the faculty of the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program and has been heard on WQXR and WNYC. His chamber music recordings can be heard on LRC, Liquid Silver, Midder Music Records, Capstone, and Arizona Records. Sebu Sirinian earned his BA and MA from the Juilliard School, and has studied with Joey Corpus, Ivan Galamian, Lewis Kaplan, Joyce Robbins, Gerald Beal, and the Juilliard Quartet.
 

Violinist Margaret Soper Gutierrez began her professional life in the Washington, D.C. area, performing as a member of the National Symphony Orchestra and touring extensively with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Soper Gutierrez performed regularly as a soloist and chamber musician on concert series at the National Gallery of Art, the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Cathedral. She also served as concertmaster of the Washington Bach Consort and the Baltimore Opera Orchestra and performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, and the San Antonio Symphony. An avid chamber musician, Soper Gutierrez was a member of the Maia Quartet, the faculty quartet-in-residence at the University of Iowa. During her tenure with the quartet, she taught and performed at the Austin Chamber Music Festival, the Castleman Quartet Program and at the Interlochen Arts Academy and Summer Camp. She has also taught at the University of Memphis and the University of Northern Colorado. Soper Gutierrez is a member of the Colorado Chamber Players and is currently concertmaster of both the Opera Colorado orchestra and the Colorado Bach Ensemble. Numerous chamber music performances of hers have been broadcast on Colorado Public Radio and she has been featured in recordings on the Naxos, Crystal and Koch labels. Soper Gutierrez received degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. The major teachers who have inspired her teaching and playing include Donald Weilerstein, Charles Castleman, David Updegraff and Doris Preucil.

Violist Willy Sucre is a member of the New Mexico Philharmonic and the driving force behind the “Willy Sucre & Friends” concerts. Born in La Paz, Bolivia, Sucre studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica in La Paz, Colby College Chamber Music Institute in Waterville, Maine, Mannes School of Music in New York, and the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been conductor and Music Director of the Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra, assistant conductor and principal viola of the Canada Symphony Orchestra in Montreal, assistant conductor and assistant principal viola of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, principal viola and guest conductor of the National Symphony of Bolivia, the Chamber Orchestra of La Paz, and the Albuquerque Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Sucre was the founder of the Cuarteto Boliviano and for ten years the violist of the Helios String Quartet. He has performed, recorded, and lectured throughout South, Central and North America. Sucre frequently travels to South America to find new works of chamber music by modern composers and to encourage composers both here and in South America to write new pieces.