Faculty

Heather Bentley
Director, Seattle Chamber Music Program
Director of Seattle Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Music Program; BM and MM in Viola Performance and Chamber Music, (San Francisco Conservatory of Music). Indiana University chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky, Joseph Gingold and Menachem Pressler. Fellow and Principal Viola, Tanglewood Music Festival; Associate Principal Viola, the New York String Orchestra with Alexander Schneider. Soloist with Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, Northwest Sinfonietta, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra and the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. Guest appearances with Seattle Chamber Players, Olympic Music Festival, Second City Chamber Music Series, Bell’ Arte Series, The New Performance Group at Cornish College of the Arts. Currently Ms. Bentley serves on the Music Faculty of the Northwest School, is violist with the Odeon Quartet and teaches violin.

Julie Cho
Coach, Eastside Chamber Music Program
Konzert Examen; Professional Performer Degree, ‘Cello (Robert-Schumann Hochschule Duesseldorf, Germany); Soloist Diploma MM ‘Cello, (Folkwang Hochschule Essen, Germany). Special Prize, Hamburger Instrument Wettbewerb, Hamburg, Germany. Principal ‘Cello: Prime Orchestra, Seoul, Korea. Soloist with Seoul Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta de Paris in France, Black Sea Philharmony in Rumania. Solo Recitals in Seoul, Korea, and in Duesseldorf, Neuss, Essen and Hamburg, Germany. Chamber Music studies with Amadeus and Brandis Quartets. Member of the Deutsche Kammer Akademie in Neuss, Germany and Prometeus Orchestra in Essen Germany.

Akiko Iguchi
Accompanist
BM and MM, Indiana University with Edward Auer, Jean-Louis Haguenauer and Edmund Battersby. Currently working on DMA with Craig Sheppard at UW school of Music. Assistant Instructor for Edmund Battersby at IU. Teaching Assistant - UW. Studied Chamber Music with Ik-Hwan-Bae (violinist), Tsuyoshi Tstsumi (cellist), Eli Eban (Clarinetist). Accompanist – Mimi Zweig String Academy. Accompanist – International Clarinet Festival Competition, Japan, 2005. 1st Prize – Chicago Area Music Teacher’s Association Competition in 1989. Full Scholarship - Leipzig International Music Akademy 2005. Performed Sunday Concert at Mendelssohn Haus

John Kim
Director, Eastside Chamber Program
Coach, Seattle Chamber Program
Coach, Seattle Chamber Music Program. BM, Violin (Cleveland Institute of Music); MM, (Manhattan School of Music); currently Concertmaster Bellevue Philharmonic; former Concertmaster, N.W. Sinfonietta, Jupiter Symphony of NY, National Orchestral Institute; former Assoc. Concertmaster, N.W. Chamber Orchestra; former Asst. Concertmaster Sarasota Opera, Soeul Symphony of NY. Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center performances with NY String Orchestra. Solo appearances with Richard Stolzman, and Joseph Silverstein. Soloist with many orchestras and top prize winner of: Ladies Musical Club of Seattle. Mr. Kim is a sectional coach for the Seattle Youth Symphony Organization and on the faculty of Marrowstone Music Festival and Evergreen Music Festival. Mr. Kim teaches privately in Bellevue and Lynnwood.

Harumi LaDuke
Music History, Music Theory & Ear Training
BA, Music, English Literature and Creative Writing (Dartmouth College) Vocal Studies, (Royal College of Music, London), Alumni Seattle Conservatory of Music. Recipient: Metropolitan Opera Encouragement Award; Gold Medalist, Seattle Young Artist Music Festival (Piano), Winner, Music Teacher National Association Competition (Voice), Winner, Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside, Voice and Piano Divisions. Principal Role performances with Seattle Community Outreach, Dartmouth College. Featured Artist, Opera North, Skagit Opera, Lyric Opera Northwest. Faculty, The Northwest School, teaching Upper School Humanities.

Michael Lim
Coach, Seattle Chamber Music Program
BM and MM (Indiana University) with Joseph Gingold; Graduate String Quartet in Residence (Juilliard), string quartet studies and teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet; Performs nationally and internationally as a member of both the Corigliano String Quartet and Open End (contemporary music and improvisations); First Violin, American Ballet Theater Orchestra; Concerto performances with the Indianapolis Symphony, International Chamber Orchestra of Girona (Spain), and Lafayette Symphony Orchestra; solo performances at Weill Recital Hall tribute to composer John Corigliano; As co-founder of the Corigliano String Quartet, he has won the Grand Prize in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming and has received rave reviews in publications such as The Strad and The NY Times;Corigliano Quartet performances in Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Kennedy Center; First Prize, Indiana University Violin Concerto Competition; Former Faculty-Lecturer at Indiana University and Musical Artist-in-Residence at Dickinson College; Recordings on Naxos, Dream/Works, Albany Records, CRI, Bayer Records and Aguava New Music; Appearances on NPR’s ‘Performance Today’ and ‘All Things Considered’; Taught Master Classes in the US, Korea and France and teaches violin and viola privately.

Pamela Liu
Coach – Eastside Chamber Program
BM-Violin, Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. MM-University of Washington. Currently founding member of the Lully Piano Trio. Sectional coach for Seattle Youth Symphony and Newport High School. Member of Lake Washington Music Teacher’s Association. Teaches privately in Sammamish and Redmond.

Brandon Pettit
Music History
BM, Saxophone and Composition (Oberlin Conservatory of Music); MM, Composition (Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music CUNY), DMA candidate, Composition (University of Washington). Mr. Pettit’s music has been performed across the United States and in France by chamber groups and orchestras, including the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.

Margaret Pressley
Founder & Director, Seattle Conservatory of Music
Collegiate/Performance Preparation Program, Chamber Music
Founder/Director of Seattle Conservatory of Music and the Pressley Violin Studio; Starling Artistic Director of Violin Studies; nationally recognized violin pedagogue; American String Teacher Association’s 1994 Outstanding Studio Teacher of the Year; featured author in 1994’s American String Teacher national magazine and subject of article in 2005 ‘Clavier’ magazine; former lecturer at Western Washington University, Seattle Pacific University and Master Teacher, Indiana University Summer String Academy; currently a member of the faculty at Schlern International Music Festival in Italy.

Mark Salman
Solfege, Theory, Ear Training, Piano Literature, Composition
BM, Piano (Juilliard); attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for composition studies; performed in Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls in New York City; the subject of profiles in New York Times and Kick magazine; performed the cycle of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in a series of eight recitals in New York City; many solo performances with local orchestras; CD recording on Titanic Records features the music of Beethoven, Alkan and Liszt.

Julia Schnebly-Black
Dalcroze-Eurhythmics, Dalcroze at the Keyboard
Ms. Schnebly-Black has earned the Dalcroze Certificate and License from Carnegie-Mellon U. under Marta Sanchez; B.Mus, Peabody Conservatory, M.Mus, Yale U., Ph.D., U.WA. She has presented sessions at national and international conferences. In addition to private teaching she conducts classes at the Seattle Conservatory of Music for children from three years to high school age. She is the founder and director of Dalcroze NW, a Summer program at the University of Washington, and advisor to the Northwest Chapter of the Dalcroze Society of America. Julia is co-author of two books with Dr. Stephen Moore: The Rhythm Inside: Connecting Body, Mind, and Spirit through Music and Rhythm one on one.

Bonnie Whiting Smith
Dalcroze-Eurhythmics
Ms. Smith attended Oberlin Conservatory, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her interest in other disciplines also lead her to pursue studies and coachings in dance and theater. In addition to performing diverse works for percussion, Ms. Smith commissions new music, integrates text and movement into performance, plays turntable, and composes. Ms. Smith has worked as the percussionist with Tales & Scales (T&S), a not-for-profit national touring ensemble, integrating original contemporary chamber music, modern dance, and theater for children and family audiences. During her tenure with T&S, she gave over 400 performances in 25 states, collaborating with orchestras all over the country – most notably, the Dallas, Oregon, Indianapolis, Buffalo, and Louisville symphony orchestras. Out of T&S, her new ensemble Asterisk was born.

Marcus Talley
Facilitator, College/Performance Prep Program
Coach, Seattle Chamber Program
DMA, violin performance (Michigan State University); MM, violin performance (Western Michigan University); BM, violin performance (Western Washington University); Mr. Talley is the current facilitator of the College/Performance Prep Program and a coach for Seattle Chamber Music Program. Marcus is also the violin coach for the Everett Youth Symphony Orchestras and works with high school orchestras in the Northshore and Edmonds school districts. Marcus works with the LaConner Suzuki Strings program with his wife and maintains private studios in Mount Vernon, Bothell and Issaquah. Mr. Talley performs with the Bellevue Philharmonic, Skagit Opera, and the Starry Night Orchestra. Mr. Talley has held teaching positions at Interlochen Arts Camp, Seminar Music Camp, and the Suzuki Institute of Seattle and he spent two years as teaching assistant to Renata Knific at Western Michigan University. His principal teachers include Charles Avsharian, Renata Knific, Walter Schwede, and Celia Weiss-Nicks