Faculty

Meredith Connie
Guitar Instruction, Suzuki Guitar Instruction
Meredith Connie began her studies in guitar in Australia, and continued them when she moved to the United States to achieve a Masters in Guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a teacher, she has successfully worked within college, university, and community environments for the last 15 years, not only as a guitarist but also as a professor of music theory and various survey courses. Her career as a classical guitarist has spanned many solo performances with chamber ensembles and as a guest artist with orchestras throughout the Western states of America, including two concertos with orchestras in the Pacific Northwest in 2012. Currently she is actively performing and touring as part of a flute and guitar chamber ensemble, Duo Rubicund, and also performs regularly for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society. She has studied with David Tanenbaum, Dusan Bogdanovic, Stephen Stubbs, and Robert Strizich, among others, and is now happy to be expanding her teaching skills through the Suzuki method to continue her work with young children.  

Stacy Gehman
Alexander Technique
Stacy began studying the Alexander Technique in 1977, and in 1980 apprenticed with Marjorie Barstow, the first teacher certified by Alexander in the early 1930s. In 1986 he moved to Seattle to help form The Performance School, a Center for the Alexander Technique, and is on the faculty of the teacher training program. Stacy has also been a student of Tai Chi Chuan since 1973 and has taught classes integrating Tai Chi and Alexander work. He has published articles on the Alexander Technique, many of which are available on his website, Stacy is a faculty member of the Barstow Institute where he teaches each year at the Barstow/Alexander Technique Summer Institute (Doane College, Crete, NE), and is an Alexander Technique International Certified Teacher. Stacy is also a physicist, and works as a research engineer developing medical instruments, and algorithms for analyzing the electrocardiogram.

Joseph Gottesman
Director of Chamber Music and Ensembles
His performing and teaching career has taken him from Lincoln Center to Broadway, and from New York and Seattle to Tokyo. He has toured most of the United States, as well as Europe and the Far East. In 2006 he was chosen as the viola soloist for Lincoln Center's production of Bernarda Alba and has appeared as Principal Violist in Aida, Bombay Dreams, 110 in the Shade, as well as the national production Phantom of the Opera. In the 1990s he served as Professor of Viola at Western Washington University, where he also coached chamber music and conducted performances of the WWU Chamber and Symphony Orchestras.  He has also been the viola coach for the Greater Boston Youth Orchestra, as well as for the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Bellevue Youth Symphony. Mr. Gottesman conducts master classes and clinics throughout the United States in solo, chamber and orchestral playing.  His pedagogical interests extend, as well, to adult enthusiasts in violin, viola and chamber music. For ten years he served on the faculty of Chamber Music and Composers Forum of the East, in summer residence at Bennington College. 

John Kim
Coach, Seattle and Eastside Chamber Programs
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.

Kevin Krentz
Kevin Krentz first studied cello with Gary Hardie at Baylor University, then Florian Kitt of the Hochschule in Vienna, was assistant to Owen Carman, at Michigan State University and The Meadowmount School for Strings, and was assistant to Toby Saks at the University of Washington. Kevin has performed in Masterclass for Janos Starker, Matt Haimovitz, Paul Katz, and Timothy Eddy. Kevin has gone on to perform throughout the U.S. as well as Austria, Italy, Canada and Great Britain as recitalist and soloist. Kevin was a winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2000, at the Greenlake National Chamber Music Competition in 2005 (Audience Prize), and at the Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in Verona, Italy in 2004 (silver medal). Kevin has also won several concerto competitions and the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle Award/Tour Competition. He has been featured on NPR in multiple broadcasts of live performances as well as KING FM's Live! By George program and has performed throughout the U.S. Since 2007, Kevin has been Artistic Director of the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival.

Kailin Mooney
Suzuki Flute, Music Theory, Music History
An avid supporter of local music and community building, Kailin Mooney, a Seattle Conservatory of Music and Suzuki Institute of Seattle alumn, uses teaching as a way to encourage young students to grow in all aspects of their lives to the fullest of their abilities. Using games, art, freedom of motion, and kindness, Kailin helps children build a strong foundation that they can use to support all aspects of their learning well into adulthood. At SCM, Kailin teaches the Junior Division theory and history classes, note reading and Suzuki flute. She encourages her students to find their own unique voice, both within the classroom and out, using each childs' individual personality and temperment to design a lesson plan that will benefit and nurture learning in a multitude of environments. Kailin graduated from Rice University with two BAs, the first in Music, with a focus on flute performance, and the second in Women and Gender Studies. She has studied with Zart Dombourian-Eby and Leone Buyse.

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; 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 Scholar-in-Residence at University of Colorado, Boulder; former lecturer at Western Washington University, Seattle Pacific University; Master Teacher, Indiana University Summer String Academy, Schlern International Music Festival in Italy, Heifetz Institute.

Mark Salman
Director, Senior Division
Solfege, Theory, Ear-Training, Piano Literature, Composition, Literature & Music, Counterpoint
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.

Wesley Schulz
Conducting Instructor
Wesley Schulz is Music Director and Conductor of the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra, the Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestras and the Everett Youth Symphony Orchestras. Additionally, he is the Assistant Conductor of the Britt Classical Festival. As a guest conductor Schulz has appeared with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, Oregon East Symphony, ClarinetFest2010, San Francisco All-City Honors Orchestra, the Northwest Mahler Festival and the Austin Chamber Music Center. In 2010, Maestro Schulz and the Texas Chamber Group won the American Prize in Orchestral Performance for their rendering of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Chic Streetman
Creative Expression
Chic's music focuses on the positive alternatives while entertaining in a spirited manner with acoustic bluesy ballads, funky rhythms and jazzy upbeat originals. He composed the music and starred in the off-Broadway hit show, Spunk, adapted by George C. Wolfe for which he received a 1990 Audelco Award and a 1992 NAACP Theater Arts Award, the Berkeley Repertory Theater's production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and was a contributing author, performer and musical arranger for the Denver Center Theater Company's It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues. He was a featured performer at the Paleo Music Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Berne Jazz festival in Switzerland. He performed his one-man show in '02 for the Smithsonian: A Black History of The Blues, and has released six CD/albums.

Nadia Tarnawsky
Instructor, Primary Division
Ms. Tarnawsky holds a BS in Music Education from Case Western University and taught Dalcroze-Eurhythmics at the Cleveland Institute of Music for 13 years. Her training has included studies at the Center of Traditional Music and Dance in NYC, Hartt School of Music, Carnegie-Melon University and Longy School of Music.

Brandon Vance
Coach, Scottish Fiddling
In addition to being a two-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, Brandon Vance has earned both his Bachelors and Masters from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying under renowned pedagogue, Paul Kantor.  He has played with four professional orchestras and is currently a member of the Northwest Sinfonietta, performing regularly in Seattle, Tacoma, and Puyallup.  Brandon has studied and performed with Scottish fiddlers, such as Calum MacKinnon, Ryan McKasson, Alasdair Fraser, Iain Fraser, Bonnie Rideout, Catriona MacDonald, Buddy MacMaster, Bruce Molsky, Jan Tappan and Martin Hayes.  He has collaborated with folk crossover musicians Mark Minkler (Irish flautist/Jazz pianist),  Eliot Grasso (Uillean piper/Classical pianist), and Nadia Tarnawsky (Ukrainian folk singer) — artists who share a deep respect and command of their own traditions, while seeking out regions of common ground in order to build a bridge between seemingly disparate musical worlds.  Brandon has a CD called Beyond the Borders — a mix of original and traditional Scottish, Irish, and Cape Breton music.