Violin Archives - House Call Music - Bringing Music To You

Gita Srinivasan

Kevin — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 15:48:30 +0000

Gita Srinivasan is a native of Maysville, Kentucky and teaches cello, piano and violin with House Call Music. Gita began her cello career at the age of 11 under the tutelage of Coralie Runyon Jones and Dr. Suanne Blair. Today, Gita is pursuing a post- master’s certificate of performance at DePaul University under the tutelage of Stephen Balderston.
In the spring of 2023, Gita graduated from the master’s program at Illinois State University (ISU), where she thrived in the studio of Dr. Cora Swenson Lee. Gita was an ISU Graduate Merit Fellow who served for two years as the principal cellist of the ISU Symphony Orchestra; she cherished teaching in ISU’s chapter of String Project, as well as privately teaching through both String Project and ISU’s Community School for the Arts.
Gita previously studied under the tutelage of Dr. Amy Gillingham Culligan in the undergraduate music program at Northern Kentucky University (NKU), from which Gita graduated in 2021. She gave her solo debut in 2019 with the NKU Philharmonic Orchestra as a winner of the Fall 2018 NKU Concerto Competition. Gita discovered her passion for music instruction in her time at NKU—for three years, she privately taught cello students of all ages through NKU Music Preparatory. She was additionally a proud member of the NKU String Project teaching assistant team from 2019 to 2021. As a teaching assistant for NKU Early Childhood Programs, Gita also had the opportunity to teach children ages 2-6 music and dance from 2019 through the onset of the global pandemic.
Gita served as a 2019-20 fellow of the concert:nova “Next:Gen” program, designed by members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; as a fellow, she grew from a year of mentorship, workshops, and opportunities for creatively engaging performance. She has also received the competitive 3 Arts Scholarship for Cincinnati-area female musicians. Gita toured Europe with the Kentucky Ambassadors of Music in 2012 and toured Ireland in 2018 with the NKU Philharmonic Orchestra. She previously studied mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley; her academic journey away from music ultimately led her back to her cello.

The post Gita Srinivasan appeared first on House Call Music - Bringing Music To You.

Carlysta Tran

Kevin — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 13:29:36 +0000

Carlysta Tran is an Oklahoma City native and has been involved in music since she was three years old, where she first started taking piano lessons. At the age of 8, she started learning the violin and by the end of that same year, she debuted her first recorded solo violin performance with the Oklahoma City University Symphony.

Since then, she has earned a Bachelor’s of Music in Violin Performance at the University of Texas at Austin under Sandy Yamato and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at DePaul University School of Music under Janet Sung. She has gained extensive experience performing with orchestras and chamber groups in Texas and Oklahoma and is hoping to build her name in the Chicagoland area by sharing her love of music to groups of all ages and experience levels.

The post Carlysta Tran appeared first on House Call Music - Bringing Music To You.

Jesse Calcat

Kevin — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 22:29:25 +0000

Detroit native Jesse Calcat is a versatile multi-instrumentalist with over 20 years of professional teaching and performance experience across diverse musical settings. Having begun piano lessons at age 4 and strings in high school, Jesse began his college music studies focusing on both piano and viola performance. During his undergraduate studies, he studied viola with Glenn Mellow and Elizabeth Rowin, and piano with Leszek Bartkiewicz, Flavio Varani, and Mary Siciliano, graduating from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan in 2005. While at Oakland University, he was a finalist on both viola and piano for the Oakland University Concerto Competition, and was awarded the MaTilDa Award for Chamber Music in 2005. Jesse went on to earn a Post-Graduate Certificate in Orchestral Studies (Viola) from Wayne State University in Detroit; he studied viola with Detroit Symphony Orchestra members James VanValkenburg and Caroline Coade, and received coachings from DSO members Hai-Xin Wu, Marian Tanau, Marcy Chanteaux, and Larry Hutchinson. While at WSU, Jesse was chosen as a Viola Mentor for the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra. Further graduate studies in viola continued when Jesse was awarded a full scholarship to the University of Florida for viola performance, where he was the violist in multiple graduate chamber ensembles, and studied with Jacksonville Symphony violist Colin Kiely. After his time at UF, Jesse gave in to an ever-growing calling to the cello, an instrument he had studied sporadically on the side since his teenage years. After significant preparation under the tutelage of Michigan Opera Theatre principal cellist, Nadine Deleury, Jesse was accepted to Bowling Green State University (Ohio) in 2013 on full scholarship, where he was also the cellist for the BGSU Graduate String Quartet. Studying with Alan Smith, he earned his Master’s of Music in Cello Performance in 2015.

A proponent of early music and historically-informed performance, Jesse studied viola da gamba and baroque cello with Enid Sutherland in Ann Arbor, and was the recipient of a private scholarship to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music’s Baroque Performance Institute, where he studied viola da gamba with Catharina Meints, and baroque viola with Jane Starkman. During his time at BGSU, he played both baroque cello and viola da gamba in the school’s Early Music Ensemble, and was a featured soloist performing the Porpora Cello Concerto in G Major.

Jesse’s performance credits are numerous, having performed in well over two dozen orchestras throughout the Midwest and Southern United States. He has performed in orchestral first violin, second violin, viola, and cello sections, having functioned as a section player, assistant principal, and principal. As a pianist, Jesse is a versatile and in-demand piano accompanist, having begun professionally accompanying instrumentalists, vocalists, choirs, and ensembles, while still a high school student. He currently is the piano accompanist for Suzuki Music School of Lincoln Park.

Jesse has studied and performed many types of music outside of Western classical music, and had strongly considered a career as an ethnomusicologist. As a teenager, he fell in love with traditional East Asian music, having taught himself the Chinese erhu and guzheng, initially using instruments he built himself. As an undergraduate, he played steel drums, as well as West and Central African traditional music under the tutelage of Mark Stone at Oakland University, and was a member of Bowling Green State Univeristy’s Kusuma Sari Balinese gamelan. Jesse has also been passionate about traditional Celtic music since childhood; he has performed on guitar, fiddle, viola, Celtic harp, guitar, vocals, and accordion in two Celtic bands, one of which he founded.

As a teacher, Jesse has been actively teaching private piano, violin, viola, and cello lessons since 2002, having taught both from his home, as well as in various music studios. He has taught students from the ages of 4 to 74, and focuses on using a custom-tailored approach to each student, based on their strengths, goals, musical and personal backgrounds.

Jesse works during the week as a manager at a downtown Chicago violin shop, and as a church organist and music director on the weekends. He is also a student at the Chicago School of Violin Making, studying the making and repair of violins, violas, and cellos. He is set to graduate the school’s three-year program in 2024. “

The post Jesse Calcat appeared first on House Call Music - Bringing Music To You.

Hsuan Chen

Kevin Kozol — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 20:36:48 +0000

Hsuan Chen is an emerging violinist based in Chicago, performing both as a chamber musician and an orchestral member. An avid advocate of early music and contemporary sounds, Chen has performed with the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble regularly. Chen has also performed at the Carnegie Hall as the assistant principal with the Oberlin Orchestra. Graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory, Chen is now pursuing her Master’s degree with Prof. I-Hao Lee at DePaul University School of Music, while serving as a regular member at the Civic Orchestra in Chicago.

The post Hsuan Chen appeared first on House Call Music - Bringing Music To You.

Raquel Navarro

Kevin — Fri, 07 May 2021 13:42:54 +0000

Raquel Navarro has been playing violin since the age of eight and has always loved teaching
others to play. She has performed with ensembles such as the Indiana University Philharmonic
Orchestra, where she currently plays as concertmaster, and the Elgin Youth Symphony
Orchestra. In 2013, Raquel performed in the Fox Valley Music Festival as concertmaster and
was a recipient of the National Orchestra Award.

In 2019, she had the opportunity to play as first violinist in the first classical chamber ensemble at Harold
Washington College where she studied with violinist Rachel Brown. At the same time, Raquel studied piano with Kevin Kozol and has enjoyed teaching piano in recent years. She is currently completing her Violin
Performance degree at Indiana University South Bend under the instruction of Jameson Cooper.
Most recently, Raquel has taken an interest in working with living composers to premier new
chamber works, and even compose a few of her own. Through teaching, Raquel hopes to
enable and inspire her students to create music with confidence.

The post Raquel Navarro appeared first on House Call Music - Bringing Music To You.