Staff Bios

2012 Staff updates coming soon...

Suzanne Smith Director, Lecturer, Teacher
See full bio

Past Staff

Diane Monroe Improvisational Coach
Diane Monroe is a concert violinist/Curtis Institute Graduate, jazz improviser, composer, and chamber artist, who has performed on concert stages from Carnegie Hall to Marlboro Music Festival, and the Tonhalle in Zurich, Switzerland. In addition to having toured the world over a decade with legendary jazz drummer Max Roach and his Double Quartet, the Uptown String Quartet, and the String Trio of New York, she now tours the United States and abroad as a soloist and under management with LVanHart Productions, and with Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour.

Her film and TV credits include Music of the Heart with Meryl Streep, Small Wonders produced by Symphony Space co-founder Allan Miller, the Bill Cosby Show, and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Occasionally, her composed and performed work is aired on national Public radio. Ms. Monroe will be visiting Havana Cuba in December, as part of the Philadelphia Music Project's professional development program.

In addition to her position as adjunct professor at Temple University, she has taught at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Michigan State University, Swarthmore College, and the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music. She has also coached members of well-known chamber ensembles such as the Ying, Brentano, and Marion Anderson String Quartets. Ms. Monroe has conducted the Fiddlefest String Orchestra at the Verbier Festival, 2000, and presently coaches the Gray Charitable Trust Trio at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia.

Monroe has received many distinguished awards including the Bristol-Meyers Squibb Residency Award, the Alan and Wendy Pesky Residency Award from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and the Robert Trotter Chair Position at the University of Oregon at Eugene. Last year she received two Creative Connections/Composer grants in one season, and she has been awarded numerous Meet the Composer.

Diane Monroe studied at Oberlin Conservatory, and Philadelphia Musical Academy earning her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance. She continued her studies at Michigan State University and was awarded a degree in Performance from The Curtis Institute of Music. Her violin teachers were Ivan Galamian, Charles Castleman, David Cerone, Joyce Robbins, and Walter Verdehr.

Eileen Dickinson Trager instructor and Physical Therapist
Eileen is a certified Trager Practitioner. Her presence, creativity, and nurturing touch are supported by her knowledge and experience from more than 25 years practice as a Physical Therapist. The Trager approach utilizes gentle, non-intrusive, natural movements to help release deep-seated physical and mental patterns and facilitates deep relaxation, increased physical mobility, and mental clarity. http://www.trager-us.org

Joanna Myers Feldenkrais Instructor
Ms. Myers is a certified Feldenkrais® practitioner and professional violist. She earned music degrees in performance from Vanderbilt University and Bowling Green State University. While pursuing a career as a freelance musician, Joanna began studying the Feldenkrais Method as a way of improving her musicianship and overcoming tension in her playing. Her studies had such a positive impact on these issues that she completed a professional Feldenkrais Teacher training program.

Since her graduation in 2004 she has taught group classes and workshops throughout the area, including the Notre Dame School of Music, Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts, University of Michigan School of Dance, the Naturopathic School of Ann Arbor, and the Ann Arbor YMCA. Her private clients range from professional musicians and competitive athletes to people recovering from stroke and chronic pain. She attributes the effectiveness of the method to its philosophy of accepting each individual as they are and creating the conditions that help them change and learn, through movement and sensation. When she is not teaching, Joanna enjoys gardening, swimming, and spending time with her husband and young daughter.

Char Dewolf CellChanWoods Photographer and participating cellist
Multiple Emmy Award winner Char DeWolf is a freelance producer/director and writer. She has written scripts for some of America's foremost talents including James Earl Jones, Paul Newman, Jeff Daniels, Julie Harris, Tim Allen, Robert Wagner and Hugh Downs.

Ms. Dewolf's work has earned numerous national and international awards. Her work on kids and violence not only earned an Emmy Award, but was also awarded the prestigious duPont Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism as well as a CINE Golden Eagle and the Golden Apple Award by the National Educational Film and Video Festival. Her work about teenagers and AIDS received several Emmys as well as a commendation award by the American Women in Radio and Television for excellence in programming. She wrote and co-produced the national award winning 9-part series for the Detroit Zoological Institute that deals with man's relationship to animals through the centuries - the first work of its kind for any zoo in the world.

DeWolf wrote and co-produced the highly acclaimed, Emmy award-winning documentary, 'Watermark', an hour-long in-depth look at competitive swimming that kicked-off NBC's 1996 Olympic Games in Michigan. The film received rave reviews, earning many national awards and is still used as a source of motivation for swimmers around the world. She also co-produced and directed several national documentary films about life and death. "Generation To Generation" focuses on Jewish children and their families as they talk about death and mourning. "Remembering" is a non-denominational film for all families as they cope with the death of a loved one. DeWolf earned Emmy Awards for both.

A recent film, "The New Normal: Life After A Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant", is the first-ever film produced for patients who face this potentially life saving treatment. This film is a unique and unblinking look at the challenges faced by transplant patients and is used by medical professionals and their patients around the world.

DeWolf has completed production on a national documentary film with esteemed actor James Earl Jones, who will collaborate with her for a second time to record one of her scripts.

Her professional affiliations have included the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences where she served two 2-year terms as a member of the Board of Governors. She chaired the Creating Critical Viewers committee for the state of Michigan, a partnership of television professionals and educators that teaches students to be media literate. She has been a member of the Association of Independent Video Flimmakers as well as the International Documentary Association.

Eileen Isotalo Assistant
As an adult beginner Cellist, Eileen has a deep value, respect and love for the "international language" of music. She chose to learn cello because it is the closest musical instrument to the human voice; Chamber, Baroque and Celtic are her musical focus. She has extensive experience working with Blue Lake International as local chairman in the South Lyon area. She has organized and planned visits for European musicians which include housing, performance and activities for choirs and orchestras from Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Budapest, Hungary.

Eileen has been employed since 1998 by the University of Michigan Interior Design Department as Interior Design Coordinator for all main campus new construction and space renovation projects.

Last year's counselors:

2011 counselors to be announced

Eli Bender is currently in the final stage of his undergraduate studies at Michigan State University. There he has developed him musicianship under the instruction of Suren Bagratuni, the primary cello professor there, as well as Rodney Whitaker and Sunny Wilkinson from the Jazz Department. This balance of classical pedagogy and creative musicianship has offered him opportunities to teach and perform with a variety of ensembles including the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, the Doug Mains Band, and interning with the Fiddlers Restrung of Saline. In the past four years, when he was not in school studying music education, he primarily spent the summers working with a youth development program in Kalamazoo. Eli is looking forward to working with cellochan participants.

Candace Chappell is a freshman at Eastern Michigan University, studying Music Education. She currently plays cello in the EMU Symphony Orchestra, and studies under Dr. Diane Winder. Candace has done internships at the DSO, and at Holmes Middle School in Livonia, conducting band. She has had a love for cello ever since she started playing, and loves to help others with the same passion.

Roxanne Kieme is currently a sophomore at Michigan State University in the Music Education program. Her love of the cello is something she would like pass on to her future students. She has a strong interest in chamber music and in exploring all kinds of music written for the cello. She is very excited to be a counselor this year and is looking forward to motivating CCW students while helping them to express their unique musical gifts.

Cellist Martin Torch-Ishii currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he is a full-scholarship student of Anthony Elliott in the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the University of Michigan. Martin is also a cellist with the rock band Break of Reality, a nationally acclaimed instrumental crossover group based in New York City. As an educator, he has been on faculty at the Sphinx Preparatory Institute in Detroit and the Five Seasons Chamber Music Festival in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is Graduate Student Instructor of Cello at the University of Michigan School of Music. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Richard Aaron for a Bachelor of Music degree and Stephen Geber for a Master of Music degree. Later studies also took him to Japan on a full scholarship where he received a Certificate from the Orchestra Academy of the Toho School of Music as a student of Ko Iwasaki.