Co - Founder, Co - Director

KASEY CALEBAUGH enjoys a wide range of musical endeavors, as a performer, chamber musician, and Suzuki teacher across the east coast. His published doctoral research, titled “Color in Music: An Analysis of Joan Tower’s Purple Works for Viola,” won third place in the 2020 Dalton Research Competition through The American Viola Society. He regularly performs with the Vermont Symphony and teaches at teaches at Suzuki School of Newton. His doctoral degree is from Hartt School, where he received a DMA in Viola Performance under Rita Porfiris and long-term Suzuki violin training with Teri Einfeldt.

Co - Founder, Co - Director

Originally from Nashville, TN, CATY DALTON started playing violin at the age of five. Caty continued her music education and received her BM in Viola Performance from The Hartt School of Music under Rita Porfiris. In addition to studying viola at Hartt, Caty served as the viola studio manager and orchestra program copywriter. Caty has performed both solo and chamber works throughout the United States and Europe, and currently lives in Aspen, Colorado where she teaches strings at the Aspen Community School.

Co - Founder, Co - Director

Violist JAKE PIETRONIRO began his studies at the age of 9 in his home state of New Hampshire. During high school, he participated in ensembles such as the Keene Chamber Orchestra and the Boston Youth Symphony, and had the opportunity to perform in both Symphony Hall and Lincoln Center. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he studied with Helen Callus, graduating with magna cum laude academic honors and a distinction in his Bachelor of Arts degree. He recently completed his graduate degree in viola performance at The Hartt School under the tutelage of Rita Porfiris, and is currently the resident viola fellow at Community Musicworks in Providence, RI.

As a performer, Jake appeared as a guest soloist with the Kankakee Valley Youth

Symphony in 2018, and has previously performed in masterclasses for members of the

St. Lawrence, Chiara, Attaca, Brentano, and Apple Hill String Quartets. Jake won the Hartt School’s Chamber Music Competition in 2017, and placed as a semifinalist as a founding member of the Luna String Quartet at the Coltman Chamber Music Competition in Austin, Texas.

As a teacher, Jake was a strings instructor for the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Incredible Children’s Art Network, Bravo Waterbury, and is currently completing a fellowship with Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI. Jake has appeared as a guest artist at Arpeggio Peru,and El Sistema de Guatemala, both El-Sistema inspired music schools located in Trujillo, Peru and Guatemala City, Guatemala, respectively.

In addition to viola performance, Jake is fascinated with the use of metaphor in music pedagogy, and has had his research presented at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition in 2016. Mr. Pietroniro is passionate about creating accessible concerts and projects in his community, and actively performs in the Providence area at local businesses and unconventional concert spaces.