{"id":33,"date":"2016-10-10T02:11:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T02:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2022-03-08T17:26:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T22:26:53","slug":"staff-bios","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/staff-bios\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Bios"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"danameyer\"Dana Meyer<\/b>,<\/span> founder and Artistic Director of Music City Strings, is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and has been passionate about teaching for more than 35 years. \u00a0In her early years she developed and implemented the Boone County Schools Strings Program in West Virginia, was a faculty member of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, instructor and chamber music coach at the New World School of the Arts (Miami), and became a performing faculty member of the Tucson Chamber Music in the Mountains in Tucson, Arizona. <\/span><\/p>\n

While much of her early teaching career was focused on the high school and collegiate level, Mrs. Meyer performed extensively with chamber music groups and major orchestras in the United States. \u00a0She has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, and with all the major orchestras in Florida. \u00a0During her decade long tenure with the American Sinfonietta, she toured Europe annually and was part of the performing faculty at the Bellingham Music Festival. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While in Florida, Mrs. Meyer taught at the Dillard High School of Performing Arts and was instrumental in securing college scholarships for her students Kevin Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste, who have since formed the famed hip hop duo <\/span>Black Violin<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span>In 1999, Mrs. Meyer discovered a passion for the teaching of young students and established her first private Suzuki studio in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. \u00a0She immersed herself in the Suzuki pedagogy and became a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Ronda Cole.<\/span><\/p>\n

As her studio thrived she became President of the Suzuki Association of South Florida. \u00a0<\/span>In 2005, Dana Meyer established a violin studio in Franklin, Tennessee. Her dream was to create a program that would provide children the means to become confident, sensitive and beautiful artists. \u00a0Music City Strings was the result of this dream. \u00a0As Mrs. Meyer\u2019s time is now mainly devoted to Music City Strings, o<\/span>ther former faculty positions and posts include the Wintergreen Performance Academy, the Middle Tennessee State University Governor\u2019s School of Music, the South Carolina Suzuki Institute at Furman, The Fine Arts Student Academy in Nashville, and President of the Middle Tennessee Suzuki Association.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to her role as Artistic Director of Music City Strings, Mrs. Meyer is currently a faculty member with the Greater Washington DC Suzuki Institute, the Suzuki Institute at PhoenixPhest! in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Suzuki String Institute at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky and Auditions Coordinator for the Strings Division of Nashville Area Music Teachers Association.<\/p>\n

\"kurtheinecke\"Kurt Heinecke,<\/strong> Assistant Artistic Director<\/p>\n

In his 35 years in the music industry, Kurt has been a music teacher, band director, touring musician, church music director, private music teacher, and studio musician.\u00a0 What has kept him busiest though has been his 22 years working with the world-famous \u201cVeggieTales\u201d and \u201c3-2-1 Penguins\u201d video series.\u00a0 As Music Director for Big Idea, his roles have encompassed song-writing, co-writing, scoring, arranging, performance, conducting, and production on over 75 million videos and 5 million CDs sold.\u00a0 His work has garnered 7 Dove Awards, the affection of kids worldwide, and many rolled eyes and compliments alike from parents!\u00a0 Currently writing and performing the score for the CBN series \u201cSuperBook,\u201d Kurt composes and produces on many music and film projects, and records his variety of instruments for fellow producers.\u00a0 His brass instruments, Irish whistles, and ethnic flutes can be heard in Disney Park projects around the world, including the brand-new Shanghai Disneyland!<\/p>\n

With two sons playing violin and viola, Music City Strings has become a key part of Kurt\u2019s musical life.\u00a0 As Assistant Artistic Director, Kurt is kept busy working on arrangements, playing in the band, and coordinating much of what happens behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\"christiachambers\"Christia Chambers, Instructor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christia Chambers<\/strong> made her orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall in 2008. \u00a0A graduate with honors in Viola Performance at the University of Michigan, Mrs. Chambers received her Master\u2019s Degree in Music Education from the University of Akron with honors as well. \u00a0She is the recipient of numerous competition awards and scholarships. \u00a0Besides being a grand prize winner of the prestigious Tuesday Musical Scholarship Performance Competition, she was awarded the Arden J. Yockey Scholarship for Strings, the Winifred Collins Scholarship for Music Education and was a James B. Angell Scholar.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lifelong musician, beginning violin at the age of four, Mrs. Chambers is passionate about music education. She has dedicated herself to the pursuit of serious string pedagogy and has been a violin instructor for 10 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mattie Tichenor, Choreographer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mattie Tichenor <\/strong>was born and raised in Franklin, Tennessee. A true \u201cNashville native\u201d, she found her love of performance at an early age: starting violin lessons at the age of four, followed by dance lessons at the age of six. Mattie joined Music City Strings as a student in 2014. She went on to perform with the group both around the US and on their international tours in Europe and China.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mattie continued her dance training and performance into college, participating in Lipscomb University\u2019s dance program and company, Foundations Dance Theatre in its 2018-2019 season and is a current member of the 2019-2020 Vanderbilt University Dance Team. Mattie also danced in the music video for Josie Dunne\u2019s song, \u201cOoh Lala\u201d in 2019.<\/p>\n

Mattie joined the Music City Strings staff as the Choreographer in 2019. Being experienced in both violin and dance performance, Mattie is excited to merge the two together in each piece. She feels privileged to have the opportunity to work with such incredible performers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dana Meyer, founder and Artistic Director of Music City Strings, is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and has been passionate about teaching for more than 35 years. \u00a0In her early years she developed and implemented the Boone County Schools Strings Program in West Virginia, was a faculty member of the Eastern Music … Continue reading “Staff Bios”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musiccitystrings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}