FACULTY
Diana Popowycz
Diana Popowycz is the co-founder of the Suzuki Strings of Madison. She received her BA from DePaul University and MS from the UW -Madison. Her Suzuki training has been with Kyoko Fuller, Kay Slone, Ed Kreitman, Teri Einfeldt, Margery Aber, Paul Landefeld, Alice Joy Lewis along with string pedagogy work with Mimi Zweig.
Diana holds a Dalcroze Eurhythmics Certificate from Carnegie Mellon University and has completed summer course work at Longy and Manhatten School of Music.
She has served as clinician for numerous Suzuki workshops,University programs, choirs and dance schools throughout the Midwest. Diana has been on the faculty of the Milwaukee Ballet, UW Madison School of Music, Madison Boys Choir, Peoples Music School (Chicago) and Old Town School of Folk Music (Chicago).
Along with her studio and group teaching at SSM , she coaches chamber ensembles for the Wisconsin Youth Symphony. She is the mother of three young musicians.
Maria-Rosa Germain
Maria-Rosa Germain is a co-founder of SSM and has taught violin for thirty years. She graduated from Michigan State University in 1980 with two Bachelor’s degrees:
one in stringed instrument education and the other in violin performance. In 1983 she earned a Masters in Violin Performance from the University of Wisconsin, having studied with Vartan Manoogian and Tyrone Greive. She has played in the Lansing Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Coloradao Philharmonic, Madison Symphony and free-lanced for years with her husband Glenn Germain. All of her Suzuki training has taken place at Stevens Point, WI (ASTEC) with Kay Slone, Doris Preucil, Craig Timmermann, Allen Lieb, Ed Kreitman, Pat D’Ercole and Marge Aber. Kyoko Fuller has also mentored her. She is the mother of two successful Suzuki trained young adult musicians.
Kathryn Taylor
Kathryn Taylor has a Bachelors degree in violin performance from the University of Wyoming and did graduate work at Michigan State University. She received her Suzuki pedagogy training from Margery Aber, Craig Timmerman, Ed Kreitman, Geri Arnold, and Kyoko Fuller at Michigan State University, Blue Lake Suzuki Camp and the Chicago Suzuki Institute. She has attended numerous Suzuki workshops, institutes, and conferences throughout the years. She currently performs in the Madison Symphony Orchestra and with the con vivo! …music with life chamber music ensemble. Her goal as a violin teacher is to help students develop self confidence and a life-long love of classical music.
Janse Vincent
Janse H. Vincent, a violist and violinist, joined the Suzuki Strings of Madison teaching cooperative in the summer of 2000. She is also a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra viola sections. Janse has served as a clinician at the University of Memphis Suzuki Institute since 1997 and has also taught at the Capitol University Suzuki Institute in Columbus, OH.
Previously, she taught at the Cincinnati String Academy and served as coordinator or their Suzuki String program. From 1992 to 1997, Janse taught at the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, Iowa where she completed long-term Suzuki teacher training with Doris Preucil. After concluding her undergraduate studies at Furman University, she earned a masters in viola performance from Northwestern University and a D.M.A in viola performance from the University of Iowa. Her association with the Suzuki method began early with violin lessons at the age of five in Gainesville, Florida.
Heidi Kenney
Heidi Kenney has been with the Suzuki Strings of Madison faculty since 2002. She is originally from North Carolina where she began her Suzuki violin studies with her mother, Lorraine Westermark, at the age of 3. She later on received her B.M in violin performance from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, N.C. and M. M in violin performance with the emphasis in Suzuki Pedagogy from The Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT. She has completed her long term Suzuki teacher training with Teri Einfeldt and Linda Fiore at the Hartt School, where she also served as faculty with the Hartt Community Division teaching Suzuki violin and managing the Suzuki orchestras. She is former faculty at the Lawrence Arts Academy at Lawrence University and violinist of the Fox Valley Symphony in Appleton, WI. Her principal teachers include Lorraine Westermark, Joanne Bath, Elaine Richey, and Mitchell Stern.