Katie Glassman
Katie Glassman, now living in Venice, CA is one of today’s leading Texas-style and Western Swing fiddler – an award-winning performer, champion improviser, and sought-after educator. A national Texas-style contest winner and longtime touring artist with The Western Flyers and her band Snapshot, she’s known for her soulful tone, inventive variations, and deep command of swing phrasing. Katie has performed and taught across the country, studied with many of the great Texas masters, and is the founder of Fiddle School, a thriving global learning community. Acclaimed for her clear methodology and creative approach, she helps fiddlers develop stylistic authenticity, improvisational fluency, and confidence onstage and off.
Celeste Johnson
A five-time national fiddle champion, Celeste Johnson has over 12 years of teaching experience with folks of all ages and levels, including first-time players, adult learners, and experienced musicians. As a teacher, her mission is to pass on traditional fiddle styles to people of all ages and experience levels. Whether you’re just picking up the fiddle for the first time or you’ve been playing for years, you’ll find a clear and satisfying path to your musical goals in lessons with Celeste.
Celeste holds championship titles at the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest, RockyGrass Fiddle Championship, Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle Championship, Rocky Mountain Regional Fiddle Championship, and the Colorado Fiddle Championship, among others. Several of her students have gone on to win state and national titles themselves. Celeste performs and teaches within a variety of genres, including Western Swing, traditional swing, hot jazz, country, Bluegrass, and more.
When she’s not playing fiddle, Celeste loves to read, travel, and pet cats. She is currently earning her Masters in Arts in Leadership and Cultural Management from Colorado State University. Find her at celestejohnsonmusic.com.
Beth Remming
Beth was born and raised in Rochester, NY, is a string teacher, and moved out to Denver, CO to be with family. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education, certificate in music in special education, and a master’s degree in music all in New York and is certified in Colorado. Beth Remming is also a certified Suzuki teacher. Her public school experience includes being a middle school and elementary school string teacher. She received a faculty service award from Hochstein School of Music and was also honored as Music Educator of the Year by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Since moving to Denver, Beth performs viola with the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra, maintains a private teaching studio, performs with guitarist, keyboard and vocalist, Nick Kaiser in “Coloraduo,” and plays viola with the Omicron Quartet in Denver. Beth is also a board member of COTFA. You can contact Beth at [email protected]
Cody Stadelmaier
Cody teaches classical violin and fiddling, starting classical students out with technique and note-reading, the traditional method. For fiddle students the same emphasis on technique is combined with learning by a choice of ear, tablature or note-reading (sheet music). She has 27 years of experience, including orchestral, quartet and old-time fiddling. Cody is the 2016 National Adult Fiddle Champion. You can contact Cody at [email protected] or visit her website at www.codysviolinstudio.com
Larry Struble
Larry brings a wealth of experiences from a very expansive background. His experience as a classical violinist includes the Denver Symphony (now the Colorado Symphony) as well as Concertmaster of the Colorado Ballet. When he was nine years old, his earliest fiddling experience was with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in Dallas, Texas. Larry’s championships include Colorado State as well as National Champion in his age division. Most of his fiddling early on was by ear so it was a natural path for him to embrace the Suzuki rote approach to violin teaching. Larry’s early introduction to rote teaching was with Suzuki during a summer at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. When he walks on a stage to perform Mozart or Sally Goodin, I’m probably the only one who has played with both Ray Price and Pavarotti. Larry enjoys the challenge of teaching and looks forward to assisting as many as possible. You can contact Larry at [email protected] or visit his website at violinfiddlelessonsdenver.com
Vi Wickam
Vi has been teaching the fiddle for more than 25 years. His fiddle styles include Oldtime, Contest Style, Celtic, Texas Style, Swing and Blues.
Vi’s primary focus when teaching is to help his students develop a lifelong love of music and fiddling. He enjoys contest fiddling but does not believe that it is the end-all be-all of fiddling. He helps his students become strong, grounded musicians with a strong basis in the fundamentals.
Vi teaches the melody of the fiddle tune before getting into variations and he teaches music theory from a practical standpoint. You can contact Vi at [email protected] or visit his website at http://www.vithefiddler.com/about/fiddle-lessons/