Program for Maine Students

Faculty

• Marisa Solomon, the Program for Maine Students Director, received performance degrees from the Oberlin College and San Francisco Conservatories. She is adjunct faculty at the University of Maine, serves on the Chamber Music Society board at the Collins Center for the Arts, and is a member of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.  Marisa is a 2023 recipient of the Director’s Award from the Collins Center for the Arts, and the founder and director of Shelter Music Maine.
• Patricia Stowell is a pianist based in Bangor, Maine, known for her work as a performer, chamber musician, and teacher. The former director of the Kneisel Hall Program for Maine Students, she also coordinates the Arlan A. Baillie Steinway Series and co-founded the Chamber Music Society at the University of Maine. She has performed widely across Maine and taught for 15 years at Bay Chamber Music School. Internationally, her work has taken her to Austria, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia, where she gave concerts, master classes, and a lecture at the first Scriabin Conference in Moscow. She has held university teaching positions and presented master classes throughout the U.S. Her studies include degrees from Indiana and Northwestern Universities, as well as advanced training in Vienna and Stuttgart as a Rotary Scholar.
• Violinist and violist Rebecca Benjamin has made appearances in the US and abroad. A member of the Abeo Quartet, she is an avid chamber musician and loves cultivating community around chamber music in as many spaces and environments as possible. Recent projects and collaborations include her participation as a DACAMERA young artist, where she brings music to the greater Houston area, and recently performed with the Kinetic Ensemble and the Houston Bach Society. Graduating summa cum laude with her bachelors degree in Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Ms. Benjamin also holds a masters degree in violin from CIM as well as a Master of Musical Arts degree in violin from the Yale School of Music where she was awarded the Broadus Erle Prize in Violin. During the Abeo Quartet’s Delaware fellowship, Rebecca earned an additional master’s degree in Viola Performance from the University of Delaware. Her principal teachers include Elias Goldstein, Hyo Kang, Jaime Laredo, Jeff Myers, Bill Preucil, Jan Sloman, Joel Smirnoff, Almita and Roland Vamos, and Derek Reeves. Rebecca is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Viola Performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, Texas, under the tutelage of James Dunham. She will assume the position of Principal Viola of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Fall 2025. 
• Scott Woolweaver, viola, graduated with distinction from the University of Michigan School of Music where he won the Joseph Knitzer and Earl V. Moore awards for outstanding participation in chamber music. After moving to Boston for graduate studies with Walter Trampler, he founded the Boston Composers String Quartet, which won the silver medal at the 1993 String Quartet Competition and Chamber Music Festa in Osaka, Japan. He also founded the Vaener String Trio, which won the Grand Prize at the Joseph Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. From 1999–2006 he was a member of the Ives Quartet, based in San Francisco, CA, and for over 25 years he was a member of the New England Piano Quartette. A champion of the music of our time, Scott has premiered many new works, including pieces written especially for him. Since 1980 he has been a member of Alea III, a contemporary music ensemble in residence at Boston University. Current affiliations also include the Chameleon Arts Ensemble. Scott is Lecturer in Viola and Chamber Music at Tufts University. He is a regular guest of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society and the Meetinghouse Chamber Music Series on Cape Cod. Scott plays a Johan Georg Thir viola made in Vienna, 1737