Artists

Pat Nelson is originally from Rhode Island, but has made her home in Bellingham. She received a Bachelor of Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Masters in Music from Northwestern University and completed post graduate studies at the University of Arizona, the Cours International de Musique in France and Musicfest in Wales.

Pat is the bassoonist with the highly acclaimed Westwood Wind Quintet and appears with them on the Crystal Records label. She also performs with the WWU Faculty quintet, Fifth Inversion, featured at many national and international conferences. Locally, Pat performs with the Pacific Northwest Opera, the San Juan Chamber Music Series and the Bellingham Festival of Music. She is the Bassoon Instructor at Western Washington University, Music Instructor at Whatcom Community College and maintains a large private studio in Northwest Washington. Pat is the co-founder and president of Bellingham Chamber Music Society and is devoted to keeping chamber music alive in Bellingham.

Jennifer Weeks grew up in Montreal, Canada. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University and a Graduate Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied under Theodore Baskin of L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and John Mack of the Cleveland Orchestra, respectively. Jennifer’s additional training involved participation in several summer festivals including the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts.

Jennifer served as principal oboist with the Kingston Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, Canada, before moving to the West Coast. During her tenure in Kingston she was a member of the adjunct music faculty at Queen’s University. Throughout her professional playing career, Jennifer performed with many orchestral and chamber music groups including the Orchestre Symphonique du Quebec, Les Violons du Roi, the Canadian Opera Company, the Canadian National Arts Center Orchestra, the Sarasota Opera Company, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Symphony, and the Bellingham Festival of Music.

Inspired by the natural beauty of the area and curious to explore a life that did not involve making oboe reeds, Jennifer took a hiatus from the oboe and returned to school. She completed a degree in Environmental Science at Skagit Valley College and worked for several years in the Natural Resource Department of the Samish Indian Nation. Unable, however, to resist her love of making music and the elusive dream of the perfect reed, she returned to playing and teaching oboe.  Jennifer is currently the oboe instructor at Western Washington University and maintains a private studio in Bellingham, WA. In 2013 she created Summerwinds, a summer chamber music camp for young woodwind players which ran for several years through Western Washington University’s Extended Education and Arts Preparatory Academy.

Jennifer is currently an active chamber musician, having discovered her love of this rich and rewarding art form. She loves teaching, is grateful to have found such a wonderful community of musicians to work with, and loves long summer road bike trips with her awesome partner, Molly.

Clarinetist Erika Block hails from Annapolis, MD. She is the Executive Director of the Bellingham Festival of Music. Erika performs regularly with the Fifth Inversion wind quintet, Bellingham Festival of Music, Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, Bellingham Chamber Music Society, and many other groups. As an active soloist, she will be featured in the 22/23 season with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra and has been featured twice with the Skagit Symphony, WWU Wind Symphony, and with the Whatcom Wind Ensemble. As a member of Fifth Inversion, Erika has performed in several international and national conferences across the US and Canada. Erika and her family moved to Bellingham in 2011 after several years in Vancouver, BC.  There she played with the Vancouver Island Symphony, North Shore Sinfonia, and Nu:BC contemporary ensemble.

Erika received her Bachelor and Master’s degrees in clarinet performance at Boston University. She studied with Thomas Martin (Boston Symphony Orchestra), and continued on with Ricardo Morales (Philadelphia Orchestra).  Her studies began with Gregory Raden (Dallas Symphony Orchestra), and she attended Brevard, Tanglewood, and Kinhaven music schools in the summer.

In addition to performing, Erika is the host of the classical music podcast, Inside the Notes.  She interviews musicians from all areas of the classical music field to discuss their career and favorite memories in classical music. This podcast aims to educate younger generations of musicians with first-hand accounts of important performances and experiences. 

Before moving to Bellingham, Erika was the director of marketing and artist relations at Backun Musical Services in Vancouver, BC. She spent several years touring the US and Europe, helping artists with their equipment and attending conferences and instrument trade shows. She helped with the marketing campaigns of the Leblanc by Backun, Bliss, and Backun protege series clarinets.

BJ Block began his music studies at the age of 8 studying piano with Edward Parker, (Uncle and teacher of Jon Kimura Parker) in Vancouver BC.    He attained his ARCT performance diploma with the Royal Conservatory of Music at age 16 and continued to perform and compete in festivals throughout the lower mainland as a Pianist.    

By late high school he began studying guitar seriously and attained a scholarship to the attend the  Berklee College of Music in Boston MA as a Guitar major doubling on Piano, focusing on Jazz and Contemporary Music.    After graduation BJ toured the East Coast with The Ernest Goodlife Band eventually settling back to Vancouver BC, where he focused on teaching and composition, writing music for animation and television.   During this time in Vancouver BJ wrote and recorded two albums with Vocalist Dawn Pemberton, and was nominated for a West Coast Breakout Award for ‘Album of the Year’.  Their first single “Just Be” was nominated for song of the year with Vancouver radio station ‘The Shore’.  They performed through Vancouver and the lower mainland including a live broadcast on CBC.   

Now settled in Bellingham WA, BJ is active in several groups including the Flamenco Jazz inspired Trío Sueño, lead guitar for the seven piece Latin Jazz band Bilongo, as well as the BJ Block Trio featuring Christian Casolary and Roger Yamashita. 

Soprano Heather Dudenbostel is a versatile singing actress, voice teacher, and stage director maintaining an active career on both coasts. In New York City she made her Off-Broadway debut in the rock opera The New Hopeville Comics. As a member of Pacific Opera she performed as a featured soloist across the greater New York area and directed staged concerts in Carnegie Hall. She also performed the role of Euridice in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice, which was featured by New York Magazine as an “Editor’s Pick of The Week” in Classical Music. In Los Angeles, she was bestowed the Selvin Family “Follow Your Dream” award for her performance as Jenny in Cabrillo Musical Theatre’s Production of Company, and was nominated for “Best Featured Actress in a Musical” by broadwayworld.com for her portrayal as Grace in Annie. Dudenbostel has performed with groups ranging from UCLA’s Contempo Flux Ensemble to the jazz greats of the Ron Levy Trio. She has enjoyed multiple engagements with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, Bellingham Chamber Chorale, Western Washington University Symphony, and the Marrowstone Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared in leading roles in regional productions at Cabrillo Musical Theatre, Duo Theatre, Encore Dinner Theatre, Glendale Centre Theatre, Mac-Haydn Theatre, Mount Baker Theatre, American Theatre of Actors, Collaborative Stages, and ACT. She also sang for five years with the multi-Seattle Blue Society Award-nominated Cat House Blues Band, has been featured in numerous cabaret shows in New York and Los Angeles, and appeared in national commercials. 

Beverly Shin made her solo debut with the Houston Symphony at age 17. As a chamber musician, she has performed at Bargemusic, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and at festivals in Brazil, Taiwan, and Newfoundland.  She has performed with members of the Vermeer, Guarneri, Lark, Kronos, and Borromeo quartets, and has appeared as a guest member of the Avalon Quartet.  She has been a member of the IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, TN and has performed frequently with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, A Far Cry, and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, TX.  A dedicated advocate for new music, she has performed at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY and has appeared regularly with Boston Musica Viva, the Harvard Group for New Music, Boston’s Callithumpian Consort, the Penn Composers’ Guild, and Chamber Music NOW.  She has recorded several new works for New Focus Recordings.

Beverly has been Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Memphis, adjunct faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, and Donald Weilerstein’s teaching assistant at the Cleveland Institute of Music.  She was also one of the first musicians to receive an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, for which she created interactive music programs in under-served elementary schools in Boston.  

 She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the New England Conservatory as well as a Doctor of Medicine from Jefferson Medical College.  She is currently a private practice addiction psychiatrist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. 

Born in Seattle, Carolyn Canfield was educated in the U.S, Europe, and Canada. Vancouver, B.C. was home for her 36-year career as a symphony and opera violinist, as a music educator, festival adjudicator, and chamber music. Carolyn Canfield played 25 years with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the First Violin section — including one year acting concertmaster — and 10 years with the Vancouver Opera. Other performances include CBC Radio Orchestra, Carmel Bach Festival, Carmel, CA; Pacific Baroque Festival Orchestra Vancouver; and Vancouver Film Orchestra.

In 2018, life changes took Carolyn from Canada back to the U.S., moving to New York for new performance experiences: New Haven Symphony Orchestra; Cayuga Chamber Orchestra Ithaca; Pitstop Players; Christchurch Festival Chorus/Orchestra; Harmonia Chamber Players New Jersey; New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble; Brooklyn Metro Orchestra; Canterbury Choral Society; OMNI Ensemble; Broadway with Phantom, amongst others. Carolyn Canfield was invited to audition for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. She is a former faculty member at Bronx House Performing Arts Center, Bronx, NYC.

You can hear Carolyn on the world-premiere of Frederick Schipizky’s Variations for Solo Violin, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation SM5000 Series:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyncanfieldcole/

Carolyn, now living on the West Coast in Ferndale, Washington, was inspired to re-design her career when covid hit. In Seasons 2020 and 2021, she worked as Caption Artist for the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra for their Zoom Concerts.  Carolyn is also on the coaching staff for the Bellingham Youth Chamber Players. While lessons were previously taught online, her Artist Drive Teaching Studio is now “in person”. She enjoys playing chamber music with new and old artist friends up and down the coast, and she continues to play on both coasts and in Canada: concertmaster for Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra; Assistant Principal Second for Bellingham Festival of Music, and the new East Hampton Arts Festival, Long Island, NYC.

Influential teachers were: Max Rostal (Germany) – two consecutive Fulbrights in Hochschule Köln; Master Classes with Nathan Milstein (Zurich) and Aaron Rosand (Nice); Denes Zsigmondy (Seattle UofW); Jeanne Lamond (Tafelmusik, UofToronto); and Elizabeth Wallfisch (Carmel Bach Festival, CA and Irsee, Germany).

Dawn Posey is an active chamber musician, teacher and soloist who has performed worldwide within a wide variety of genres. As a chamber musician Dawn is a founding member of Kassia Ensemble, a chamber music ensemble in Pittsburgh made up entirely of female performers. Kassia Ensemble seeks to empower women through quality performance, collaboration, and outreach. She also co-founded Jade Trio, a piano trio based in Pittsburgh. She has performed with the Boston Conservatory Honors Quartet, at the Festival A Tempo in Caracas, Venezuela, the Chamber Music Festival of Amman, Jordan, Blossom Music Festival, and Tanglewood
Music Center. Dawn is a devotee of baroque performance practice, and a frequent guest artist with Chatham Baroque. She has toured with the ensemble to Ecuador and Los Angeles. Dawn was also a participant in the 2015 Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. Dawn received the Starling Scholarship at the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where her primary teacher was Dr. Won-Bin Yim. She has also studied with the late renowned string pedagogue, Miss Dorothy Delay, at Aspen Music Festival, Lynn Chang at the Boston Conservatory, Mrs. Almita Vamos in Chicago, and with concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine. Dawn has been a member of the violin faculty at the Sherwood Conservatory, Merit School of Music, University of Evansville, St. Vincent College, and Slippery Rock University. She has also taught young beginning students at the Pittsburgh Music Academy. In Evansville, Dawn was the second violinist with the Eykamp String Quartet and Associate Concertmaster with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also served as assistant concertmaster with both the Youngstown Symphony and the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Dawn is currently Principal Second violin of the both the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra and Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra and associate principal second violin with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. She has also been recently appointed Concertmaster with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, in Bellingham, WA.

Cellist Sarah Rommel is a top prizewinner of the 2014 George Enescu International Cello Competition. She has been the recipient of several awards and grants including a Frank Huntington Beebe Fund Grant and Jack Kent Cooke Young Artists Award.

Sarah has given recitals at Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Showcase and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in addition to solo performances in Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, France, Italy, England, and Romania. She has actively participated in classes at the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Academie Musicale de Villecroze, and IMS Prussia Cove where she has worked closely with distinguished professors such as David Geringas, Gary Hoffman, Frans Helmerson, and Paul Katz.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Sarah was a founding member of the cello quintet SAKURA and regularly appears with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble in Boston. She has also recently toured with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Musicians from Marlboro. Sarah has been invited to perform at festivals such as the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, NM, Music in May Festival, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Chamber Music Palisades, Chamber Music Sedona, as well as Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Series, Chamber Music New Zealand, Yellow Barn, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute and Marlboro Music Festival. Sarah has collaborated with composers John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, and Kaija Saariaho, pianists Jonathan Biss and Gil Kalish, violinists Lucy Chapman, Pamela Frank, Joseph Lin, Scott St. John, and Don Weilerstein, violists Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian and Nobuko Imai, and cellists Peter Wiley and Ralph Kirshbaum.

Sarah began her musical studies on the piano at age nine and was later introduced to the cello at age twelve. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she pursued a Bachelor of Music studying with Peter Wiley. Previous teachers include Efe Baltacigil and Hans Jørgen Jensen. She received her Master’s Degree from the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles studying under the tutelage of Ralph Kirshbaum. Sarah is currently based in Seattle, WA where she is Artist-in-Residence and cello faculty at the University of Washington. When not playing the cello, Sarah can be found knitting, reading, or playing fetch with her yellow Labrador Retriever named Rhubarb or cuddling with her orange Siberian cat named Laptop.

Kimberley Breilein received her Bachelor’s Degree in flute performance from Boston University, having studied under such renowned artists as Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Leone Buyse and Louis Moyse, and has participated in workshops and master classes with William Bennett, Lorna McGhee, Michel Debost and others.  She has performed as principal flute with the Pacific Northwest Opera Orchestra for 17 years, and has also held that position with the Starry Night Orchestra, the Skagit Symphony, Tanglewood Symphony and the Rome Festival Orchestra.  A three-time winner of the Washington State Solo Contest and former member of the Seattle Youth Symphony, Kimberley has performed as featured soloist with the Starry Night Orchestra, Skagit Symphony and the North Cascades Concert Band.  

Kim enjoys teaching students of all ages and levels.  She has served as adjudicator for solo/ensemble events in several districts, and enjoys coaching for youth symphony and summer music camp.   Kimberley is a certified Suzuki instructor, melding this training with years of experience in “traditional” instruction, resulting in a unique, positive and fun approach to music, one tailored to each student’s individual needs and goals.  Her CD entitled “Faces of Romance,” recorded with pianist Sharon Skidgel, features romances spanning two centuries, from Beethoven to the title piece, a sonata written for Kimberley by Bellingham composer Barry Ulman.

Kimberley has a passion for chamber music.  She looks forward every year (sometimes twice!) to her performances with Melodious Notes Over The Harbor, and performs extensively with Trio Lumina (partnering with Laura Camacho on violin and Matt Rehfeldt on cello/guitar) and “NOEL Harps”, a Christmas touring ensemble featuring harps, strings, flute and poetry.  Her company, Enchanted Flute Productions, offers exquisite chamber ensembles for corporate and private parties, weddings and celebrations as well as concert performances.