Over the years Mrs. Resnick has performed with such diverse artists as Luciano Pavarotti, Art Garfunkel, Arlo Guthrie, Olivia Newton-John, the Moody Blues, Don McLean, Donna Summer, Kurt Masur, and Bobby McFerrin. She was first prize winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as first violinist of the LaStrada String Quartet.

Mrs. Resnick continues to give recitals and chamber music performances throughout the United States, and is an active violin teacher and clinician. She is the founder and director of the prestigious music school, Suzuki on the Island (formed in 2000) and The Artists Program Summer Chamber Music Festival (formed in 2013). She was formerly a teaching artist for the New York Philharmonic School Partnership Teaching Program.

Violinist/Violist Amelia Dietrich received her Bachelors of Music from The Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and her Masters degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Robert Lipsett and Ida Kavafian. A native of North Carolina, Amelia grew up studying with her teacher and mentor, Ara Gregorian-artistic director of Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival and distinguished professor at East Carolina University.

A passionate chamber musician, Amelia has performed in numerous chamber series across the US, Europe, and Australia including Alice Tully Hall’s Wednesdays at One, National Sawdust, The Guggenheim, Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival, ClasClas Chamber Festival in Spain, and Mimir’s Chamber Festival in Melbourne, Australia. Amelia has collaborated with several distinguished musicians, including performances with Guy Braunstein, Robert McDonald, Hye-Jin Kim, Miriam Fried, Caroline Shaw, Natasha Brofsky, Alessio Bax, Amihai Grosz, and Marc Coppey. She regularly performs with NY based chamber orchestras including appearances with The New York Classical Players, Shattered Glass, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. 

A strong advocate of community outreach and making classical music accessible for the next generation, Amelia is Perlman Program outreach artist and has given countless interactive performances throughout the United States. While at Juilliard, she received the Gluck Fellowship, a distinguished role dedicated to bringing educational performances of classical works to the disabled community in New York City. 

Amelia is a founding member of the Terra String Quartet, formerly known as The Arte Quartet, who were selected for Juilliard’s prestigious Honors Chamber Music program in 2019. The quartet’s performances include recitals at Alice Tully Hall, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, a radio appearance on New York’s WQXR, and Winter Workshop at the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival. They are honored to be Si-Yo Music Foundation Artists through which they were able to collaborate in concert with the Quartetto di Cremona in Fall 202

Beyond her musical studies, Amelia, has a passion for teaching and mentoring young musicians. She coaches chamber music at the New York Youth Symphony as well as maintaining a NYC private teaching studio. She is thrilled to now join the faculty of Suzuki on the Island.

Sara Gabalawi is a cellist, a teacher, an editor, and a writer. She graduated with her Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute where she held the Beatrice Feldman Kahn and Raymond S. Kahn Endowed Cello Scholarship, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from the Johns Hopkins University. Sara’s cello journey then took her to Europe where she earned a Performance Diploma from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and both Master of Arts and Postgraduate degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (graduated “cum laude”). She has played with numerous ensembles worldwide, such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, the Residentie Orkest, the Rotterdam Philharmonic in the Netherlands, and the Tucson Symphony in Arizona. In addition to Sara’s musical life, she has also made a career as an editor. She worked for a year and a half on the American editorial team at a publishing house in Amsterdam and specialized in creating and editing crossword puzzles for media print and digital use. She has also worked as the office administrator at the Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont. Sara is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program under the tutelage of famed cellist and pedagogue Fred Sherry on a full-tuition scholarship. She has earned Suzuki cello teacher training in Units 1- 3 (and continuing!) and teaches cello remotely and in-person in New York City, both privately and through the Harmony Program.

Dr. Micaela Haimov is a Long Island-based violinist and violist with a passion for teaching, performing, and fostering a mutual enthusiasm between classical musicians and their community. A committed music educator, Dr. Haimov has established herself as a sought-after teacher, chamber music coach and mentor, having served as a frequent Next Generation Artist with Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Summer Chamber Music Institute, as well as serving on faculty and in leadership roles at many music programs and festivals across Long Island.

A founding member and Executive Director of NY-based classical orchestra Kollective366, Micaela is invested in welcoming the next generation of music enthusiasts to historically informed performances. Previously, she served as a Musicivic Artist with a residency as Artistic Director and violist of Three Village Chamber Players, where she organized and performed formal concerts, salon concerts, educational outreach, and private music lessons throughout the year in Suffolk County. Before moving to New York, Micaela spent six years working as an assistant to the Managing Director of Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival at East Carolina University.

Micaela has toured in the United States and Europe with various groups, including  Astona International Summer Music Academy in Switzerland, at Carnegie Hall with New Music for Strings Festival Orchestra, at the Women Composers Festival of Hartford. She has toured with Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Next Generation concert series and has collaborated with members of the Emerson String Quartet.

Micaela received her Bachelor of Music in violin performance and Certificate of Advanced Performance Studies in viola performance from East Carolina University, where she studied with Ara Gregorian and Melissa Reardon. She earned her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in viola performance from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Lawrence Dutton, Nicholas Cords, and Matthew Lipman.

Korean-Australian violinist Harriet Langley is an accomplished soloist, chamber musician and teacher who has soloed with orchestras like London Chamber, Verbier Festival, Sinfonia
Varsovia, Vienna Chamber, Gyeonggi Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, Reno Philharmonic, etc. Laureate of competitions including Leopold Mozart, Yehudi Menuhin, Tibor Varga, Andrea Postacchini, her discography includes Vieuxtemps Concerto 7, Saint-Saëns Pieces with Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. Festival appearances include the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Switzerland, Ravinia, YellowBarn, and the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove. She is also a founding member of the Terra String Quartet, based in New York City, and winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prize at the Fischoff Competition, of the
3rd prize and 2nd prize, respectively, at the Osaka and Melbourne International Chamber Music Competitions.

Harriet studied with Augustin Dumay at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth of Belgium, Josef Rissin at Karlsruhe Hochschule fur Musik, Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman at Manhattan School of Music and at New England Conservatory, where she received her bachelor’s degree studying with Miriam Fried and Lucy Chapman. She completed her Master’s degree at Juilliard under the tutelage of Catherine Cho, Daniel Phillips and Donald Weilerstein, and upon graduation was bestowed the prestigious William Schuman Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.

She has a strong love of teaching, and has built a private studio based in New York. She has given masterclasses across the US, such as at Butler University, and East Carolina University, to name a few, and has taught at programs including Suzuki on the Island’s The Artist Program’s Summer Music Festival. Along with her quartet, she is regularly involved in
community engagement teaching, in which they teach students in schools and in chamber
music and orchestral music programs across the country.

Alejandra Mahave was born in Chile and comes from a family of professional musicians. She is a graduate of the University of Chile, National Conservatory of Music with a degree in Viola Performance and a former member of the Chilean National Symphony, a position she won by audition while finishing her studies at the Conservatory.

Upon her arrival in the United States, Ms. Mahave toured extensively, performing throughout the country and Canada with the Music of Andrew Lloyd Weber featuring Michael Crawford. As a performer Alejandra has been active in many different aspects of musical life, joining the Riverside Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Westfield Symphony, The New York Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, City Island Chamber Ensemble and Alma String Quartet. Alternative venues include appearances and recordings with a wide range of popular artists such as Donna Summer, Bryan Adams, Tony Bennett and Mark Mangold, as well as on numerous commercials for radio and TV. Ms. Mahave has also participated in Music Festivals around the world including the Festival di Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, the Frutillar Summer Festival in Chile, the Manchester Music Festival in Vermont and the Chamber Music Festival of the Hamptons.

Alejandra started assisting in the studio of violinist Norma Kokisch at a very early stage of her career, making teaching a relevant aspect of her development as a musician. Since then she has been involved with many music schools in the Metropolitan area including the Third Street Settlement, Manhattan School of Music Preparatory School, The Queens College Preparatory School and the Birch Wathen Lenox School. She has done extensive coaching in the Tri-State Area including the Connecticut Youth Symphony and with a special program from BOCES coaching youth orchestras throughout Nassau County. She has been on faculty at Suzuki on the Island for over 15 years.

Cellist Iona Batchelder is an avid solo, chamber, and orchestral artist. From her earliest memories, classical music was an integral part of Ms. Batchelder’s life. Her very first live concert experience was seeing the Mark Morris Dance Company at the age of three and since then, she has been intensely interested in collaborations with musicians and interdisciplinary artists alike.

Ms. Batchelder’s appearances with orchestra include the Dvorak and Schumann concertos in Los Angeles’s Bing Theater and Zipper Hall. She has performed as a principal cellist under the batons of conductors including Marin Alsop, James Conlon, and John Adams. Ms. Batchelder was a founding member of the Unison Quartet, which worked with the Escher, Juilliard, Pacifica, and American Quartets, among others, and participated in the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Music Workshop, and the Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies. They also won an Honorary Mention award at the 2021 Bartók Competition in Budapest, Hungary.

Ms. Batchelder has attended Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Juilliard’s ChamberFest, and the Aspen Music Festival as an orchestral fellow. In addition, she has played solo and chamber music works in masterclasses for artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ralph Kirshbaum, Donald and Vivian Weilerstein, and Martin Beaver. Ms. Batchelder was a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School, where she recently graduated with her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees, both under the tutelage of Darrett Adkins, and a Juilliard Career Advancement Fellowship. Ms. Iona is so excited to be joining the SOTI faculty and helping to pass on the Suzuki ideas that inspired her to pursue a career in music! 

A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and Boston University, cellist Isabel Fairbanks has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia as a chamber and orchestral musician. Currently residing in New York City, she has been heard most recently at the 92nd Street Y and the American Songbook at Lincoln Center, as well as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, and at the United Nations Friendship Summit. Festival appearances include the Banff International Masterclasses, Roundtop Music Festival, Tanglewood, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Orpheus Institute.

Her primary teachers include David Geber, David Soyer, George Neikrug, Mary Lou Rylands, and Andres Diaz. Ms. Fairbanks has performed with the Circe Ensemble, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, the Salome Chamber Orchestra, the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and alongside members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has been a finalist and prizewinner at the Montpelier Arts Center Competition as part of the Circe Ensemble, the New England Chamber Music Competition, and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Ms. Fairbanks plays an Italian cello made in 1910 by Carlo Carletti. She teaches privately as well as at the Turtle Bay Music School and Saturday Music Project in New York City. She is happy to be joining the faculty of Suzuki on the Island!

Cellist Madeline Fayette, praised for her  “charisma…lovely tone and phrasing”, is part of a new generation of artist-teachers creating audiences through inventive community engagement and compelling performances. An in-demand collaborator in both standard and experimental repertoire, she regularly performs with the Fair Trade Chamber Music Society, New York Classical Players, Shattered Glass, and innovative genre-defying organizations Cantata Profana and Heartbeat Opera. She has also appeared with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, and Broadway’s recent revival of Hello, Dolly with Bette Midler. Based in New York, Ms. Fayette has performed at some of the city’s most prestigious venues, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Roulette, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

In her role as cellist of the Fair Trade Chamber Music Society, Ms. Fayette designs and presents annual concerts for Music for Autism, which recognized the Society as their 2020 Spotlight Artist. Fair Trade is also a yearly artistic partner with the Corona Youth Music Project, which strives to promote social inclusion by empowering children in Corona, Queens to excel through their participation in musical ensembles. In 2019, Fair Trade held a residency at Smith College, performing works of female composers and holding workshops for composition students. 

Ms. Fayette was a 2017 and 2018 guest artist at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, where she designed school presentations, interactive performances and engrossing concert programs for audiences of all ages, which culminated in her appointment as Bravo’s Teaching-Artist-in-Residence for their 2019 season. Ms. Fayette is also an inaugural member and current Operations Manager of the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, which was founded in 2016 to present innovative concerts in fresh and unexpected ways. 

Ms. Fayette became one of the youngest cellists to attend the Juilliard Pre-College when she was accepted at age seven. She went on to receive both a Bachelor and Master of Music from Juilliard, where she studied with Bonnie Hampton and Natasha Brofsky. Ms. Fayette was a 2016-18 Fellow in Ensemble Connect – a post-graduate program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the NYC Department of Education – which trains classical musicians for careers that combine musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership.  

Having grown up in a Suzuki program in Long Island and coming from a family of professional musicians, Maddy is thrilled to have this opportunity to work with the students at Suzuki on the Island!

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Adam Ali first learned the piano at age six with his grandmother, Lalan Parrott, who was herself a pupil of the legendary pianist and pedagogue Rosina Lhevinne. After several years, Adam entered the Prep Division of Mannes College, joining the studio of Irina Edelman. At the same time, he attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia School of the Arts, and graduated from both schools with honors. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, where he studied under Dr. Donald Pirone.

Adam has given numerous solo and chamber performances in the New York City area, in such venues as Mannes Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, and Alice Tully Hall. At Queens College, Adam was the recipient of several awards and scholarships, and he gave a number of recitals in the esteemed LeFrak Concert Hall, where his programs included such works as J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E minor, Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, and Brahms’ Piano Sonata no. 2 in F-sharp minor. In 2016, he performed Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Queens College Symphony Orchestra.

Holding a firm belief that every child should experience classical music, Adam enjoys an extensive career as a piano instructor. He currently serves on the faculties of East-West Music School and the Lawrence Eisman Center for Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College, in addition to his work as Music Director at Grace Baptist Chapel. He is pleased to join the Suzuki on the Island family. 

Ms. Sing Ho was born in Taiwan and came to America when she was 18. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Piano at Queens College where she studied with Morey Ritt and a Professional Studies degree in piano from Mannes School of Music, where she studies with Diane Walsh.

Ms. Ho received numerous awards and scholarships and was an accompanist for the Choir/Choral Society under Robert White and Dr. Lawrence Eiseman. She also performed with the Violin and the Wind Repertoire Ensemble under Daniel Phillips and Ronald Roseman at Queens College.

She has toured with the Canticum Novum as an accompanist under Harold Rosenbaum and as a member of a piano/violin duo with Penny Ho, with whom she continues to perform in such places as Queens College, Colgate, and Yale University. Ms. Ho has also performed extensively throughout Europe, specifically in noted concert halls in Salzburg, Vienna, London and at the Saracusa Summer Music Festival in Sicily.

Ms.Ho received her Suzuki Piano Teacher Training from Trinity College at Chicago. She supplemented her training with a course titled “ Music and Brain” . She was granted a residency for Nassau County’s BOCES Arts in Education in 2006 and 2007. Ms. Ho was on the piano faculty in Center for Preparatory Studies in Music program at Queens College to 2014.

In addition to being a piano teacher at Suzuki on the Island for over 15 years, Ms. Ho is currently a Music Director at Calvary Lutheran Church at East Meadow and has served as a Facultyy member of the Stony Brook School since 2019.

A captivating soloist and collaborative pianist, Zhihan Shang (Shauna) is a talented, soulful, impressive performer who is devoted to piano and chamber music performances. Shauna was born into a musical family in China. Her piano study began at age four after she watched her grandma playing in an exhibition. At age twelve, Shauna was accepted to the Shenyang Conservatory of Music (SCOM), one of the top music schools in China. From a young age, she has traversed the country to participate in competitions and music festivals. The same year she graduated with the distinguished award from SCOM in 2013, Shauna was invited to the United States to enter the finalist competition of the New York Concert Festival. She then performed in multiple concert halls in New York, including Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. She received advanced training at Manhattan School of Music, under Nina Svetlanova for piano performance and Dr. Heasook Rhee for collaborative piano performance. Shauna has been actively performing and accompanying in various concerts and recitals, appearing as a soloist, collaborative pianist, and chamber musician. In addition, she has participated with her chamber groups in Competitions, Master Classes and coached by Philippe Müller, Nicholas Mann, Laurie Carney, Curtis Macomber, David Geber, Julia Lichten, Pascual Martinez-Forteza, Paul Cohen.  In 2019 Shauna had the honor of being invited by the SCOM to co-directed at the annual concert. 

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music and is working towards a Master of Music Education degree from Aaron Copland School of Music, which will be completed in 2022. Shauna also holds New York State Teacher certifications in music for grades K-12.

Shauna has an extensive teaching history, including teaching at a private studio for seven years and serving as faculty collaborative pianist in the Manhattan School of Music. Shauna is currently living, operating, and teaching in the area of Long Island. She is excited to be joining the faculty of SOTI!