Staff

This page serves to introduce the names and faces of the people who run Community MusicWorks and support the Providence String Quartet's many programs and activities.

Click here to learn more about the Providence String Quartet or here to learn more about the Fellowship Program participants.

Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Executive-Artistic Director / Member, Providence String Quartet

Sebastian Ruth is a professional musician and educator committed to exploring connections between the arts and social change. Mr. Ruth graduated from Brown University in 1997, where he worked closely with education scholars Theodore Sizer and Reginald Archambault on a thesis project exploring the relationship between the philosophy of moral education and music.

Over the past twelve years, he has assembled musicians and community organizers to build Community MusicWorks, a nonprofit organization that provides transformative social and musical experiences to at-risk youth and families in urban communities of Providence, Rhode Island. With a current operating budget of $660,000, Community MusicWorks is built around the permanent urban residency of the Providence String Quartet, the only such urban string quartet residency in existence.

In February 2000, Sebastian co-created a conference featuring revered American philosopher Maxine Greene entitled “Transformative Teaching in the Arts.” He arranged for Dr. Greene to return to Providence in May 2004 for a symposium sponsored by Community MusicWorks entitled “Education, Art, and Freedom: An Exploration of Philosophy and Pedagogy” and again in 2008 to give the keynote address at a conference entitled “Imagining Art + Social Change.”

A founding member of the Providence String Quartet, he was previously a member of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra, and the Wild Ginger Philharmonic. Sebastian has participated in the Audubon String Quartet Seminar, the Yellow Barn and Apple Hill Chamber Music Festivals, and the International Musical Arts Institute. Influential teachers have included Eric Rosenblith, Rolfe Sokol and Pamela Gearhart.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Music Arts Institute, a member of the Advisory Board for the Sphinx Organization and a member of the Board of Visitors for the Longy School of Music.

In 2007, he was selected by the Providence Monthly as one of ten people most likely to change the face of Providence.

View a 7-minute video interview with Sebastian here.

Heath Marlow, Director of Development & Artistic Program Administrator

Prior to starting work at Community MusicWorks in 2003, Heath was a member of the development staff of the San Francisco Symphony, specializing in corporate and institutional gifts.

Originally from the Boston area, Heath attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and was a three-time fellowship recipient at the Tanglewood Music Center. As a cellist, he has enjoyed many summers of performing music in beautiful locations, including the Berkshires, Banff, Alberta and Blue Hill, Maine. While a California resident, he was a member of the Oakland East Bay Symphony and maintained a small private teaching studio.

Heath is delighted to continue his association with Community MusicWorks, a relationship that began in 1999 as the organization's first cello teacher. In his spare time, he serves on the board of directors of Greenwood Music Camp and is very interested in chamber music presented creatively in both private and public venues.

Read a blog posting that Heath wrote in April 2007 by clicking here.

Minna has been involved with Community MusicWorks since 1998 and was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet from 2001 to 2004. After attending the Hartt School of Music where she earned a Masters Degree in Violin Performance, Minna returned in 2006 as the Fellowship Program Coordinator. She rejoined the Providence String Quartet in 2009. She graduated from Brown University in 1996 with a BA in Philosophy and her influential teachers have included Eric Rosenblith and Lois Finkel. She has performed with the Boston Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra. Each summer, she performs at the International Musical Arts Institute in Fryeburg, ME.

Elizabeth Cox, Program & Administrative Coordinator

Liz began her work at Community MusicWorks in 2006. Growing up in Boston, she attended Boston University for two years until she left, much to the dismay of her parents, to play drums and sing in Christmas, a rock trio. Many years and several CDs, later the trio disbanded and the jazz/pop combo Combustible Edison was formed.

Combustible Edison recorded four CDs, toured the United States, Canada and Europe, and scored the film Four Rooms, collaborating with director Quentin Tarantino, among others. Personal highlights include performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and providing the singing voice for Bridget Fonda in the film Grace of My Heart. Lowlights include several gigs at Sudsy Malone's, a combination bar, rock club and laundromat in Cincinnati.

Liz resides in a historic fixer-upper in Pawtuxet Village and, of special note, has resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Rhode Island.

Chloë received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she was a viola student of Martha Katz. While in Houston, Chloë was the Chamber Music Assistant at the Shepherd School, and also taught violin and viola at the Brazoswood High School and the Lake Jackson Intermediate School in Lake Jackson. Other influential teachers include Karen Tuttle, Roberto Diaz, and Richard Young. Chloë has also studied chamber music with members of the Vermeer, Juilliard, Guarneri, Cleveland, American, Orion, Brentano, Emerson, and Tokyo string quartets, and has participated the Aspen, Banff, Taos, Sarasota, Musicorda, and Kneisel Hall summer festivals.

Rachel Panitch, Resident Musician / Administrator

Rachel is thrilled to continue on staff with Community MusicWorks after completing the Fellowship Program in 2009. She also begins work as a community-based fiddler this year, teaching intergenerational fiddling and dance at her new initiative, the Fiddle & Dance Project based in Pawtucket, RI.

At Vassar College, Rachel was a soloist with the orchestra and as an Anthropology major, completed work focusing on aural learning in folk music communities and the documentation of early American fiddle music. She came to Providence in 2006 to work as an AmeriCorps member at Providence Children's Museum. Rachel has performed both on violin and mandolin with numerous local folk and roots-inspired bands. Her bluegrass band, the Bourbon Boys, was recognized as the 2009 Bluegrass Band of the Year by Motif Magazine. Her fiddling was part of the soundtrack for the 2009 PBS documentary, "The Mosque in Morgantown." In 2008, she made her European solo debut on violin with the Providence Mandolin Orchestra in France and the Netherlands.

Rachel has studied contradance fiddling at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, the Festival of American Fiddletunes in Port Townsend, Washington, Pinewoods American Dance and Music Week and at Donna Hebert's Fiddling Demystified and French Accent Weeks.

Donald Tarallo, Graphic Design Consultant

Donald Tarallo (BA in Studio Arts, Clark University, MFA in Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and further studies at the Basel School of Design, Basel, Switzerland) has worked as a graphic designer and photographer in Oslo, Norway and as an identity designer in Seoul, Korea. Since 1998, he has maintained a practice focusing mainly on identity design and photography, and has worked on the development of new identity systems for Sotheby's, Icograda and the Hong Kong Design Institute.

Don has taught graphic design at Clark University, Rhode Island School of Design, the Fraunhofer Institute's Digital Media program, the Samsung Art and Design Institute (Korea), and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China). His work has been awarded by the AIGA and been published in China, Korea and the United States. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. His research interests include Chinese pictograms and visual cross-cultural issues.

Born and raised in Worcester, Don has lived in Norway, Switzerland, China, and Korea. His hobbies include hiking, cooking, and photography, and his musical interests range from classical to folk, soul, and The Clash.

Don began work for Community MusicWorks in 2003. View Don's work at www.tarallodesign.com.