Mari Gottdiener:

While at Merrywood, Mari was both a student and a teacher of violin and viola.  She has lived in the Bay Area for 25 years.  She worked for Cal. Coastal Comm, practiced law, and started a business to resolved consumer problems with large corporations.  She’s now playing chamber music as much as possible.

Mark Leder:

A French horn student and teacher at Merrywood, Mark has been a singer with the New Haven Chorale, the Yale Russian Chorus, and the Hartford Chorale.  He received his PhD in English from Yale University in 1977 and went on to complete his law degree at UConn in 1985.  He worked as a personal injury attorney from 1985-2003 and most recently was an adjunct English instructor at CCSU.

Joel Russell:

A clarinet student and teacher at Merrywood, Joel is now a semi-retired land conservation lawyer after almost 40 years of practice.  He has two grown sons and on grandson.  For over 20 years, he has been married to Mari Gottdiener, whom he met at Merrywood in 1965.  They now happily live in Northamptom, MA.

Nanette Kaplan Solomon:

A piano student and teacher at Merrywood, she pursued a career in music.  A scholarship student at Julliard, she completed her Bachelor’s degree.  She attended Yale where she completed her Master’s degree in Music, followed by her Doctorate at Boston University.  A freelance concert pianist, she was a soloist with numerous Pennsylvania orchestras.  She also performed with Kaplan Duo (www.kaplanduo.com), performing on five continents.  Her reviews and articles have been published in American Music Teacher and the International Alliance of Women in Music Journal.  Recordings include Character Sketches: 7 Works by American Women and Sunbursts: 7 Works by American Women.  From 1977-2014 she was a Professor of Music at Slippery Rock University.  (www.nanettekaplansolomon.com)

David Vogel:

Both a violin and viola student and teacher at Merrywood, David currently plays with the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra.  A physician, he is also an adjunct assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Diane Walsh:

A piano student at Merrywood, she taught at the Mannes School of Music.  She has been a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber music partner in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Russia, China, and New Zealand.  Diane has played with the San Francisco, Indianapolis, Austin, Rochester, Delaware, St. Louis, Portland, and American Symphonies.  She has also played with the Much, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Berlin Radio symphonies.  Since her Merrywood summers, she has played a LOT of chamber music and was a member of the La Fenice Quintet, the Walsh-Drucker-Cooper Trio, and the Mannes Trio.  As the on-stage pianist in the Broadway production of 33 Variations, she played 113 performances of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (eight shows a week!).  She’s also made nineteen recordings with more to come. (www.dianewalsh.com)

Ellen Bender:
www.ellenbender.com