Summer of 1975
Sarah Schwab Ambrogi:
A violin student at Merrywood, she currently enjoys singing. Married for over 35 years, she’s raised three children and has one grandchild so far. She ran her own law firm for 12 years and served as an elected member of the Manchester NH School Board for 10 years. A trusts and estates attorney since 1991, with a brief break for a spell of in-house work at a tech company, Sarah has lived in Manchester, NH since 1993. She now works for a larger firm in hopes of retiring within the next several years. She and her husband love the outdoors and spend time on their tandem bicycle.
Gerald Elias:
A violin teacher at Merrywood, Jerry is an internationally recognized violinist, composer, conductor, and author. He has retired from full-time orchestral playing in the Boston Symphony and Utah Symphony (associate concertmaster). He has published numerous mystery novels, short stories, and other books. He is the current Music Director of the Vivaldi by Candlelight chamber orchestra series (since 2004). He was first violinist of the Abramyan String Quarter (1992-2003). From 1989-2021, he was on the faculty of the University of Utah School of Music. Check out his website www.mysteriesandmusic.com.
Paul Goldsberry:
A violin teacher at Merrywood, Paul currently plays both violin and viola. Since 1974, he has played in the first violin section of the North Carolina Symphony (https://ncsymphony.org/people/paul-goldsberry/). He is married to Joy who worked as Ruth Hurwitz’s secretary.
Alison Hicks Greifenstein:
A cello student at Merrywood, Alison is a writer living in southeastern PA with her husband Charles and son Jeremy. She has published four full-length books of poetry, a novella, and co-edited an anthology. She has also published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in many national literary journals. She leads community-based writing workshops under the name Greater Philadelphia Workshop Studio (www.philaworkshop.com). She graduated summa cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and received and MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. She played cello as a child and adolescent, and took it up again when her son started taking viola lessons. She is a member of SCOR!Strings and participates in their on-line and in-person events. She plays in Orchestra Concordia in the Philadelphia area.
Margi Kugelman Hofer:
A viola student at Merrywood, Margi is currently the Executive Director of the Coby Foundation (www.cobyfoundation.org) as well as an Independent Curator (www.margihofer.com). She has written and published several books, including: A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls; Making it Modern: the Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman; Stories in Sterling: Four Centuries of Silver in New York; and The Games We Played: the Golden Age of Board and Table Games. She currently lives in NYC with her husband Andrew. She has 3 adult sons and one grandson. To this day, she still plays the viola and enjoys playing chamber music.
Philip Kuttner:
A piano student and teacher at Merrywood, Philip received his Bachelor’s degree in Music Theory and History from Harvard University and his Master’s degree in Music from Peabody Institute, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Philip has conducted 26 operas with the North Bay Opera and was the supertitles author for the San Francisco Opera. He self-published How to Sing in Italian and currently teaches piano.
Anna Kuwabara:
A violin student at Merrywood, Anna is now lives in NY and is an arts and education consultant.
Mia Lewis:
A cello student at Merrywood, Mia continues to play the cello and works for Common Cause Ohio.
James Rosenthal:
A French horn student at Merrywood, he played horn and sang in choruses throughout college, law school, and the beginning of his professional life as a lawyer in Washington, DC. When he moved back to Cleveland, he stayed connect to music in other ways. He served several years as President of the Board of the Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire, Baroque Orchestra, which is now internationally renown and of which James is proud to serve as Chair Emeritus.
David Salvin:
A clarinet student at Merrywood, David worked in the finance industry from 1983-2001. He then joined WNYC from 2001-2003. A stay-at-home parent for the next nine years, he is now a ski instructor in Colorado.
Michael Alan Snyder:
A graduate from UCONN with a Bachelor’s degree in General Studies, Michael has pursued a career composing music. His recordings have been broadcasted on college radio stations across American, especially on WWUH by DJ Keith Brown on the Gay Spirit Radio Hour on Thursday evenings since 1988. His music can be streamed on Amazon.com, YouTube.com, AppleMusic.com, and Spotify.com. He’s been the focus of several articles in the Hartford Courant (https://www.courant.com/1998/02/24/michael-snyder/) and CT Insider. “I remember wonderful teachers like Douglas Freundlich and Dave Swisher, Cecily Patton, and students like Linda Cockle and Tenli Yavneh – beautiful memories… Mrs. Hurwitz was open-minded and fully accepting of me. She was a mega talent who was also a visual artist herself. She said to me before she passed away that she would’ve liked to teach me piano.”
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.
Lisa Mulroney Yates:
A flute teacher at Merrywood, Lisa now also sings and plays baroque flute. She performed extensively in Boston, New York, and Washington, DC while a professional musician. She changed careers to high tech in 1982, but has continued to perform. She has been a CTO/CIO and VP of Engineering at many companies in the Boston area. Principally a software architect, she is also an Adjunct Professor at Boston University teaching graduate-level computer science. She is a listed author on many highly-cited academic papers on genetics. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marciayates/)
Tenli Yavneh:
A flute and viola student at Merrywood, Tenli moved to California after college to work on her
PhD in Musicology at UC Berkeley. She eventually found her way to clinical work through six years of volunteer work at Planned Parenthood. She the pursued a career as a clinical psychologist and was the Mental Health Program Supervisor for the City of Berkeley, CA. Now retired, she is an artist drawing comics (Instagram: @penby10). With her female partner of over 26 years, she has two kids, two step kids, and three grandkids.
Lindy Clarke:
https://oslmusic.org/bios/lindy-clarke/
Angus Cooke:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-20-vl-3640-story.html
Lisa Kugelman:
https://musicalclubhartford.org/content/music-by-members---dec8%2C-2016/906
Where are they now?