Faculty

Violin & Viola

Katie Carpenter

Betsy Fee

Mrs. Betsy Fee is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee where she was a student of the Suzuki Method under the direction of William J. Starr, who is one of the founding fathers of Suzuki in the United States. She received her Bachelors of Music Performance from the University of Tennessee where she was a member of the Gamma Beta Phi Society. She then continued her graduate and Suzuki pedagogy studies with William Starr and Hiroko Driver.

After her graduate studies, she taught at Carson Newman University where she was an adjunct teacher and started the first Suzuki program at CNU. Betsy also taught as a Suzuki instructor at the University of Tennessee.

Betsy now lives in Greenville, S.C. where she has had a private studio for over 30 years and currently plays in many regional orchestras including the ASO, CO, GSO, HSO, and the KSO. Betsy was former principal second violin with the GSO and KSO. She has done extensive studio recording work and church music as well as performed with artists such as Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, Buddy Rich, and Mannheim Steamroller. As a sought after clinician for institutes and workshops, Betsy has taught in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Ohio. She also serves on the Board of Directors for SASC.

Betsy lives with her husband Charles and their rather active dog Rowdy.

Stacy Garner

Stacy Garner, violin, is a Suzuki Violin Teacher Trainer and a Suzuki Strings Specialist in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD in North Texas, where she teaches private and group Suzuki lessons and co-conducts the HEB Suzuki Strings Elementary Honor Orchestra.

Formerly the Faculty and Artistic Director of the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute, the Suzuki Program Director at the Gifted Music School in Salt Lake City, Utah, and President of the Suzuki Association of Utah, Stacy has a degree in Violin Performance from the University of Utah where she studied with Gerald Elias and Mischa Boguslavsky. Ms. Garner has completed hundreds of hours of Suzuki training, primarily with Edmund Sprunger, Jeanne Grover, Linda Fiore, Mark Mutter, Cathy Lee, Carey Beth Hockett and others, and is truly passionate about Suzuki Education. Stacy has presented educational sessions to both parents and teachers at state, national and international Suzuki conferences and conventions and is a frequent contributor to the Journal of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. Stacy is on faculty at Suzuki workshops and institutes across the United States and internationally, and has been featured presenter for the Suzuki Association of the America’s “Parents as Partners” series. Stacy is an active freelance performer on both violin and violin in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

In April of 2018, Stacy was awarded the Suzuki Association of the America’s Certificate of Achievement, an award given to teachers that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to excellence in their teaching, and in 2023, Stacy became a Violin Teacher Trainer with the Suzuki Association of the Americas. Stacy is a Suzuki mom to five children: a violist, a violinist, a pianist, and two double bassists, all of whom provide her most in-depth Suzuki training.

Dr. Kirsten Swanson

The Classical Voice of North Carolina described violist and violinist Kirsten Swanson as a “stunning musician with flawless technique combined with that unique ‘viola’ sound that can melt your soul.” Feeling equally at ease with “new” and “old” music, in an orchestra or solo, Dr. Swanson enjoys a diverse career that has taken her all over the world.

A committed teacher, Kirsten has studied Suzuki pedagogy with almost too many amazing teachers to list (but I’ll try): Edmund Sprunger, April Losey, Sarah Montzka, Laurie Scott, Joanne Martin, Betsy Stuen-Walker, James Hutchins, and her beloved childhood teacher, Joanne Bath, and holds a Graduate Certificate in Suzuki Pedagogy from East Carolina University. During the summers, she teaches at the North Carolina Suzuki Institute in Greenville, NC and at various camps and festivals throughout the region.

Over the course of her career, she has started hundreds of children on the violin and viola, both privately, and as the head of the Suzuki violin and viola programs at both the prestigious Oakwood School in Greenville, NC, and the Friendship Day School for the Sciences and Math in Charlotte, NC. Equally at home teaching adults and young children, she has guest taught at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Wake Forest University, and Elon College. She is currently an adjunct professor of viola, violin, and chamber music at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and maintains a private studio out of her home.

An experienced chamber musician, Dr. Swanson has collaborated with such artists as Schlomo Mintz, Garth Knox, Jon Nakamatsu, and members of the JACK, Pacifica, and Ciompi String Quartets.
As an orchestral musician, Dr. Swanson held the position of Assistant Principal viola with the Charlotte Symphony from 2005-2007 and 2019-2020. She has won positions in the Winston-Salem Symphony and Greensboro Symphonies and has played full-time as a section member with the North Carolina Symphony in 2013, 2018-2019, and will do so again in the upcoming 2022-2023 season!

Music has taken Kirsten across the United States, Europe, and South America as a guest violist in festivals in Holland, England, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Peru, and Chile. Nationally, she participated in the Garth Newel Chamber Festival, Kneisel Hall, and, as a New Horizons Fellow, the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the Longy School of Music, East Carolina University, and the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Her teachers include John Graham, Roger Tapping, and Scott Rawls.

Cello & Guitar

Beth Cantrell

Elizabeth Cantrell teaches students of all ages at Crozet Arts, where she is Artist-In-Residence. A Registered Teacher Trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas, she has taught at Suzuki Institutes and workshops throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. In addition to teaching, Dr. Beth is Principal Cellist with the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra, and plays with ensembles throughout central Virginia.

As Chair of the Suzuki Association of the Americas from 2019 - 2021, she helped guide the organization through the challenges of COVID. Prior to moving to Virginia with her family in 2001, she was principal cellist for the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, on the faculty of Kennesaw State University, and active in the Atlanta area as a teacher, chamber and orchestral performer, adjudicator, and recording studio musician. Dr. Beth earned degrees in cello performance and music history from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia.

When at leisure, she enjoys travel, reading, baking, gardening, and outdoor activities.

Tarra Guerra

New Zealand born, North Carolina raised musician Tarra Guerra is trained in Suzuki violin and guitar, with a long-time active teaching studio in the greater Fort Lauderdale and surrounding tri-county areas. Tarra conducts the Alpha Strings for the Florida Youth Orchestra and serves on the Board of that organization as the teacher representative. An active member of the board of the Suzuki Association of South Florida and the current Vice President, she is energetic in the organization of workshops, graduation recitals and other community events. She was Adjunct Professor of Guitar (and Violin when needed) at Nova Southeastern University prior to the Covid years, but now prefers to fill her Suzuki studio with wonderful people of all ages Like all of us, Tarra is extremely happy that the world of music is back in person, celebrating this with an active performance schedule of several live solo and ensemble classical concerts every year, along with performances with her students and their parents at the South Florida Bluegrass Association festivals or benefit performances for the whole studio in several venues.

As a child, Tarra studied classical guitar at the North Carolina School of the Arts with Jesus Silva, a protégé and student of Andres Segovia. As a young teen in New Zealand, while studying with Belgian concert guitarist Emile Bibobi, Tarra won the Open category of the New Zealand National Guitar competition. When her son grew up and left home, she returned to college, gaining a Master of Music in classical guitar performance at Florida Atlantic University, minoring in violin and composition. While at FAU, she was concertmaster of the FAU Symphony, teacher of the early level Guitar Ensemble class, Head Orchestra Librarian, and wrote for and played in all concerts of the FAU Composition Studio.

Tarra Guerra performs classical music extensively in venues ranging from small groups to international festivals, both as a solo artist and in with several chamber ensembles including Synergies (piano/guitar duo), the Middle Earth Trio (Classical Guitar), and Diverse Duets (violin, viola and guitar in various combinations). The Miami Herald described her playing as “expert and sensitive”. Tarra can be seen playing in several editions of the Virtual Guitar Orchestra, which can be found on YouTube. Due to skills gained by necessity during the Covid lockdown, she now knows how to edit video, (a skill gained only because she loves her students so much), and has a youtube channel of her own which includes several genres of music made over many decades. She is currently working on a a Diverse Duet concert and a solo program of 21st Century Classical Guitar which includes some of her own compositions. She plans to perform the solo program in the summer of 2023 in several states and in Canada.

Tarra has completed extensive Suzuki training through the SAA, as seen here, as well as a great deal of teacher training from various other disciplines. She loves Waldorf schools, dancing, swimming, sailing, camping, fidding, composing, songwriting and singing. She loves her spouse, family, friends and students, and is overwhelmingly grateful to have the best job in the world.

For those interested, there was a decade-long segue into the world of science, as Tarra gained a Masters in chemistry from the University of Auckland while perfoming extensively as a traditional folk singer and bicycle touring the South Island, worked in New Jersey as a research chemist, then spent some years helping to manage a unique artists’ paint business in New York City’s East Village while puruing rock stardom, perfoming original rock or in every club in the city and in Seattle, with a few country performances in Nashville and Florida as well, then did some extensive teaching and tutoring of math, chemistry and physics at levels from middle school through college in New York then Florida and, of course, raising a beautiful child who wanted to play the violin. Her students know that she can be temporarilary diverted by gleefully straying into the world of mathematics while teaching music.

Having now left three serious careers in turn to focus completely on music, she is happy to have realized that playing and teaching music is the only lifework for her! Now Tarra brings an extensive folk, pop, country and rock background to her teaching and to her love of classical music, playing in several styles on both guitar and violin.

Tarra Guerra can be found on YouTube and Facebook under her name and under The Suzuki Jamboree, and on Facebook in the site Guerra Music, and the soon-to-be-active site, Suzuki Strings South Florida.

Fiddle

Worth Lewallen

A native of Florence, South Carolina, Worth Lewallen began studying violin at age five with the late Starr Ward through the Suzuki Method. While still a young student, he began performing alongside his father’s Bluegrass band at local gigs and weekly jam sessions, an experience that fostered his love of collaborative music-making. After high school, he moved to Columbia, SC, in 2014 to pursue a degree in Music Education at the University of South Carolina, also earning a Violin Performance Certificate.

In 2017, Worth traveled to Ireland to study Irish Cultural Heritage at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. It was there he developed a passion for traditional Celtic music and soon began performing in both Ireland and Scotland, falling in love with the musical traditions of both countries. After completing his studies abroad, he returned to Columbia to pursue a master’s degree in Violin/Viola Pedagogy. During this time, he was invited by the Celtic rock band Syr to join them for a major festival in New Hampshire, drawing a crowd of 35,000. The successful debut cemented his role as their full-time fiddle player.

Though Worth tours extensively—playing as far as Alaska to Florida to Maine—he remains deeply committed to education. An active clinician, he frequently works with school orchestra programs around South Carolina and has presented masterclasses at private studios, Suzuki institutes, and public school programs. Balancing his passion for performance with his dedication to teaching, Worth continues to inspire the next generation of musicians both on and off the stage.

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