Coaches - Fivesparks

Our Coaches and Artistic Directors

With chamber music at the center of their musical endeavors, Judith Eissenberg, Rhonda Rider, Marti Epstein, and David Russell bring enthusiastic fluency to the full range of the literature – exploring traditional art music as well as working with living composers from diverse backgrounds. All have collaborated with a wide range of soloists and ensembles and have long enjoyed playing together in various combinations. Along with pursuing independent performance projects, each has remained committed to teaching and coaching throughout their professional lives.

JUDITH EISSENBERG (Artistic Co-Director, Coach) Judith Eissenberg’s musical roots began in the deep and ever-broadening repertoire of the string quartet. She was a founder and second violinist (1980–2022) of the Grammy-nominated prize-winning Lydian String Quartet, recognized for its depth of interpretation, performing with “a precision and involvement marking them as among the world’s best quartets” (Chicago Sun-Times). With over 30 recordings and multiple commissions, premieres, and dedications, the quartet is recognized for its fresh and incisive approach. Eissenberg performs in the U.S. and abroad (Europe, Taiwan, Australia), including in major concert venues (Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Library of Congress, etc.), and has enjoyed residencies at colleges, universities, and conservatories. Her other chamber music affiliations have included Boston Chamber Music Society, Emmanuel Music, and various summer festivals throughout the U.S. With experience in period instrument performance, she has been a soloist with and core member of Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society.

Eissenberg collaborates with musicians in western classical, jazz, Korean Gugak, Indian classical, and Chinese classical, and enjoys cross-disciplinary work in film, theater, dance, electronics/digital, video, etc. She has also received grants and fellowships for her own research in diverse world traditions, including a grant from Center Stage Korea (2016) and from the Whiting Foundation (2014) for her research in Andean Music of Peru. Eissenberg was a Harvard University Fellow (2013) for studies in ethnomusicology, and received a Norman Grant for Faculty Research (2013) to go to Bamako, Mali.

In addition to her work at the Conservatory, Eissenberg is professor emeritus at Brandeis University (1980–2022). She is a member of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee Faculty Council, is committed to anti-racism work, and is an Equity Partner.

RHONDA RIDER (Artistic Co-Director, Coach) For over two decades, cellist Rhonda Rider was a member of the Naumburg Award-winning Lydian Quartet and Triple Helix Piano Trio. An advocate of contemporary music, Rider has premiered and recorded works by composers including John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Yu-Hui Chang and Raven Chacon. Her interest in bringing classical music to unusual places, has led her to artist residencies at Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest National Parks. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America and adjudicated at the Fischoff, Stulberg and Concert Artists Guild Competitions. Recently, she has performed with Shelter Music Boston, Castle of Our Skins, the New Gallery Series and the Radius Ensemble. During the summer, she performs and teaches at festivals including Green Mountain, Music from Salem, Tanglewood, Harvard Music Festival and the Asian Youth Orchestra (Hong Kong). Rider holds degrees from Oberlin and Yale and is Professor of Cello at Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she was twice awarded Outstanding Teacher of the Year. www.rhondarider.com

MARTI EPSTEIN (Guest Coach) Marti Epstein is a Boston-based composer whose music has been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, The Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, Ensemble Modern, Trinity Wall Street, and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, She has completed commissions for the Fromm Foundation, The Munich Biennale, the Ludovico Ensemble, Guerilla Opera, the Radius Ensemble, Tanglewood Music Center, Winsor Music, Boston Opera Collaborative, Callithumpian Consort, Hinge, loadbang, and Collage New Music.

Marti was a two-time fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (1986 and 1988) and a three-time fellow at
the MacDowell Colony (1998, 1999, 2022). In 2020, Marti was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to compose Seven Sisters, Radiant Sisters for the Hinge Ensemble, Alpenglow for loadbang, and In Praise of Broken Clocks for soundicon. Nebraska Impromptu, an album of Marti’s chamber music for clarinet, was just released this past April on New Focus Recordings and features clarinetist Rane Moore and members of WInsor Music. Marti is Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music/Boston Conservatory of Music.
martiepstein.com

DAVID RUSSELL (Guest Coach) Hailed as “superb”, “incisive” and “sonorous and panoramic” in The Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the U.S. and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Senior Lecturer and Director of Chamber Music. A strong advocate of new music, Russell has performed with such ensembles as BMOP, Firebird Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Music on the Edge, Dinosaur Annex, Collage, the Fromm Players at Harvard and entelechron. Recent projects include recordings of works by Eric Moe, Lee Hyla, Tamar Diesendruck, Donald Crockett, Chen Yi and Roger Zahab, premieres of chamber works by Barbara White, Daron Hagen, José-Luis Hurtado, Robert Carl and Gilda Lyons, premieres of works for cello and orchestra by Sam Nichols and Laurie San Martin, recordings of cello concertos by Chen Yi and Lukas Foss, and new works for solo cello by Andrew Rindfleisch, Nicholas Vines, Martha Horst and John Mallia. He is a busy performer in the Boston area, making regular appearances with such ensembles as Cantata Singers and Ensemble, the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Emmanuel Music. He serves as Principal cello of Odyssey Opera and has served as cello faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Russell has recorded for the Tzaddik, Albany, BMOPSound, New Focus, CRI, Centaur and New World Records labels.