The HPH Team
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REBECCA SLAVIN
Executive Director |
Rebecca Slavin has worn many hats in the arts. She has taught in K-12 schools, integrating the arts into academic curriculum, and at the college level. After earning her masters degree from the University of California, Irvine, Rebecca jumped into the role of Director of ArtsBridge, UCI’s K-12 arts education outreach program. She has extensive experience in arts administration, playing the part of General Manager for Rocky Mountain Ballet Academy in Denver; Manager of Education at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park; and Administrator for Bard College’s Film and Electronic Arts Program. In film, Rebecca was a production assistant on the Disney animated films, Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame; she choreographed national commercials for the Walt Disney Company; and she was a performer in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie musical, Gypsy, starring Bette Midler. As a Choreographer for the Walt Disney Company, Rebecca had the pleasure of also working on several stage, parade, and special event productions at both Disneyland and California Adventure. As a stage performer, Rebecca has enjoyed roles such as Charity in Sweet Charity, Ilona in She Loves Me, DeLee in Smokey Joe’s Cafe and Mrs. Livingston in the Denver premiere of Bubble Boy.
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NICK EDWARDS
Program Director, low strings teaching artist |
Nick Edwards, a Hudson Valley-based bassist, has enjoyed a varied career playing music of all genres throughout the United States, South America, and Europe. Nick completed his masters degree in jazz studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and has attended many jazz festivals and institutes, including Skidmore Jazz Institute, Banff, and Hudson JazzWorks. He can frequently be heard playing with Armen Donelian, Bobby Previte, Roland Vazquez, John Esposito, and for the Rhinebeck Performing Arts Center. In addition to his performing schedule, Nick maintains a studio of students who he teaches bass and coaches chamber music. He can be heard on the Scott Healy album Live at Kilbourn Hall.
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JOSH ARONSON
Founder and Sponsor |
After starting his career as a still photographer for Time Life, Josh began directing television films and commercials. Through Aronson Films, he directed MTV videos, television pilots and specials and over 500 commercials before turning to documentaries in 1999. Since then, he has made award winning documentaries on a fascinating variety of topics, but Josh has oftern returned to music as a theme in his films. These include ORCHESTRA OF EXILES, a Holocaust-era feature about the violinist who founded the Israel Philharmonic, TALENT HAS HUNGER, a 7 year odyssey following the cello students of master cello teacher Paul Katz at the New England Conservatory of Music and a fim about the Harmony Project in Los Angeles which Aronson made for PBS Weekend News. It was seeing first hand the remarkable impact of that program on inner city kids in LA that inspired Josh to found Harmony Project Hudson in a community that he knew could benefit from an after school music program for kids. Josh is also an amateur pianist and regularly plays chamber music in New York and at the Telluride Musicfest, the chamber music festival he founded in 2002 with his wife, violinist Maria Bachmann.
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JUSTIN L. GREEN
Violin teaching artist |
Justin L. Green came up through Neighborhood Music School (NMS) in New Haven Connecticut and earned his bachelor's degree in music from Western Connecticut State University. He has studied classical violin performance since the age of seven and has accumulated years of performance experience through summer festivals such as Hartland Chamber Music Festival, Sphinx Performance Academy, and innumerable public and private events in and around CT. He has taught at various private and public schools including Brass City Charter School, ACES ECA (China), Cheshire Academy, and Hawthorne Valley School as well as music studios like NMS and Wisely Music Learning. Primarily experienced in the use of the Suzuki Method, Justin aims to meet students where they are and build them up to being skilled musicians by whatever means work best for them.
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CINDY KUBIK
In-School and Musicianship teaching artist |
Cindy Kubik has been directing children's theater for the past 35 years. She holds a BFA in Theatre and an MA in English Literature from NYU. A former coordinator of community-based mental health programs throughout lower New York State, Cindy switched to teaching when she had children of her own. She taught high school history at Poughkeepsie Day School, and is currently a substitute teacher in the Red Hook and Rhinebeck districts. Seven years ago, Cindy established the Mill Road Players Shakespeare Program in the Red Hook elementary and middle schools, and has been directing Shakespeare plays with hundreds of third through eighth graders annually since then. Cindy joined the Hudson Harmony Project staff three years ago as the summer Drama Teacher, and a year later began teaching musicianship to beginning students. Her own daughters have studied violin with Zoë Auerbach during the past decade, and Cindy was inspired by Zoë's patience, skill, and dedication to each and every child. She believes that music education at the earliest stages ought to be fun, engaging and involve the whole child. Cindy loves that Harmony Project blends the performing arts to support the long term musical lives of all students.
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JOANNE SCHUBERT
In-School and Musicianship teaching artist |
JoAnne Valentín Schubert, along with her husband, is the premier music director at the Center for Performing Arts in Rhinebeck, (as well as having performed with Woodstock Youth Theatre, Cocoon Theatre, SUNY New Paltz (where they co-taught), Queen City Stage, Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and Chrysalis, a Christian youth theatre that they founded in 1998.) JoAnne has her MA in piano performance from the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, where she studied with Michael Rodgers and NY Philharmonic pianist Paul Jacobs; she also has studied harpsichord, organ, and conducting. She has taught locally and throughout the NYC area from elementary grades through college, and continues to teach private piano, which she has done for four+ decades. She retired 3 years ago as director of music ministries at a church in Lake Katrine. Since then, she has been busy teaching music at Harmony Project Hudson, which she has done since Fall 2019, and teaching a music & drama program at the Saugerties unit of the Boys & Girls Club.
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