- A bit about me:
A proud former 4-H participant, Catherine Beeson (she/they) is originally from Texas, spending much of her formative years taking care of various livestock and trying to stay out of trouble. (Little known true fact, Beeson won a trophy for barrel racing in their local east Texas rodeo at age 5.) Fortunately the violin and viola kept her in the practice room and pretty much out of trouble. ;) Recently Beeson noted the uncanny similarities between the 4-H pledge and Yo Yo Ma’s assertion that the conductor’s baton is an extension of head, heart, and hand. Beeson attributes their time in 4-H and the adoption of the pledge from a young age to be essential to the formation of their core values.
Catherine comes from a family of educators, musicians, and community builders. She is ceaselessly devoted to the latter, connecting people of all walks of life through community and school residency programs that encourage music composition and performance.
She loves playing board games, reading, cooking, hanging out with her insanely cool partner and completely amazing kids, making wacky stuff with found objects, having random adventures, and doing just about anything outdoors. Beeson also makes sure to attend the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo at least twice each January so as not to stray too far from their roots. Special skills include: occasional violining, ponticello wizardry, badgering people into playing board games, purposely low grade photoshopping for pranking purposes, and back yard axe throwing when the neighbors’ sweet little grandson isn’t visiting.
Career highlights:- Assistant Principal Viola and have been involved in community based project and program management with the Colorado Symphony since 1999, including as Director of Community Education programs 2014-2018, innovating Sensory Friendly programming, reviving the nationally recognized Very Young Composers program, writing at-home and classroom support materials and activities for 18 weekly online programs from April through August of 2020 while the world was on pause, and have been a lecturer in concert hall and community settings since 2012.
- 27 years as founder and Artistic Director of Loon Lake Live chamber music series in NY
- 5 years Program Director for Ensemble Faucheux, curating client focused special programming in diverse locations like Broadway Roxy, the Clyfford Still Museum, The Gathering Place, and Dazzle
- Executive Director Longmont Symphony 2020–2022
- Curator/Consultant for Friends of Chamber Music, Englewood Arts, Denver Eclectic Concerts
- As a performer: worked with Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, New York City Opera National Company, the Handel-Haydn Society of Austin, the Asian Cultural Council (Tokyo and New York), the Lenape Chamber Ensemble (Philadelphia), Santa Fe Pro Musica, Englewood Arts, Denver Eclectic Concerts, Ensemble Faucheux, Loon Lake Live, and Colorado Symphony.
Education/Training:- University of Texas at Austin, Bachelor of Music in Performance — Violin and Viola
- Manhattan School of Music, Master of Music in Orchestral Performance — Viola
- New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist
- League of American Orchestras, Essentials of Orchestra Management, 2016
- League of American Orchestras, Anne Parsons Leadership Program, 2023-2024 inaugural cohort
Exploring violin and viola
DIVE IN
The orchestral string instrument family is made up of Violin, Viola, Cello, and Bass. These are listed in order of size from smallest to largest. Both the violin and viola are played on the shoulder, the cello and bass are played upright ‘at the knee’ — cello in a seated position and bass either standing or seated on a tall stool. The violin and viola are very similar in size and are therefore often difficult to correctly identify by sight unless they are directly compared. They also share a similar range of pitches and 3 of their 4 strings are the same — A, D, and G (in descending order). The violin has a high E string (sounding above the A) and the viola has a low C string (sounding below the G). You can think of the violin as the soprano of the string ‘chorus’ and the viola as the alto. Because the viola is built with a larger resonant chamber it tends to have a generally richer deeper quality of sound than the violin, and the sound can travel a greater distance and fill a greater space. In contrast, due to the smaller resonant chamber, the violin sound generally travels faster and can more effectively cut through dense textures.
Enjoy this cute, fun, and informative 5' video from The Eight Strings.
NERD ASSIGNMENTS!
Listen to/Watch Catherine and her colleagues!
A pandemic video performance of duets featuring harp plus cello, violin, viola, and more. Happy comparing!Celebration of Bela Bartok’s music featuring a 2022 live recording of a new string quartet arrangement
of the Viola Concerto with introduction by composer/arranger Benjamin Tomkins.beeson is currently obsessed with:
In no particular order at all:
PLUS THESE CREATORS & PERFORMERS
Kaija Saariaho, Errollyn Wallen, Kevin Puts, Jessie Montgomery, Florence Price, Julia Perry, Angelica Negron, Missy Mazzoli, Caroline Shaw, Terence Blanchard, Valerie Coleman, Jessica Mays, Elizabeth Brown, Paul Chihara, Tania Leon, Sergei Prokofiev, Bela Bartok, Komitas, Shulamit Ran, Nico Muhly, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joan Tower, Thelonius Monk, Ludwig van Beethoven, John Dowland, John Luther Adams, John Adams, Gabriela Lena Frank, Steve Reich, Kenji Bunch, Gabriela Ortiz, Heinrich Biber, Beyonce, Tank and the Bangas, Little Simz, Dessa, Frank Zappa, Buke and Gase, Gabriel Kahane, Bomba Estereo, Stromae, Renee Fleming, Thorgy Thor, Bob the Drag Queen, Nemanja Radulovic, Rosette Quartet (their So Hot Right Now series is genius), Katherine Goforth, Nat('s What I Reckon), Grace Jones, Buntport Theater...
To reel off just a few anyway...
READY TO ENGAGE!
Please share about your experience with me – [email protected]!
I’d love to hear about it or see any of your activities, journaling, or creations!
I’d love to hear about it or see any of your activities, journaling, or creations!