Well known for his artistic vision in the creation of music festivals, Charles Stegeman has founded, Co-Founded or advised several festivals including the Western Slope Music Festival now the Crested Butte Festival in Crested Butte, CO), the Sunflower Music Festival (Topeka, KS), Buzzards Bay Music Festival (Cape Cod, MA), and Music Fest Midwest (Kansas City, KS). He also has served as Concertmaster at international festivals such as the St. Barth’s Music Festival in the French West Indies, the Music Academy of the West (2000-2003), the French/American Chamber Ensemble in the Cher Valley, France (1991-1997), the Canadian National Repertory Orchestra in Hamilton, Ontario, and the FEMUSC Festival in Santa Catarina, Brazil where he is still active presently. Stegeman has been involved in the raising of millions of dollars to support classical music at his festivals and is an avid commissioner and performer of music of our time. As well, he serves on boards throughout the country that promote Chamber music and the musical arts.
Rachel Stegeman currently serves as the Adjunct Violin Faculty at Duquesne University, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 2002. At Duquesne she teaches Applied Violin and Orchestral Literature and Repertoire Class, as well as the Summer Events of Violin and Viola Boot Camp and Pump Up Your Practice Institute. Many of her students have performing careers in professional orchestras and are teaching at Universities themselves. She studied music performance in Washington D.C. at Catholic University and later at Duquesne University. Her main teachers include William Steck, Luis Haza, Leslye Gartrell, Ramona Coppage, Sidney Harth, and Robert Lipsett. She is Concertmaster of the Wheeling Symphony and Youngstown Symphony, Associate Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra and Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra, has performed as a guest Concertmaster for the West Virginia Symphony and Johnstown Symphony, and performs frequently as a guest section violinist at Pittsburgh Symphony. Before moving to the East Coast, she was Associate Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, Los Angeles Opera as well as other orchestras in the area. She was also a member of the Pacific Symphony and a recording studio violinist in hundreds of major motion pictures, records, television shows, commercials and live award shows.
For more details check her website: www.FiddlersTooInc.com
David Allen Wehr is Dean of the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he holds the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair. Since winning the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, he has toured in 30 countries in Europe, North and South American, and New Zealand, including 13 seasons with Community Concerts as soloist and pianist with the Sartory Trio. Wehr has amassed a large discography with Connoisseur Society, including the complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle, and is in great demand as a teacher, master class presenter, and judge for national and international piano competitions. His signature chamber music series at Duquesne, “Music on the Bluff,” is currently virtual during the pandemic; performances can be accessed at www.duq.edu/bluffseries.