World, Ethnic, Folk, and Traditional Instruments, Voice, Music
Malcolm (Mal) Barsamian
Private Lessons Instructor, Oud
Mal Barsamian’s musical career began when he was four years old playing the dumbeg (hand drum) with his father, Leo Barsamian, at an Armenian picnic. Barsamian comes from a family of oud (lute) players across multiple generations.
He has gone on to become a sought-after oud player and clarinetist as well as on other instruments such as dumbeg guitar, bouzouki, and saxophone in Armenian, Greek, and Middle Eastern communities for over 50 years throughout the country. He performed with the late Esber Korporcu, an important figure in Boston’s Middle Eastern music community, and has also appeared with Mehmet Sanlikol’s Dünya organization.
Barsamian is a specialist in music written by Armenian composers active in Istanbul during the later years of the Ottoman Empire. Also trained as a classical guitarist, he obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in classical guitar performance, studying with Robert Sullivan at NEC. Barsamian is also on the applied faculty at Tufts University's World Music Department teaching oud and clarinet as well as New England Conservatory of Music
B.M., M.M. in guitar, New England Conservatory.
Video: "Sirdus Vera" - Maine Middle Eastern Orchestra featuring Mal Barsamian (YouTube)
Beth Bahia Cohen
Private Lessons Instructor, Violin traditions of the World
Beth Bahia Cohen is a violinist with a fascination for how violins are played in different cultures. That fascination spread to other bowed string instruments that she found out about in her quest. She has learned music from Eastern Europe (her mother’s ancestry) and the Middle East (her father’s ancestry) and many neighboring countries, including Greece, Turkey, Hungary and more. She has traveled and performed throughout the U.S. and the world. She is a founding member of Ziyia, an ensemble playing Greek traditional music from all regions, as well as Pontic Firebird performing Greek dance music from the Black Sea. She has taught Greek music, Greek Ensembles and Transcarpathian Ensembles at the EEFC Balkan music and dance camps for many years. She has performed with Petroloukas Halkias from Epiros, Greece, Ihsan Özgen from Turkey, Ökros Csaba from Hungary, and more. She has performed Turkish music with Dünya, the EurAsia Ensemble, Vokan Efe, Tev Stevig, Ezgi Kurt and Fatih Acun. She has performed Klezmer music with Itzhak Perlman and the Klezmer Conservatory Band, as well as performances with the Phillip Glass Ensemble, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Mathis, Rudolf Nureyev, Angela Lansbury, Dick van Dyke, Victor Borge, and a private concert for physicist Stephen Hawking.
She is currently on the faculty of Berklee College of Music and Tufts University. She is a 2022 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Traditional Arts Fellowship, and a 2022 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Apprenticeship grant as a Mentor, and has received grants from Radcliffe Bunting Institute, American Researchers in Turkey, and NEA/Artists International.
Beth is not only proficient in several musical styles on the violin, but is also a classical violinist with a Masters in Violin Performance from Manhattan School of Music and teaches a method of playing with ease and proficiency.
Traditional Arts Fellowship: Mass. Cultural Council 2022, Apprenticeship Grant - Mass Cultural Council 2022-2023
Beth Bahia Cohen Strings from Everywhere (YouTube)
Ian I. Goldstein
Private Lessons Instructor, Mandolin & Guitar
Ian Goldstein, Ph.D., is an ethnomusicologist, teacher, and musician based in Cambridge, MA. He is multi-instrumentalist performer on mandolin, acoustic & electric guitar, lap slide, and oud, as well as a vocalist.
Empowering Students
As an instructor, Ian is guided by the belief that music making should be a joyful, fulfilling experience. He is dedicated to helping students cultivate their own sense of self compassion when it comes to musical learning. For Ian, developing confidence and self-direction are as important as establishing good technique and mastering repertoire.
The mandolin is a surprisingly versatile instrument. At Tufts, Ian's students have studied a wide variety of styles, from Celtic, bluegrass, new American string music, and European classical, to jazz manouche, Bulgarian folk dance tunes, and Brazilian choro.
Studying Musical Thinking and Interaction
Ian's teaching is deeply informed by his ethnomusicological research. As a scholar, teacher, and performer, he is interested in embodied and social cognition—how musicians learn and think through their bodies, as well as in relation to others—and in the psychology of music teaching & learning. His dissertation on intercultural musical collaborations in Spain and Morocco explores questions of musical competence, multi-musical sensibility, and collective memory in the work of La Banda Morisca, Chekara, and ECM recording artist Amina Alaoui—three high-profile music projects based in the southern Spanish region of Andalucía. A published author, his review article on "Music and Cognition," appears in Oxford Bibliographies, while a forthcoming article will be published in the new Journal of Arab Music Research.
Playing Well with Others
As a performer, Ian is equally at home performing in American-roots-rock and indie folk bands, working with New England singer-songwriters, or creating novel mixtures in more eclectic global-music settings. Among the many artists with whom he has worked, Ian has played with noted New England-based musicians Ryan Fitzsimmons, Beth Cohen, Malcolm Barsamian, Peter Tillotson, Mohammed Mejaour, and Melissa Ferrick. Most recently he has collaborated with Tufts Faculty members Paul Lehrman and Jeffrey Summit to present "Songs of Resistance," a concert program featuring music of political and social protest from the 1950s through the present day.
Ian holds a Ph.D. in Music ('17) from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in Music ('10) from Tufts University, and a B.A. in Politics ('99) from Brandeis University.
Cathleen Read
Private Lessons Instructor, Koto
Cathleen Read, B.A., Mount Holyoke College; Ph.D., Wesleyan University. Studied sokyoku (koto music) of the Yamada School for twenty years. In 1974, she became the first foreigner to join a professional Yamada School musicians' guild, when she was admitted into the shachu of Nakanoshima Kin'ichi-Sensei, one of Japan's renowned artists, and given the performing name Ayakano. Ms. Read has concertized widely in the United States, Japan and West Africa.
Warren Senders
Private Lessons Instructor, Hindustani Music, Voice (Indian Music)
Warren Senders is an internationally recognized musician and educator with decades of involvement in the artistic and pedagogical traditions of India as well as those of Western, African and African-American musics. He has received numerous fellowships and awards for his mastery of the Hindustani khyal vocal style; his concerts in India, Europe and North America have been widely acclaimed. Also trained as a jazz bassist, he founded the pan-cultural ensemble Antigravity in 1981; the group's two CDs have received raves from music critics all over the world. As a teacher, he is dedicated advocate of experiential "learning-by-doing." At New England Conservatory of Music, he developed curriculum initiatives in which music from many cultures is integrated into subjects as diverse as poetry, history and art. An expert on the stimulation and nurturing of individual creativity, Mr. Senders is on the faculty of Music Education at the New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University.
Former faculty of University of Vermont, Emerson College, Babson College, Berklee College of Music, Museum School of Fine Arts.
Rich Stillman
Private Lessons Instructor, Banjo
Rich Stillman has been a professional banjo player and teacher for over fifty years. He is a stage performer, recording artist and a multiple award winner of 5-string banjo competitions. Rich has appeared on dozens of recordings as a bandleader, sideman and guest artist, including six releases with his current band, Southern Rail, with whom he has played for twenty-five years. Mr. Stillman has authored a book, Bluegrass Banjo from All Sides, for Mel Bay Publishing and is currently working on a solo instrumental project.
Rich's approach to teaching banjo emphasizes improvisation over memorization, focusing on the banjo’s capabilities for rhythmic and melodic expression. His personal approach to teaching banjo, the result of thirty years’ development and experience is the subject of an upcoming banjo instruction method book.