About Ruth

I’ve always loved music, but teaching is more important to me than performing. Helping people live their lives a little differently — more playfully, and with more music — satisfies me much more than a standing ovation.

Performing Musician

• Played cello and viola da gamba, toured, and recorded as a performing member of the Greenwood Consort — a Renaissance music quintet, winner of Erwin Bodky award — and Banchetto Musicale, the orchestra now known as Boston Baroque (1974-80). Greenwood Consort recordings: In Praise of Folly and When the World Was Flat.
  
  
• Coached ensemble and viola da gamba at Brandeis University and at Longy School of Music in Cambridge, and taught cello at South End Music Center, now the Community Music Center of Boston (1968-79).

Early Childhood Music Teacher

Training

• Orff Certification, Level 1 (2004); Dalcroze Eurhythmics training at Longy School of Music (1980-82).
  
  
• Training with early childhood music/movement specialists, including John Feierabend, Donna Brink Fox, and Phyllis Weikart (1990-‘98), and MusikGarten (2000-05).
  
  
• EdM’s in Reading (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1970) and in Teaching English as a Second Language (Boston University, 1999) — both with a focus on language development.

Teaching

• Helped start early childhood programs in several Boston-area music schools, both developing the curriculum and teaching — at All Newton Music School, Powers Music School in Belmont, and the New School in Cambridge. At Brookline Music School, developed and directed the First Steps program (1985-98).
  
  
• Created and taught music programs for non-English-speaking preschool families (1986-’89) — through Arts in the Park in Newton, Brookline Music School, and Brookline Adult Education. At the Intergenerational Literacy Project in Chelsea, taught weekly music classes to immigrant adults and children (1998-99).
  
  
• Created and taught music program to teen mothers and their children in Roxbury (2003).
  
  
• Have offered early childhood music workshops and teacher training for daycare/preschool and music teachers since 1985.

Related Experience

• WarmLines Parent Resources, Newton: Founding member (1979) and first teacher of their early childhood music program (1998).
  
  
• Early Childhood Music and Movement Association (ECMMA): Founder and ongoing president of the Greater Boston chapter since 1996; active member and former Board member of the national organization.
  
  
• Tai chi energy arts: Ten years of study at Brookline Tai Chi.