Jesse Holstein, violin and viola

Jesse Holstein graduated from Oberlin where he studied with Marilyn McDonald and then received his Master’s with James Buswell at the New England Conservatory. Prior to Oberlin, he studied violin with Philipp Naegele in Northampton, Massachusetts. Jesse would be remiss if he did not send a huge thank you to his wonderful Suzuki teacher Diana Peelle who started him at age 5 and was extremely patient with his slouching posture for years. An active recitalist, orchestral and chamber musician, Jesse is currently concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony. In recent summers, he has performed at the Bravo! Festival in Vail Colorado, the Montana Chamber Music Festival in Bozeman, the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine, and the Apple Hill Festival in Nelson, New Hampshire. While an undergraduate, Jesse taught for the Oberlin Preparatory Program in the Lorain, Ohio public schools. Also at Oberlin, he served as Assistant Concertmaster and later as Music Director of the Royal Farfissa Disco Juggernaut, the premier disco orchestra in the greater Cleveland area in the mid-1990s. Currently, Jesse is a teacher and resident musician for Community MusicWorks and was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. With the Quartet, Jesse performed with the Muir, Miro, Orion, Turtle Island, and St. Lawrence Quartets, as well as pianist, Jonathan Biss; cellist, Matt Haimovitz; Cleveland Orchestra Principal Oboe, Frank Rosenwein, and violist Kim Kashkashian, among others.  Jesse has been a Violin Professeur at L’Ecole de Musique, Dessaix Baptiste in Jacmel, Haiti and is currently on the faculty at Brown University. He has a cat, Lord Nelson who is an ordained on-line minister (this is true) and is available for weddings and services (this is probably not true). Jesse has been coming to Apple Hill since 2003 and met his wonderful wife, long-time Apple Hiller Ealaín McMullin, by the gazebo in 2004.