VASTA: Virginia String Teachers Association

Gary Frisch

President and Special Events Committee Chair

Gary Frisch is a violinmaker and dealer. He owns and operates a shop located in Falls Church. Gary trained in violin making under Deena Spear. Over the past year and a half, Gary has teamed up with Lynne Denig, to develop a diagnostic approach for assessing the appropriate chinrest heights and contours for students. He has presented at the ASTA National Convention in 2006. As Chair of VASTA’s Special Events Committee, he is developing ongoing programs statewide that will benefit all members and their students.

Lucy Manning

President-Elect

LUCY MANNING brings extensive experience as a violinist, violist, and chamber musician to the podium. She is a former member of the Dallas Opera and Ballet Orchestras, Albany Symphony Orchestra, St. Cecilia Orchestra, Lake George Opera Festival Orchestra, and appeared as soloist with numerous other orchestras. Chamber music remains a priority, as she is the founder and former music director of the Saratoga Chamber Players in New York.
Lucy has participated in conducting workshops and master classes led by Gustav Meier, Kenneth Keisler, Robert Page, and Donald Portnoy.  She was assistant conductor of the University of South Carolina Symphony, Chamber, and Opera Orchestras and conducted performances with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and with soloists of the National Opera Company of China as part of an International Conductors Institute.
Dr. Manning teaches orchestra, violin, string methods, and coordinates the chamber music program as Asst. Professor at Old Dominion University. The recipient of the 2007 Virginia String Teacher of the Year award from Virginia American String Teachers Association (VASTA), she regularly conducts and adjudicates school orchestra festivals in the country.

Helen Fall

VASTA Past-President

Helen Fall teaches viola, violin and chamber music privately in her home studio in Fairfax. Helen was a public school teacher in Maryland and Virginia from 1978-1988, teaching strings, band, general music and guitar. She was co-founder and faculty member for the summer camp, Chamber Music of Arlington from 1990-1997. Helen is often engaged to coach sectional rehearsals for youth orchestras and school orchestras, and adjudicates for numerous orchestra and solo festivals and competitions in the DC metro area. A free-lance chamber and orchestral musician in the Washington area, Helen is also a member of the Fairfax and Alexandria Symphony Orchestras.

Katie StPierre

Violin Forum Editor

Katie Frampton StPierre comes to us with a wealth of performing, teaching, and editing experience.  She earned her BA cum laude in Music Education from the Harrt School at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, where she served as editor of the school newsletter and also coordinated fundraising for Habitat for Humanity.  After she began teaching in the Connecticut school system, she was newsletter editor for the Connecticut state chapter of ASTA.  She has ample experience with computer publishing as well as website development.

Elizabeth Blakeslee

Member-at-Large

Elizabeth Blakeslee is a free-lance harpist in the greater Washington, D.C. area and currently plays second harp with the National Symphony Orchestra. She studied with Marjorie Tyre and Marilyn Costello and has held the principal harp positions in the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia. She has been the harp instructor at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester since 1997, and also directs the harp activities at their summer Performing Arts Camp. She maintains a private studio of about thirty students in Falls Church. She is chairman of the ASTA Harp Committee for the Certificate Program; she serves on the Committee on Studio Instruction (COSI), and at the 2007 ASTA National conference she will be presenting a session on how to include the harp in school string ensembles.

Deanna Kringel

Member-at -Large

Deanna Kringel is currently in her tenth year as the Director of Orchestras at Oscar F. Smith High School in Chesapeake as well as the beginning strings teacher at several feeder elementary schools. She has directed the Williamsburg Youth Orchestra’s String Orchestra for five years and is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in American Women, Who’s Who in America, Who's Who in American Education, Who’s Who in America’s Teachers and National Honor Roll's Outstanding American Teachers. Deanna has served as a guest conductor and adjudicator throughout Virginia. Deanna is also a free-lance musician performing violin, viola, and flute throughout the Hampton Roads area.

Maggie Lubinski

Treasurer

Maggie Lubinski is an itinerant string teacher in the Fairfax County Public Schools.  She is an honors graduate from the Eastman School of Music with a double major in violin performance and music education.  She was named the Outstanding First Year String Teacher in Virginia by VASTA in 2009.

Gretta Sandberg

Public School Liaison

Gretta Sandberg retired in June 2009 after 42 years as an orchestra director in the elementary and high school levels in Arlington and Fairfax Counties.  She retired from McLean High School and Haycock Elementary School in Fairfax, where her orchestras consistently received "Superior" ratings at festivals and adjudications.  Ms. Sandberg built an exchange program between her top orchestra, the Chamber Soloists of McLean HS, and the youth orchestra (Detmolder Jugend Orchester) at the Grabbe Symnasium in Detmold, Germany (1995 - present).

Ms. Sandberg graduated from the Univ. of Minnesota with a B.S. in Music Ed and received her M.Ed. from George Mason Univ.  She was Founder and Director of the Arlington Honors Orchestra, Co-Founder and Director of Arlington All-County High School Orchestra and Artistic Director of Chamber Music of Arlington (1990 - 1998).  She is a member of MENC, ASTA, and was the 2007 VASTA Orchestra Director of the Year.