Jesse graduated from Oberlin where he studied with Marilyn McDonald. He then received his Master’s degree with James Buswell at the New England Conservatory. Prior to Oberlin, he studied violin with Philipp Naegele in Northampton, Massachusetts. He is an active recitalist, orchestral and chamber musician, and currently concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony. In recent summers, he has attended 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 Sullivan, 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. Proudly a Suzuki baby, he began his violin studies with Diana Peelle. Currently, Jesse is a teacher and resident musician for Community MusicWorks and is a member of the Providence String Quartet, who is the quartet in residence for the program. Community MusicWorks is a youth and family-mentoring program that provides free instruments, lessons and a variety of programs for youth in urban neighborhoods in Providence. They have recently been selected as one of the nation’s top 15 after-school arts programs in the country by the Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities and were featured in the New Yorker Magazine. In the past two summers, Jesse attended the Violin Craftsmanship Institute in Durham, New Hampshire, where he learned about instrument repair, and was a Professeur at L’Ecole de Musique, Dessaix Baptiste in Jacmel Haiti. In his free time, he enjoys following New England sports teams and reading and writing about music. He has two very large cats, Count Chocula and Lord Nelson. Lord Nelson is an ordained minister in the Church of Spiritual Humanism and has the papers to prove it.
