Sunderman Conservatory of Music

Rebecca Henry is a violist, teacher, and pedagogue whose former students are performing and teaching around the world.

Henry is principal viola of the Washington Chamber Orchestra and performs regularly in faculty chamber ensembles. She has been a soloist with the Indiana University Summer Festival and the Columbia (MD) Symphony Orchestra and has performed in chamber music festivals in Santa Barbara, CA; Plymouth, NH; Bloomington, IN; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Trogen, Switzerland. Henry was a founding member of the Kegelstatt Trio (viola, clarinet, piano), which premiered numerous works for this instrumentation. During her years in Indiana, she was a member of the South Bend (IN) Symphony, Evansville (IN) Symphony, and Owensboro (KY) Philharmonic; performed and toured with the Indiana University New Music Ensemble premiering over 100 works; and worked regularly recording gospel records for Pine Brook Studios near Indianapolis.

In addition to her position at Gettysburg College, Henry is on the faculty at The Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where she teaches Violin and Viola Pedagogy and mentors students in the Masters of Performance/Pedagogy degree, which she helped to develop. She also co-chairs the Preparatory String Department, where she teaches violin and viola and directs Peabody's Pre-Conservatory Violin Program. Teachers from throughout the East Coast attend her five annual Pedagogy in Practice sessions on Saturday afternoons, which feature master classes and teacher workshops. She holds the Scott Bendann Chair in Classical Music at The Peabody Institute.

Henry is also lecturer in String Pedagogy at the University of Maryland School of Music in College Park, MD, and co-founder of ViolinPractice.com, an innovative website designed to support string students, parents, and teachers in their practice.

Prior to moving to the Mid-Atlantic, Henry served on the faculty at the University of Indianapolis and at her alma mater, Indiana University, where she studied viola with Kim Kashkashian, Georges Janzer, and Mimi Zweig, and chamber music with Fritz Magg, James Buswell, and Janos Starker. She returns to Indiana in the summers as a faculty member at the I.U. String Academy and at the I.U. Teacher's Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists.

A sought-after pedagogue, Henry has presented master classes and pedagogy workshops for professional organizations including the American String Teacher's Association, Music Teacher's National Association, the Suzuki Associations of the Americas, and the Music Educator's National Conference and at music schools throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Scotland, and Turkey.

Henry has co-edited two series of contemporary music for violin ensembles, has written reviews and articles for the American String Teacher and The Stringendo, and serves as a consultant for private studios and music programs. She was named Teacher of the Year by MD/DC ASTA in 1991, is listed in Who's Who of American Educators, and is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda.