Faculty Bios
Contact information
Mimi Zweig is currently Professor of Violin at the Jacobs School of Music and Director of the Indiana University String Academy. Since 1972 she has developed pre-college string programs across the United States and has been a faculty member at the Jacobs School of Music since 1976. She has given master classes and pedagogy workshops throughout the world. In 2019 Mimi Zweig was the recipient of the ASTA Artist Teacher Award. Her students have won numerous competitions and teach and perform worldwide.
Brenda Brenner is Eugene O’Brien Bicentennial Executive Associate Dean (Interim) and Associate Professor of Music Education in the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she specializes in string music education, teaching applied violin, as well as courses in violin and string pedagogy. She received a BM and BME from Wichita State University, and an MM and DMA in violin performance from the Eastman School of Music. In addition to her appointment to the Music Education Department, she serves as co-director of the IU String Academy, a position she has held since 1993. Her String Academy students have been featured in concerts in major venues throughout the United States and have presented tours throughout Europe, Asia and South America. As director of the Fairview Project – a program in which every first and second grader in an underserved school is taught violin as part of the curriculum – Brenner is researching the cognitive, academic and social outcomes of early instrumental music instruction. An active performer of chamber music throughout the United States, Brenner partners with pianist Kenneth Huber and her husband, organist Christopher Young. She also teaches and conducts at the IU Summer String Academy and is Assistant Director of the IU Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists. She is an active international clinician, with recent appearances at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the ASTA National Conferences, and at Music Educators Conferences throughout the United States. Brenner is a Past President of the American String Teachers Association.
Rebecca Henry holds the Scott Bendann Chair in Classical Music at The Peabody Institute, where she teaches Violin Pedagogy in The Conservatory, created a series of Pedagogy Master Classes and Teacher Workshops, and co-chairs the Preparatory String Department. She also teaches String Pedagogy at the University of Maryland and was an Assistant Professor of Viola at the Gettysburg College Sunderman Conservatory for eight years. During the summers she teaches at the Indiana University Summer String Academy and Teacher’s Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists and taught at the I.U. String Academy for many years.
Ms. Henry has presented master classes and teacher workshops throughout U.S and in Canada, Scotland, Spain and Turkey, co-edited a series of contemporary music for violin ensembles, and performs with the Washington Chamber Orchestra. She is co-founder of www.ViolinPractice.com – a website that is designed to support students, teachers and parents in their journey towards effective and creative practice, and Violin Practice Lab, a four-day summer practice intensive for teens in Frederick, MD and online. Her former students are performing and teaching around the world.
James Przygocki is Professor of Viola at the University of Wyoming where he teaches viola, violin and music education courses and conducts the UW Chamber Orchestra. In addition to his work with university students, Mr. Przygocki teaches pre-college viola and violin students for the String Academy of Wyoming, and is the director of the UW String Project, a nationally recognized teacher-training program with an enrollment of 130 students that employs University of Wyoming music students as teachers. In the summer, Mr. Przygocki serves on the faculty of the Indiana University Teachers’ Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists. Mr. Przygocki is active as a performer, conductor and clinician. He performs regularly with University of Wyoming faculty and serves as principal violist with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra. He has performed and taught in Europe, China, Brazil and around the U.S. He has recorded for CRI, Indiana University Press and for the International Draeseke Society on the AK/Coburg label.
Sherry Sinift is currently an Academic Professional Lecturer at the University of Wyoming Department of Music. As a violinist Ms. Sinift has served as Associate Concertmaster of the Cheyenne Symphony and Sinfonia Virtuosi (a Milwaukee ensemble) and principal second violin of the Greeley Philharmonic as well as section violin for the Woodstock Mozart Festival and the Kalamazoo Symphony. Her extensive chamber music experience includes performances with the Summit Chamber Players on the UW Faculty Recital Series as well as many regional concert series; a tour of Spain, appearances on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Sunday Afternoon Live from the Elvehjem”, and performances for Young Audiences Inc. as first violinist of the Hawthorne Quartet, plus performances with the Starting and Stalling Orchestra and the Red Cedar Chamber Players. As a soloist Ms. Sinift has performed with the University of Wyoming Symphony and UW Chamber Orchestras, the Cheyenne Symphony, the Wyoming Symphony and Fox Valley Chamber Orchestra.Sherry Sinift is also a devoted violin and viola teacher and a strong advocate for string education for pre-college students. In addition to teaching studio violin and violin/viola pedagogy at the university level, she is currently founder and director of the String Academy of Wyoming and a supervising teacher for the UW String Project. The two programs serve more than one hundred young string players in Laramie, Wyoming. The UW String Project has additionally provided teacher training to UW students many of whom have graduated and are impacting string education in the state and region. Former String Academy students have gone on to study at major music schools and have integrated music into their lives as professionals or as passionate amateurs. Ms. Sinift is on the faculty of the Indiana University Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists, has served as a guest teacher and/or lecturer in Utah, Maryland, Indiana, Wisconsin and London, U.K. and was a member of the IU Summer String Academy for more than twenty-five years. Ms. Sinift holds a B.M. in violin performance from Western Michigan University and an M. M. in violin performance from Indiana University. Her influential teachers include Gerald Fishbach, Mimi Zweig, and Tadeusz Wronski.
