Staff

This page serves to introduce the names and faces of the people who run Community MusicWorks and support the Providence String Quartet's many programs and activities.

Click here to learn more about the Providence String Quartet or here to learn more about the Fellowship Program participants.

Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Executive-Artistic Director

Sebastian is a professional musician and educator committed to exploring connections between the arts and social change. He graduated from Brown University in 1997, where he worked closely with education scholars Theodore Sizer and Reginald Archambault on a thesis project exploring the relationship between the philosophy of moral education and music.

Over the past ten years, Sebastian has assembled musicians and community organizers to build Community MusicWorks, a nonprofit organization that provides transformative social and musical experiences to at-risk youth and families in urban communities of Providence, RI. Community MusicWorks is built around the permanent urban residency of the Providence String Quartet, a unique model for a professional string quartet residency.

In February 2000, Mr. Ruth co-created a conference featuring revered American philosopher Maxine Greene entitled “Transformative Teaching in the Arts.” Mr. Ruth arranged for Dr. Greene to return to Providence in May 2004 for a symposium sponsored by Community MusicWorks entitled “Education, Art, and Freedom: An Exploration of Philosophy and Pedagogy” and again in March 2008 to give the keynote address at a conference entitled “Imagining Art + Social Change.”

He has been a member of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra, and the Wild Ginger Philharmonic. Sebastian has participated in the Audubon String Quartet Seminar, the Yellow Barn and Apple Hill Chamber Music Festivals, and the International Musical Arts Institute at Fryeburg, where he is a member of the Board of Directors.

In January 2007, Sebastian was selected by the Providence Monthly as one of ten people most likely to change the face of Providence.

View a 7-minute video interview with Sebastian here.

Heath Marlow, Director of Development & Artistic Program Administrator

Prior to starting work at Community MusicWorks in 2003, Heath was a member of the development staff of the San Francisco Symphony, specializing in corporate and institutional gifts.

Originally from the Boston area, Heath attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and was a three-time fellowship recipient at the Tanglewood Music Center. As a cellist, he has enjoyed many summers of performing music in beautiful locations, including the Berkshires, Banff, Alberta and Blue Hill, Maine. While a California resident, he was a member of the Oakland East Bay Symphony and maintained a small private teaching studio.

Heath is delighted to continue his association with Community MusicWorks, a relationship that began in 1999 as the organization's first cello teacher. In his spare time, he serves on the board of directors of Greenwood Music Camp and is very interested in chamber music presented creatively in both private and public venues.

Read a blog posting that Heath wrote in April 2007 by clicking here.

Minna was part of the original Community MusicWorks team. She and husband Sebastian Ruth met in the Nahanni String Quartet (also including cellist Nahanni Rous and violist Jeremy Eichler) while undergraduates at Brown University. As Community MusicWorks grew, Minna first became affiliated as a violin teacher in 1998, and then as the organization's first Program Coordinator and a violinist in the newly formed Providence String Quartet.

Minna holds a bachelors degree in Philosophy from Brown University and she recently completed a Master of Music degree at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT. Her significant teachers include Lois Finkel, Eric Rosenblith and Katie Lansdale.

Previously a member of the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra and the Wild Ginger Philharmonic, she has attended the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Musicorda Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and the International Musical Arts Institute.

Elizabeth Cox, Program & Administrative Coordinator

Liz began her work at Community MusicWorks in 2006. Growing up in Boston, she attended Boston University for two years until she left, much to the dismay of her parents, to play drums and sing in Christmas, a rock trio. Many years and several CDs, later the trio disbanded and the jazz/pop combo Combustible Edison was formed.

Combustible Edison recorded four CDs, toured the United States, Canada and Europe, and scored the film Four Rooms, collaborating with director Quentin Tarantino, among others. Personal highlights include performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and providing the singing voice for Bridget Fonda in the film Grace of My Heart. Lowlights include several gigs at Sudsy Malone's, a combination bar, rock club and laundromat in Cincinnati.

Liz resides in a historic fixer-upper in Pawtuxet Village and, of special note, has resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Rhode Island.

Chloë received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she was a viola student of Martha Katz. While in Houston, Chloë was the Chamber Music Assistant at the Shepherd School, and also taught violin and viola at the Brazoswood High School and the Lake Jackson Intermediate School in Lake Jackson. Other influential teachers include Karen Tuttle, Roberto Diaz, and Richard Young. Chloë has also studied chamber music with members of the Vermeer, Juilliard, Guarneri, Cleveland, American, Orion, Brentano, Emerson, and Tokyo string quartets, and has participated the Aspen, Banff, Taos, Sarasota, Musicorda, and Kneisel Hall summer festivals.

Donald Tarallo, Graphic Design Consultant

Donald Tarallo (BA in Studio Arts, Clark University, MFA in Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and further studies at the Basel School of Design, Basel, Switzerland) has worked as a graphic designer and photographer in Oslo, Norway and as an identity designer in Seoul, Korea. Since 1998, he has maintained a practice focusing mainly on identity design and photography, and has worked on the development of new identity systems for Sotheby's, Icograda and the Hong Kong Design Institute.

Don has taught graphic design at Clark University, Rhode Island School of Design, the Fraunhofer Institute's Digital Media program, the Samsung Art and Design Institute (Korea), and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China). His work has been awarded by the AIGA and been published in China, Korea and the United States. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. His research interests include Chinese pictograms and visual cross-cultural issues.

Born and raised in Worcester, Don has lived in Norway, Switzerland, China, and Korea. His hobbies include hiking, cooking, and photography, and his musical interests range from classical to folk, soul, and The Clash.

Don began work for Community MusicWorks in 2003. View Don's work at www.tarallodesign.com.