Musician Health Symposium

LunART and the Mead Witter School of Music are excited to welcome you to the Musician Health Symposium! This two day event will feature exceptional guest speakers, panelists, and workshops.

The symposium will kickoff with a virtual interview featuring three guest speakers sharing their personal experience with injuries. In honor of the National Injury Prevention Day, the interview will be premiered on Thursday, November 18th on the LunART Website, Facebook and YouTube channel. Day two will be presented as a series of in-person events at Hamel Music Center (740 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706) on Sunday, November 21st. Doors open at 11 AM and the event starts at 11:30 AM. This event is non ticketed and open to the public.

For the health and safety of our community, we kindly ask you to wear your mask during the event. Help us keep live arts events safe, in-person and thriving in Madison!

We look forward to seeing you!

Schedule

Thursday, November 18 | 7 pm ct

Virtual kickoff featuring three guest speakers sharing their personal experience with injuries.

Can't join join us, but don't want to miss out?

No Problem! Visit our Facebook page, YouTube channel or website after the event to view at your leisure.

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Sunday, November 21

Day two will contain two workshops on physical health and a panel discussion on mental health in musicians. This workshop will be open and free to the public but is specifically geared towards music students and faculty to advocate for awareness, understanding, and fair treatment around injuries.

11am: Doors Open

11:30am-12:30pm: Feldenkrais Workshop lead by Prof. Uri Vardi

12:30-1pm: Break/Refreshments

1-2pm: Mental Health Panel

w/ Prof. Jessica Johnson, Dr. Linda DiRaimondo & Prof. Uri Vardi

Moderator: Ana Tinder

2-2:15pm: Break

2:15-3:45 pm: Yoga for Musicians lead by Nicole Newman

Guest speakers and artists

Ana Tinder

Ana Tinder is the host, panel moderator, and guest speaker for the Musician Health Symposium. A Dane Arts Grant Recipient for her spoken memoir on her experience with injuries, Ana is a senior completing her degree in music performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the tutelage of Professor Soh-Hyun Park Altino and Dr. Dawn Wohn.

In addition to the violin, Ana has a strong passion for volunteering and engaging with her community. Ana is the Director of Grace Presents, Mead Witter School of Music live stream coordinator, and LunART event production intern. She is also the founder of the Mead Witter School of Music’s study program, providing free tutoring, mentoring, and classes on musicology and music theory. Most recently, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ana organized and produced the “Mead Witter School of Music Virtual Benefit Concert,” donating over eight-thousand meals to food banks in southern Wisconsin.

Ana thanks LunART, Inc. and the Mead Witter School of Music for their support and making the symposium possible. She looks forward to continuing her work in making classical music safe, equitable, and accessible for all.

Prof. Jess Johnson

Jessica Johnson serves on the piano faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy, where in 2006, she was the recipient of UW-Madison’s prestigious Emil Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. Johnson frequently commissions and programs contemporary solo and chamber works, regularly performing with Sole Nero, a piano and percussion duo with Anthony Di Sanza, percussion. An advocate for the adoption of the Donison-Steinbuhler (DS) Standard, offering alternatively sized piano keyboards, her upcoming recording project features newly commissioned works by women performed on the DS5.5™ (“7/8”) keyboard.

An active clinician, she has given workshops and presentations at the European Piano Teachers Association International Conference, World Piano Pedagogy Conference, ISME, MTNA, CMS, Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA), National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), Portland International Piano Festival, as well as held residencies at major universities and colleges throughout North America, Europe and China. Johnson has articles published in American Music Teacher, Piano Journal of the European Piano Teachers Association, Clavier Companion, and the Piano Pedagogy Forum. She is a three-time winner of American Music Teacher’s Article of the Year Award for “Feeling the Sound: Reflections on Claiming One’s Own Musical Voice” (2014), “The Art of Listening with Depth, Understanding, Flow and Imagery” (2007), and “Awakening Rhythmic Intuition and Flow in the Developing Pianist” (2019). Current research explores cross-modal, multi-sensory engagement in the creative process and the impact of contemplative practices on making music joyfully.

A devoted teacher, Johnson’s students have secured teaching positions in North American, South America, Europe and Asia. Passionate about community engagement and arts outreach, she serves as Director of Piano Pioneers, a program that brings high quality piano instruction to low-income community members and at-risk youth in Wisconsin. She holds the DMA and MM from the University of Michigan, and the BM from East Carolina University.

Dr. Linda DiRaimondo

Linda DiRaimondo MD graduated from The Medical School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999 and completed her residency at the UW Department of Psychiatry in 2003. She currently serves as the Medical Director at the Departments of Human Services in Juneau and Green Lake Counties. In addition to mental health and advocacy, her passion in medicine is to explore and understand the intricate connections between mind, body, spirit, and wellness. She has presented on a number of topics including Happiness, Mindfulness, Nutrition, and Integrative Medicine. She served as a founding faculty member for the Healer’s Art elective offered at the UW School of Medicine – teaching medical students self-care, compassion, and the appreciation of life’s mysteries and uncertainties. She has always had a deep passion for science, art, and movement. In her final year of Medical School, she took an introductory workshop with Cycropia Aerial Dance in Madison, WI, and, to her delight, found the perfect blend of art, dance, physics, athleticism, and creativity. For the past 20 plus years, in addition to her dream of practicing medicine, she has been flying and dancing through the air, serving on Cycropia’s Board of Directors - performing, choreographing, costume designing, and directing aerial dance performances.

Natalie Weiss

An acclaimed vocal performer and coach, Natalie Weiss has achieved major success on and off the stage. Her performance videos mixed with her “edutainment” series, Breaking Down The Riffs®, made her a viral sensation, with 30 million views on YouTube alone. Her groundbreaking and fun approach to pop technique has become a growing standard in the music industry.

Natalie is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after celebrity vocal coaches and collaborators. She has sung with everyone from Broadway greats to iconic TV and media personalities including Tori Kelly, Ben Platt, Katharine McPhee, Pentatonix, Gaten Matarazzo, Shoshana Bean and Cheyenne Jackson, just to name a few. She has performed to sold-out audiences and has led master classes in dozens of major cities across the US and abroad.

Natalie’s voice can be heard on The Greatest Showman soundtrack, Dear Evan Hansen cast recording, The Incredibles 2 jingles, and multiple musical theatre composers’ albums. She has performed on Broadway in Everyday Rapture, Off-Broadway in Emojiland, in national tours of Wicked & Les Miserables, and regional productions of Ghost and Chess.

She was an American Idol season 4 semi-finalist and has performed the National Anthem at Cowboys & Shea Stadium. Natalie holds a BFA in musical theatre from Penn State University.

Nicole Newman

Nicole is a Juilliard-trained classical flutist and Curriculum Developer, who earned a B.A. in Psychology from NYU, a M.A. in Education from Queens College through the NYC Teaching Fellows Program, and a M.A. in Educational Leadership from the University of Northern Colorado. Nicole has written curriculum for the NYC Department of Education, the Sonima Foundation, and the Colorado Symphony. Nicole currently serves as visiting faculty at New World Symphony, in addition to mentoring New World Symphony fellows. Nicole teaches her course Root-to-Rise: A Systems Approach to Health & Wellness at Juilliard Extension, as well as delivering workshops as a guest presenter at The Juilliard School.

After developing scoliosis, a complex three-dimensional deformity of the spine, exacerbated by countless hours of flute practice over many years, Nicole dedicated herself to the transformative science and art of yoga to realign her spine and strengthen the muscles supporting her back. She now breathes and moves without pain and is committed to sharing this practice with fellow artists.

After speaking with musicians of all ages, Nicole realized she was not alone. Countless musicians develop physical problems from long hours of practice. Unfortunately, the warning signs of performance-related injuries are often not explicitly taught during music instruction, resulting in unnecessary chronic pain.

Nicole is a Yoga Alliance Certified Yoga Educator, who continues to pursue her study of physiology and anatomy to refine her understanding of the body’s relationships between form and function. Nicole completed three Manhattan-based physical therapy internships at Hospital for Special Surgery’s Spine Therapy Center, Langone NYU, and the Vestibular Balance Rehabilitation Center at Mount Sinai’s New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Nicole emphasizes the art of tristhana, the synchronization of breath, movement, and gaze. The tools of breath and gaze may be leveraged to cultivate a relaxed, yet focused concentration that can reduce the risk of repetitive stress injuries by re-educating the body to replace debilitating tension-holding patterns with healthier movement habits. Nicole’s goal is to empower artists to fully inhabit their bodies so they may live healthier, happier and more productive musical lives.

Prof. Uri Vardi

Cellist Uri Vardi has performed as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber player across the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and Israel. Born in Szeged, Hungary, Vardi grew up on Kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh, Israel. He studied at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv, was an Artist Diploma student at Indiana University, and earned his Master’s degree from Yale University. His teachers have included Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Eva Janzer, and Uzi Wiesel. He has served as Assistant Principal cellist of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and Principal cellist of the Israel Sinfonietta. In 1990, following an extensive teaching and performing career in Israel, Vardi joined the University of Wisconsin - Madison. As a Feldenkrais practitioner, he emphasizes in his teaching the correlation between sound and movement, and conducts masterclasses worldwide. Vardi is also the founder and Artistic Director of the National Summer Cello Institute, and has initiated projects involving collaboration between Oud and Cello, culminating in the 2008 premier of Joel Hoffman's The Forty Steps, a double concerto for Cello, Oud and Orchestra with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

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