Mary Kay Binder is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory where she majored in violin performance. After a brief stint teaching at Wilmington College in Ohio, she served for a summer in Mexico with the American Friends Committee. Upon receiving a Fulbright Fellowship for violin study, she went to Germany for a year to work with Tibor Varga. In Canada she studied with Kathleen Parlow. Mary Kay spent subsequent summers in Vermont where she ran a general camp for girls which was founded by her maternal grandparents. In 1964 she invited some musical friends to come and play quartets after the children's season was over. It was so much fun that Mary Kay decided to expand the idea by offering a second week and extending the invitation to many more people. She brought in a professional coaching staff, and <voila!> The WYODA MUSICAL HOUSEPARTY was born. Mary Kay plays violin with the “Classic Piano Trio" which performs in the northern New Jersey area . She has soloed with the Plainfield Symphony, (NJ.) and the London (Ontario) Symphony among others. She formerly played first violin with the New Orleans Opera Orchestra. She is presently the concertmistress of the Adelphia Chamber Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic. She has performed numerous violin/piano sonata and string quartet recitals. She recently performed three movements of Lalo's "Symphonie Espagnole" as a soloist with the North Jersey Philharmonic. Mary Kay presently maintains a music studio in her home where she teaches violin and viola.

Bob Binder has been associated with the WYODA MUSICAL HOUSEPARTY for thirty years. He is an avid amateur violinist and violist and plays chamber music frequently during the year with many players. He is a member of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rockland Symphony, the North Jersey Philharmonic, and the Neubergh Symphony (viola). Now retired from a career as a practicing general dentist, he devotes his time to oil painting, his other avocation, chamber music and managing the program at the WYODA MUSICAL HOUSEPARTY. His paintings are in several private collections and have appeared in many group shows around northern New Jersey. Since retiring he has had three one man shows.

COACHES

Jeff Holm began studying cello at the age of thirteen in San Francisco. His teachers have included: C. and B. Hampton, L. Rose, Z. Nelsova, Peter Reito, C. Robbins and H. Shapiro and pedagogues Pablo Casals and Joseph Szigeti. He has played with numerous ensembles including the Griller, Roth, Juilliard, Hungarian, New Music and Primrose Quartets and the Alma and Beaux Arts Trios. Jeff received his Artist Diploma from Juilliard School of Music and participated in the filmed "Pablo Casals Master Classes" and NBC's "Recital Hall Series." Holm was a "musical ambassador" to "Expo 67" in Montreal and performed in the film "Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts." He is a former cellist of the Vaghy and the Lennox Quartets and the East-West Ensemble.  He has also appeared as soloist with orchestras and given solo recitals around the world. He has collaborated with such artists as Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Treger, Walter Trampler, Claus Adams, Roberta Peters and Yo-Yo Ma. On several occasion he was guest cellist with the Cleveland String Quartet performing Schubert's two cello quintet. He is the founder-director of the International Ithaca Violincello Institute (34 years) and was on the quartet faculty of Ithaca College for many years.

David Clampitt, music theorist and violinist on the faculty of Yale University, has coached for many years at the Wyoda Musical Houseparty. He has also been a coach at Kent Music in Kent, Connecticut since 1989. The author of numerous articles, he is a recent recipient of the Emerging Scholar Award of the Society for Music Theory, of the Thomas Clifton Award, and of a Morse Fellowship. He has also taught at the University of Chicago. David has lectured extensively throughout the United States, in Montreal, in Bucharest, and most recently with the Manhattan String Quartet in Budapest. A founding member of the Algonquin String Quartet during his time as a free lance musician in New York City, he is an active chamber and orchestral musician.

Robert A. Mark, has a rich and varied background as a violinist, performer, composer, educator and administrator. He graduated from SUNY at Potsdam, New York and studied advanced violin performance with Joseph Schor and Ernestine Briesmeister. He has coached chamber music at the Bennington and Johnson Composers conferences for several years and at the Upper Valley and Brattleboro Music Centers. Bob has written two symphonies based on "disguised" children's songs and many other shorter works. He was assistant concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony and has performed chamber music on the NBC Today Show. He has played at the Brattleboro Music Center, at the Bach Festival in Marlboro, and was a member of the Hanover Chamber Orchestra. He also was a violinist in the resident String Quartet and Piano Trio at Northfield Mount Hermon School. Bob will join us during the second session of the Musical Houseparty.