Michele Celie Peter Gourevitch Lori Haynes Carolyn McClain (Chair) Steven Schwarz Linnea Searle Jane Wolgemuth
Advisory Board
Charles Curtis Kellie Evans - O'Connor
Celino Romero Rosetta Sciacca Stephen R. Shapiro
The Villa Musica Team
Dr. Fiona Chatwin - Executive Director Lori Haynes - Book keeping/Board Treasurer Sarah Lifton - Communications/Grant writing Jen Knudson - Graphic Design
About the Executive Director
Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Fiona Chatwin recently completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts specializing in Contemporary Classical Vocal Performance from UCSD with a view to a joint career as both teacher and performer. With thirteen years experience as a teacher of voice both here in San Diego and in Melbourne Australia (where she is from), Dr. Chatwin has worked with students of all ages, a number of whom have won competitions for their work - some even going on to successful careers in the areas of popular, jazz, music theatre and classical vocal performance.
As well as teaching in her private studio, Dr. Chatwin also dedicated a portion of the past six years to the education of adult beginners at UCSD Extension—an endeavor she found most rewarding, and an integral part of her teaching philosophy. In 2003, Dr. Chatwin coordinated the outreach program offered by the collaborative efforts of The Athenaeum, La Jolla and The La Jolla Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. This program was met with much enthusiasm and inspired her to continue to create further opportunities of this kind.
In the day-to-day running of Villa Musica Dr. Chatwin has found her true calling – a delicate balance between performer, educator and administrator. She is embracing the entrepreneurial challenges that arise and endeavors to surround herself with seasoned professionals and mentors as she strives to bring Villa Musica’s mission to fruition.
Board of Directors
Board Chair, Carolyn McClain has over 30 years of experience in marketing,
strategic planning, executive communications and software engineering.
In 2005, she retired from Sun Microsystems to pursue her passions for
travel, learning, and music. As a Sun Microsystems executive, she held
roles in systems marketing, strategic business planning, and software
engineering. She was integral to the success of the multibillion dollar
high end server business at Sun. Prior to Sun, she held product
marketing positions at Cray Research Business Systems, Floating Point
Systems, and TeleSoft. She was a also member of San Diego’s pioneering
graphics software company, ISSCO and did a stint as a marketing
consultant. She thrives on new challenges; many of her positions were
“intrapreneur” projects, starting new business lines, such as taking
Sun into the difficult mainframe marketplace, or guiding Cray Research
into the smaller systems markets.
Carolyn earned her B.A. in Economics from UCSD, and attended the Graduate School of Business at CSU San Diego.
Michele Celie has over 20 years of experience in the wireless industry. Trained as a Computer Science and Embedded Software Engineer, Michele held roles in wireless protocol software development, technical project management and team management, mostly in startups. As the co-founder of several startup companies, Michele has a strong experience in hiring, team-building, employee training and mentoring. Michele started studying the piano when she was a child. Since then, and despite an interruption during her university years, she has loved it more and more. She also likes singing, and has been a member of the Villa Musica community choir since January 2007. More recently, Michele has joined the Villa Musica Singers.
Peter Gourevitch, Founding Dean and Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
and Professor Political Science, University of California, San Diego,
has been a professor at UCSD since 1979. He is an extraordinary
educator and his academic writings have been published all over the
world. Recently Mr. Gourevitch was awarded the Russell Sage Foundation
Scholar award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled him to spend
2005-06 academic year living and researching in New York City. Mr.
Gourevitch is also a passionate amateur singer and sings with the La
Jolla Symphony Chorus, San Diego Master Chorale and (when in New York)
the Carnegie Hall Chorus.
Lori Haynes, Villa Musica’s bookkeeper of three years, has
owned and operated a bookkeeping service for seven years. She developed
her love of music growing up listening to her Dad’s rich tenor voice, and
singing with family and friends around the piano after Sunday dinners.
Lori spent 8 years after college as co-owner of a travel company operating
wilderness trips in the Sea of Cortez. She married her husband Bruce, and
together they raised two wonderful children over the next 25 years. With
her children off in college, Lori studied bookkeeping at UCSD. She is
certified by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers. In her
leisure time Lori enjoys reading, bridge and sings in two choirs. She is
happy to be working with Villa Musica and applauds their mission to enable
people of all ages and backgrounds to discover, explore and enhance their
musical skills.
Steven Schwarz has been a music lover from an early age. One of his first memories is pestering his parents for a piano so that he could learn to play. He began playing the piano at age seven, when his parents bought a modest upright, later replaced by his beloved Steinway Model B. Serious study began in adolescence, as a pupil of Randolph Hokanson in Seattle, Leah Effenbach in Los Angeles, and Nathan Schwartz during his undergraduate years at Stanford. In graduate school at the University of Chicago he began stealing time for composition from his pursuit of a doctorate in mathematical logic. Throughout his teaching career at Tufts University and his subsequent career as a software engineer in the California high tech industry, he has continued to compose for and play the piano. In recent years, he has begun serious exploration of the extensive chamber music repertoire at workshops and festivals and with friends. He had such a great experience performing at the Alpen Kammer Musik Chamber Music Festival in Liesing, Austria in Summer, 2009 that he is going back in Summer, 2010. From Fall, 2010, he will be a graduate student (again!) at SDSU, pursuing his Master of Music degree in Piano Performance.
Linnea Searle has a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College
and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.She has worked both in the non-profit
and for-profit sectors, most recently as a product marketer for Nestle USA in
Glendale and as an independent marketing consultant.She has extensive overseas experience, having lived and
worked in Asia and Europe, as well as Africa where she served as a Peace Corps
Volunteer in Cameroon.She
has studied flute, piano and voice and has been a member of several close
harmony vocal ensembles.In
addition to music, she has an abiding passion for languages and has studied
Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Spanish and West African Pidgin English.
Jane Wolgemuth started her love of music at age 4, with piano lessons taught by her mother. She put this wonderful knowledge to good use, singing with school choruses throughout her secondary and college years (University of California at Santa Cruz, BA in History; and University of Sussex, England, MA in International Relations). With twenty-two years at Union Bank, Jane has an abiding interest in non-profit organizations in general and the arts in particular. She is a not only a recent addition to the Board, she is also a new Alto II with the Villa Musica Singers!
Advisory Board
Kellie Evans-O'Connor is Director of SDSU Opera Theater at SDSU School
of Music & Dance and on Education staff at San Diego Opera where
she is Director/Coordinator of Opera for kids...by kids. A former
director for the San Diego Opera Touring Ensemble, she has numerous
other credits as a singer, stage director, and producer, and is author
of multiple award-winning opera education programs.
Celino Romero is a member of the renowned classical guitar quartet, Los Romeros.
Celedonio Romero, with his sons Celin, Pepe and Angel, founded the
internationally renowned ensemble known to millions as "The Royal
Family of the Guitar." Celino, Celin’s son, joined the group in 1990,
replacing Angel, who left to pursue a solo career. Celino has been
touring with Los Romeros for the past eight years. Highlights of his
appearances with the ensemble include concerts in Munich, the Berlin
Philharmonic, a performance with the Vienna Symphony at the Rodrigo
Festival and a concert with the Dallas Symphony, an appearance on New
York’s prestigious Metropolitan Museum series, and the release of his
first recording with the Quartet on the Philips label, which includes
newly recorded works composed for Los Romeros. As a soloist, Celino has
performed Rodrigo’s famed Concierto de Aranjuez with the Houston
Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the East Texas
Symphony, the Utah Symphony and the New West Symphony.
Rosetta Sciacca, senior director for major giving at Sharp HealthCare Foundation, San Diego, began her career in the mid-1980s at the San Diego Museum of Art. She went on to the University of San Diego, where she was founding director of a nationally recognized parent relations program and also served as a major gifts officer in a $50 million capital campaign. In addition, she recruited and staffed an international advisory board and created high-level special events.
In 1993, Ms. Sciacca joined the development staff of UC San Diego as a major gifts fundraiser for the general campus. Three years later, she assumed the role of Development Director for the Division of Social Sciences, launching the division’s first development effort. She was responsible for raising gifts in excess of $100,000 for 18 departments and organized research units. She also introduced a number of innovations to the division, including an outreach magazine; the first division-wide brochure; and the Social Sciences Supper Club, a popular monthly dinner that brought members of the community together with a faculty lecturer. She established the Friends of the Social Sciences, an annual giving organization and oversaw the division’s capital campaign leading the effort to raise over $100 million in division-wide goals.
In 2004, Ms. Sciacca assumed her current position with Sharp HealthCare Foundation, where she is charged with implementing the Foundation’s major gifts program and also oversees strategic planning for The Campaign for Sharp HealthCare, a $50 million effort. She works closely with physicians and other volunteers to raise major gifts and campaign funds for Sharp HealthCare Foundation and Sharp-affiliated medical groups. She has implemented a comprehensive development program for Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group, the first in its history, with plans to launch a $5 million capital campaign in 2008.
Ms. Sciacca, who was born in Italy and educated in Europe and the United States, has served as a board member for Social Advocates for Youth, San Diego and has been a development consultant for Business Volunteers for the Arts and the Combined Organization for the Visual Arts. She currently serves as a board member for the Friends of Balboa Park and the Design Innovation Institute. A native Italian speaker and student of French and Spanish and of European culture, she has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and China, and is also experienced in international fundraising. She maintains an avid interest in contemporary art, opera and classical music.
Stephen R. Shapiro (Executive Director, San Francisco Community Music Center 1978 - present), has led the Community Music Center as Executive Director since 1978. He received his MA and PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin and his BA from Oberlin College. Chosen as a Gerbode Fellow in 2003 for outstanding non-profit leadership, he is currently on the Board of Directors of the Zellerbach Family Foundation and is a member of the Education Committee of the San Francisco Symphony. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Stern Grove Festival Association from 1996-2002, the Advisory Board of the Paul Robeson and Diego Rivera Academy from 2000-2003, and on the Board of Directors (1981-1990) and Vice President (1983-1986) of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.