Lucy Karelyn Lewis

1984 -

Lucy Lewis, a violinist, currently teaches violin and coaches chamber ensembles at the Preucil School of Music in Iow City, Iowa. She has previously taught at Southwestern Michigan and Lake Michigan colleges, and the Citadel Dance and Music Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan. While pursuing undergraduate study at Andrews University and in her graduate study since then, she has had unique opportunities in study and teaching.

Lucy was born in Chicago, the oldest of three daughters, born to Daniel G. and Carol Chaffee Lewis. Her earliest years were spent in Tracy, California, before the family moved to Michigan, when she was five. Her mother, a singer, pianist, and flutist, encouraged and inspired Lucy and her sisters, Katie and Chloe, to pursue music study at an early age.

She started study on violin at age five, her choice inspired by listening to the musical story of Peter and the Wolf and the representation of Peter by the violin. Her sister Katie, on the other hand, preferred the sound of the flute, which represented the birds, and chose that instrument. All of the girls started piano lessons at an early age, with Lucy beginning at age seven and studying with Lydie Regazzi and Peter Cooper.

The girls were all home schooled in what the family called the "Wildberry Woods Center for Lifelong Learning." During her elementary school years, she studied violin with Kathy Lichtenwalter and in her academy years continued with Nicholas Orbevich. In 1998, at age fourteen, she started a private studio in which she taught violin, viola, piano, and music theory for four years.

By the time Lewis completed her academy level studies, she had decided to pursue music as a career. She entered Andrews University in 2002, where she earned a B.A. in violin performance under Carla Trynchuk and a B.A. in Spanish in 2007, graduating Magna Cum Laude and as a J.N. Andrews Honors Scholar. She returned to AU to graduate with a B.Mus.Ed. in the following year, again with honors.

Lewis received nine scholarship awards during her study at AU, among them the Andrews Partner, Virginia May Hamel endowed, Burman Memorial, C. Warren Becker and orchestra Performance scholarships. She was on the National Dean's List each year from 2002 to 2006 and elected for membership into the Education National Honors Society in 2003 and for membership into the International Languages Honors Society in 2007.

She was a finalist and a soloist with an orchestra at age sixteen in the 1998 International Music Festival Concert Competition in Cleveland, Ohio, where she played the first movement of the Kabelevsky Violin Concerto. She was also a finalist and a performer with the AU orchestra in the Andrews University Young Artist Concert Competition in 2006, where she played the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

Lewis had the unique opportunity in 2007 of working at the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music as a student teacher under Roberta Guaspari, famous string teacher whose work with the young was featured in the film Music of the Heart. Guaspari's violin classes in the Harlem schools, slated to be cut because of budgetary problems, were rescued by a fundraising program at Carnegie Hall that included her violin students and noted violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stearn.

The proceeds and recognition for Guaspari's teaching that came from that event saved the program and led to an expansion of it to six different New York City public schools. Lewis, who was pursuing a degree in music education at AU at that time, found the experience to be "totally inspiring."

She completed an M.Mus. in violin performance in 2011 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she was a scholarship student and studied with of Piotr Milewiski. She was a Suzuki violin and viola teacher in the music Preparatory Program during her studies and a coach for the Accent Chamber Music Program.

Lewis is presently pursuing a D.M.A. in violin performance and pedagogy at the University of Iowa where she is studying with Scott Conklin and is the recipient of the Henry & Parker Pelzer Fellowship Award. She has completed a cognate in viola performance and pedagogy with Christine Rutledge and is working on a cognate in orchestral conducting under William LaRue Jones.

ds/2013

Sources: Information provided by Lucy Lewis, 2008, 2011, and 2013; Profile at linkedin.com (2012); University of Iowa website.