Max Phelps

GUITAR - BASS

Max Phelps has performed internationally in over 30 countries throughout North America, Europe and South America, performing with progressive metal acts Exist, Cynic, Death to All (a tribute to musician Chuck Schuldiner comprised of members of the band Death) and Defeated Sanity. Max also plays locally with the funk oriented working band “Bachelor Boys Band” as well as various jazz ensembles and freelance work both recording and playing live.

Max's general teaching philosophy is that music should be fun and rewarding to participating individuals. Every situation is different based on a student’s interests, goals and skill level. For beginners, Max's aim is not just to provide an enriching musical education, but to aid students in finding their own love for music and the instrument. For already established players, Max seeks to help them accomplish their own unique goals as well as to knock down any road-blocks that the student may be encountering.

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LISTENING TO:

Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine
Kurt Rosenwinkel - Our Secret World
Elliott Smith - Figure 8
Meshuggah - Obzen
King Crimson - Thrak

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Kit Benz

PIANO - GUITAR

Kit Benz is an accomplished pianist, guitarist and songwriter from New York City. With 10 years of experience and several hundred performances, his thirst for musical betterment is unquenchable. He began taking piano lessons at age 4 and continued his studies at Shenandoah University, studying jazz and classical piano, as well as music production and jazz guitar. His versatility and love for all genres of music has taken him from performing with jazz quintets to engineering for Ginuwine.

Benz has been teaching students of all ages for several years. With a background in classical music, Benz instructs with an emphasis on reading, theory and of course, fun.

“I want my students to have fun and learn music that they love.”

In addition to wedding bands, cinematic composing, and shredding guitar, Benz also loves Mario, Tolkien and comic books. He hopes to one day compose for a Marvel movie.

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LISTENING TO:

Radiohead - All I Need
Mammoth WVH - Epiphany
Knocked Loose - Forced to Stay
Prince - 3121
Los Lonely Boys - Di Mi Amor

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Ralph Bernabe

SONGWRITING - VOICE - GUITAR - PIANO - MUSIC THEORY

Ralph Bernabe is a Baltimore musician, songwriter, and instructor. He believes in learning and progressing in music at any age and time. “No one is ever too old to learn a new skill.” 

He began his musical endeavors by teaching himself guitar, piano, and vocals while performing jazz, pop, and country covers. Soon, he realized that he wanted to have music as his career. At 16, Ralph began taking piano, guitar, and voice lessons. This was only the beginning, and opened many doors in music for Ralph. His next chapter in life with music involved him receiving a Bachelor’s in Music Education in 2018 from Towson University.

For a majority of his life, he has performed with a variety of musicians and groups ranging from the Maryland State Boychoir to All State Jazz Bands from his adolescence. Today, he performs with two bands: The indie pop band called “Plant Dad” and a country project called “Cromwell and Sparrow.”

If he is not teaching, he is frequently performing all over the DMV area with his bands and writing with fellow songwriters throughout the East Coast and Canada. His philosophy is: your skills improve with every performance. To be a great musician, you also have to be a great performer.

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LISTENING TO:

Erkyah Badu - Certainly
Tom Misch - Movie
Plant Dad ft. Father - Immature
Hippo Campus - Buttercup
Eyas - Object Permanence

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Johanna McGuire

SAXOPHONE - CLARINET - FLUTE

Johanna McGuire is a Baltimore based saxophonist. Her love for music started at an early age, when her parents would take her to group music classes, as well as various concerts. However, her love for Jazz started when she would visit her grandparents’ house where there would always be jazz playing in the house, thanks to her grandfather’s love of the music. Johanna holds a degree in Jazz Saxophone Performance at Towson University, where she studied under Jason Rigby. Johanna’s focus is on saxophone; however her array of expertise encompasses doubling on all woodwind instruments, primarily flute and clarinet.

Her performance experience continues to grow, performing in various groups as well as composing original music for her quartet. During her undergraduate career, Johanna was a member of the Towson University Jazz Orchestra, under the instruction of Jim McFalls and Dave Ballou, and has also performed in various groups and ensembles, including the Towson University Marching Band, Towson University Latin Ensemble, DCI, and the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra Jazz Band, under the instruction of percussionist Steve Fidyk. Johanna has also performed at Towson University with artists Kris Davis, Ellery Eskelin, and William Parker.

She recently was a member of the SOL collective, taking place in Boston, MA. Here, she was commissioned to compose original music to perform at Harvard University and work alongside other dedicated musicians.

As well as being an active performer in the Baltimore area, Johanna also teaches at various music camps, such as the Hilton Head Jazz Camp in Hilton Head Island, SC. Johanna uses all her musical experiences and her love of both teaching and performing to help her students find their own sound and be the best musician they can possibly be.

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LISTENING TO:

Mac Miller - Buttons
Laufey - Falling Behind
Pale Jay - Under the Magnolia Tree
Hank Mobley - If I Should Lose You
Enjambre - Dulce Soledad

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Rosetta Isnardi (VIRTUAL ONLY)

PIANO - VIOLIN - VOICE - THEORY

Rosetta Isnardi is a lifelong musician, who believes wholly in the power of musical curiosity and expression. She began her musical career by slapping at the piano’s keys cantankerously as a baby, and started lessons as a kindergartener in an effort to play more sonorously. Eventually she decided to devote her life to music, so she got a BS in Keyboard Performance (piano and harpsichord) from Adelphi University in Garden City, NY, and an MM in Piano Pedagogy and Performance from Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ. Her penchant for playing the piano has landed her on concert hall stages, ballet studios, recording studios, and in bars and rock stages (as a keyboardist with the band Survival Society..

Her incredibly supportive family endured years of squeaking as 4th grade Rosetta began her studies of the violin, and watched the growth of a young musician with an unquenchable thirst for classical music. In fact, in one of her happiest childhood memories, Rosetta recalls laying sprawled on the carpet, blasting Tchaikovsky 6 on the boombox in her bedroom, and playing Zelda games on her muted Game Boy Color. She wishes to bring that kind of joy to everyone.

Rosetta has taught in a variety of settings, and has decided the private studio is where her passion and talents lie. She lets her students’ tastes and curiosity determine exactly the ways she will teach them. She brings diversity to The Music Space with teaching piano, violin, voice, and music theory.

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LISTENING TO:

Arvo Part - Fratres
Dimmu Borgir - Progenies of the Great Apocalypse
Led Zeppelin - Since I’ve Been Loving You
Leo Delibes - Coppelia

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Derek Wiegmann

DOUBLE BASS - ELECTRIC BASS

Derek Wiegmann is an in demand bassist and teacher who lives in Baltimore, MD.  He began playing the electric bass at the age of twelve.  He was introduced to the double bass at the age of 17 and fell in love with the instrument.  During his freelance career, Derek has performed a wide variety of genres including classical, jazz, rock, blues, R&B, Motown, bluegrass, country, and pop.  Derek has been teaching privately since 2012. 

In 2012, Derek entered the Jazz/Commercial Music program at Towson University where he studied with Jeff Reed.  While at Towson, he also studied improvisation with the renowned trumpeter Dave Ballou and played in the big band directed by Jim McFalls.  Through the jazz residency program, he studied and performed with artists such as Drew Gress, Ralph Alessi, Ellery Eskelin, Tony Malaby, and Mary Halvorson.  He played in master classes held by David Liebman, Donny McCaslin, Mark Dresser, and Jeff Lederer.  During his junior year, he was selected to perform with the Mid Atlantic Collegiate Jazz Orchestra under the direction of trumpeter Sean Jones at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.  He has always been interested in versatility and exploring different styles.  During his senior year, he studied South Indian Karnatic music with Jon Seligman and performed in the Latin ensemble.  He has performed Balkan music with Orchestra Prezavica in Baltimore and D.C. and Persian classical music with Nader Najd’s orchestra in Alexandria, VA.  

While at Towson University, Derek was also an active performer and student in the classical department.  He studied classical bass with Victor Dvoskin.  In his fourth semester, he began attending Cecylia Barczyk’s cello studio’s weekly master classes.  He continued to attend and participate in her weekly master classes until graduation.  While at Towson, he played in chamber ensembles coached by Mrs. Barczyk and played principal bass in Towson’s orchestra his junior year.  Also during his junior year, he performed alongside Towson faculty and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra members in the pit orchestra for Randall Thompson’s Solomon and Balkis as part of the American Opera Symposium hosted at Towson that year.  He also in played in and observed master classes in the violin studio.  Cecylia Barczyk became an important mentor to him.  He assisted Professor Barczyk in writing her instructional method, “Teaching the Double Bass in the Classroom.”  Together they filmed a series of videos to compliment the text.  The materials are used in the lower strings method class for music education students at the university.

As a teacher, Derek uses student-centered teaching strategies as a means to actively engage the student in his or her learning process.  The role of the teacher should be to help a student learn how to teach him or herself.  He firmly believes that students should understand the “why” and not just the “how” and “what.”  Inspired by his exposure to the Alexander Technique, Derek teaches technique based on natural body movements and the release of excess tension.  When teaching technique, he does not just teach what it should look like, but how it should feel.  He has explored a variety of different playing postures with the double bass (sitting, standing with straight and angled endpins) and electric bass (various ways of sitting and standing) in order to help students of all body-types and sizes find a way of playing that is comfortable for them.  Regarding lesson structure, he does not believe in a “one-size-fits-all” mentality and caters lessons to the goals of the individual.  He firmly believes that talent is not an innate ability that one is born with; it is a skill that is trained and developed.  

In addition to teaching at the Music Space, Derek has been an adjunct professor at Howard Community College since Spring 2017, and has taught lower strings as part of the after school music program at the Park School of Baltimore since 2016.  Derek has coached double bass sectionals at the Baltimore County Summer Music Camp (2016) and the Howard County’s Elementary School Honors Orchestra (2018).  He was an All State Orchestra string judge for cello in 2016. 

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LISTENING TO:

Edgar Meyer - Uncommon Ritual
Bill Evans Trio - My Foolish Heart
Dexter Gordon - Soul Sister
Rev. James Moore ft. MS Mass Chori - Interiors
Eivind Opsuik - Twelve Days

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Justin Levy

PIANO - DRUMS

Justin Levy is a distinguished music teacher and performer with over 15 years of experience mentoring students and playing shows. This experience motivated Justin to start The Music Space in order to create a lesson center and recording studio that could emphasize creative development for aspiring musicians. 

Justin’s diverse experience as a musician informs his teaching approach.  He is a classically trained pianist who studied under the renowned Dr. Ernest Ragogini and Dr. Noel Lester, and he has earned critical acclaim as the singer/songwriter and keyboard player for the Baltimore Indie pop band Eureka Birds.  In addition, he plays keyboards for several popular cover bands that perform hits from the past 40 years. This incredibly varied background has put Justin in front of audiences in every type of packed venue: from SXSW festival showcases to WTMD’s 1st Thursday Concert to New Year’s Eve performances at the Hippodrome.

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Justin at Pianos, NYC

Justin’s experience and enthusiasm for playing all types of music on piano, drums, bass, and guitar allows him to create custom lesson plans for his students, and he has made a decision to staff The Music Space with teachers that have similarly diverse and creative backgrounds. In addition, Justin’s experience recording and producing music for Eureka Birds provides the foundation for helping students create original material in The Music Space recording studio.

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LISTENING TO

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Frank Ocean - Blonde
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Private Eyes
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

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Roxanne Wehking

GUITAR - UKULELE

Roxanne is a highly-accomplished musical performer and educator who is technically proficient at playing classical, jazz, and rock guitar styles. Roxanne’s teaching style draws from her experience with all types of music, her study of guitar pedagogy, and the Alexander Technique: a method that advocates for efficiency of movement and control of the body, allowing a musician to play without pain or tension.

Roxanne currently teaches a guitar summer camp at the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts, and she was recently promoted to Musical Director of the Baltimore School of Rock due to her excellent work as an instructor. Roxanne’s reputation for creating exciting and informative lessons for students is informed by her diverse background: she learned classical guitar in high school, studied with Shawn Purcell and took master classes with jazz guitar legend Pat Martino in college, and currently plays in several different bands.  At Towson University, Roxanne became only the 3rd guitarist to ever make the jazz orchestra in their second semester. In her Junior year, she won the Talent Award for Jazz, and she is currently nearing completion of her degree.

Although Roxanne has a top-notch educational pedigree, she has also earned valuable experience performing in bands at a young age. Before she could even legally enter bars, Roxanne found herself playing lead guitar in the Livin’ Loving Maids - a Led Zeppelin tribute band – due to the recommendation of her long-time guitar instructor. She has continued performing around the area as part of the funk group Filthy McNasty and the jazz trio Rose Room. 

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LISTENING TO

Cheryl Lynn - Got to be Real
St. Vincent - Cruel
Led Zeppelin - Ten Years Gone
Harry Styles - As it Was
Stevie Wonder - Knocks Me Off My Feet

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Stephen Filer

Cello - Violin - Viola - Piano

Stephen Filer is a proficient string player who has excelled performing in classical, rock, and folk settings. A Cellist since age 11, Stephen spent his childhood steeped in the music of Bach and his baroque contemporaries. It wasn’t long before he formed his own classical trio whereby he played weddings, brunches, and banquet halls throughout his high school career. He went on to study Cello at Anne Arundel Community College and performed in the school’s symphony orchestra under the direction of Anna Binneweg. He is currently a Music Minor at UMBC, where he performs with several chamber ensembles and continues to polish his skills under the close instruction of his mentor Gita Ladd.

In addition to his classical experience, Stephen has earned acclaim playing in various bands in the Baltimore area. He co-founded the folk rock group Big Hoax, in which he pioneered playing standing, strap-up, electric cello, while simultaneously singing harmony vocals and kicking a bass drum. Stephen has helped Big Hoax record two albums and play festivals from as far south as Nashville to as far north as Ottawa. In addition, the band have been interviewed by WRNR Annapolis and WRUR Rochester, and they earned an honorable mention in NPR’s 2015 Tiny Desk Concert Contest.

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Stephen contributes his vast and diverse experience to The Music Space by helping aspiring string players learn creative and technical skills on Cello, Violin, and Viola. 

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Listening To

Eugene Cicero - Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott
Jethro Tull - Bourée
Franz Liszt - Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen
YoyoMa, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer - Fugue No. 18 in E Minor, BWV 548
Kurtag - Gottes Zeit Ist Die Allerbeste

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