Caleb Broeker

For those of us acquainted with music lessons, the recital is an event full of pride, joy, and excitement. In many cases, it’s a celebration – a showcase of the fruits of your months and years of practice, of your relationship with your instructor, of what you’ve accomplished and how you’ve grown. However, it can also be a source of some anxiety – How much did you really practice? Are you as good as your instructor’s other pupils? Recitals can cause these questions to swirl around our heads, which in addition to the feat of performing a piece of music while in front of an audience, can make for a somewhat stressful experience.

Gary Lee Plays Viola da Gamba on Faculty Concert


written by Caleb Broeker



A bit of classical music history will be heard at the Community Music School’s Faculty Concert on April 1st. One of our faculty members, Gary Lee, will be performing a piece with his viola da gamba.

The viola da gamba, a bowed string instrument which varies in size and range depending on the specific kind (not unlike the difference between a violin and a violoncello), originates from the vihuela di arco brought from Spain to Italy in the 1400’s. Gary Lee’s bass viola da gamba has a few key differences from a modern cello, his usual instrument. For one, there are six to seven strings, rather than just four.

The strings used are also different - gut strings, as opposed to metal strings. Even the tuning of the instrument is different; Gary Lee compares its tuning to a guitar, with the six to seven strings being tuned mostly in fourths, and one third in the middle.

Lee will be playing “Sonata for Viola da Gamba in D Major” by Bach, accompanied by Vera Parkin on a keyboard emulating a harpsichord. Gary’s passion for the viola da gamba was actually sparked when, in his freshman year of college, his cello professor performed another Bach piece - “St. John Passion”, which features a beautiful aria for the viola da gamba. After being immensely moved by this performance, he made the viol his secondary instrument, and was pleasantly surprised to find that many concepts from playing the cello carried over to the viola da gamba.

We are incredibly excited that Gary Lee will be bringing not only his skill and passion for music, but also a piece of classical music history, to our Faculty Concert!

This is a project I did to create content for the Community Music School of Webster University's social media pages. First, I collected qualitative data from all the staff via email, creating an easy-to-use digital survey to improve response rate. Then, I compiled the data into an organized Excel spreadsheet. Finally, I designed the graphic content of the posts and wrote the captions based on faculty responses.

I came up with and then coordinated a project to collect qualitative data from students graduating from the Community Music School of Webster University's Prep program (using the Remind Me platform) about their love of music and experiences in their education. I then organized this data, wrote appropriate captions for social media, and designed posts for multiple platforms to celebrate the graduating students on CMS's social media pages.

I wrote press releases, designed social media posts, and wrote blurbs for the winners of the Community Music School of Webster University's Young Composer Competition. The press releases were nationally released and the social media posts were viewed by CMS's thousands of Facebook followers. I have included a fraction of what I wrote and designed for brevity.