Carrie Salisbury is the creator of StringsPop, a unique online teen summer camp and monthly workshops, with a support network and training for innovative string teachers. She is a studio musician and private violin and viola teacher based in Los Angeles. Her students perform regularly as Crescendo Strings, a multi-level violin and viola group. Her advanced teen students form First Inversion, a premiere ensemble known for creating and performing their own arrangements. You can follow her students’ projects on Instagram at @stringspop. Carrie currently serves as President of the Suzuki Music Association of California – Los Angeles Branch. She is the parent to three young Suzuki string students with husband and collaborator, Ben Salisbury.
Get to know Carrie’s approach to music lessons through this studio documentary and meet her family in their 2020 Video greeting card, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”
StringsPop teacher Megan Mason is a violist, composer and music educator based in Virginia. Her innovative style of arranging and love of playful learning created the driving force behind “Viola Band” – an interactive improvisatory performing group at the Gifted School of Music in Salt Lake City, Utah. Megan holds the positions of Assistant Professor and Head of Chamber Music at Southern Virginia University, as well as Orchestra Coordinator for the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute. Megan’s creative superpowers include crafting innovative textures and unique approaches to pop tunes that go way beyond the printed score.
Growing up, StringsPop teacher Benjamin Salisbury spent way more time “goofing around” on the piano instead of practicing the classical repertoire assigned by his private instructors. He eventually learned how to bumble [elegantly!] his way through full recitals of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms while completing graduate studies at the USC Thornton School of Music. But he credits those endless hours as a teen in the ’90s banging away at every pop song he could play by ear for galvanizing his love of music across genres and across the ages. Ben loves to nerd about music technology and is a self-diagnosed synesthete who sees and hears music in color.