Bassoonist, Monica Schwartz moved to Vermont from Maryland in 2019. Since then she has performed with the Vermont Symphony, the Valley Winds, the Windham Philharmonic, and ensembles at Dartmouth College. A Washington DC native, she attended the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University earning three bachelors of music in Bassoon Performance, Music Education, and Music Composition, and two masters degrees in Music Education and Music Composition. She was on the faculty of the Peabody Preparatory for Bassoon and Music Theory instruction for ten years. She was also an award winning public school band and orchestra director in Howard County Maryland for twelve years. Monica also founded the Gallery Winds Chamber Music camp for talented youth which continues to this day in Ellicott City, MD. She operated Orchard Music Studios for over a decade, a facility that housed her bassoon studio of 25-30 bassoonists and ran regular master classes with distinguished artists such as Frank Morelli, Sue Heineman, Lynn Hileman, Ryan Romine, and others. Many of Monica’s bassoon students have gone on to wonderful careers in music on full scholarship to schools such as Curtis, Yale, Oberlin, Ithaca, Peabody and other fine schools. Also an active performer, Monica was principal of the Columbia Orchestra for many years, and performed the as soloist with them on the Haydn Concertante. With wind quintets being a passion in particular for Monica, she founded many chamber groups in the Washington area and performed recitals regularly with different chamber ensembles over the past twenty years on established concert series. Monica’s principal bassoon teachers include Linda Harwell (National Symphony while at Peabody) and Barrick Stees (Cleveland Orchestra while at Interlochen). As a composer, Monica’s compositions have been played widely locally and abroad, her chamber opera about Lilith; “Wings of Fire” was produced by the Peabody Opera department. Monica’s main composition teachers were Thomas Benjamin, Mark Lanz Weiser, Nicholas Maw, Joel Puckett and Morris Cotel. Since moving to Vermont, Monica has enjoyed raising a flock of egg laying chickens, eating and cooking local food, becoming a certified yoga and meditation instructor and exploring nature with her two boys. She also has two rescued animals: a distinguished old pug of 17 years name Miles (Davis) and a portly cat the kids named Peaches.