Artistic Advisors
Dr. Beth Cantrell, Music Advisor
Elizabeth Roberts, Music Advisor
Boomie Pedersen, Theatre Advisor
John A. Hancock, Visual Arts Advisor
Dr. Elizabeth Cantrell, “Dr. Beth,” is a Resident Artist at Crozet Arts. She teaches cellists of all ages throughout the US and the UK. She is very active with the Suzuki Association of the Americas, which reaches from Alaska to Patagonia, as a Registered Teacher Trainer, and as former Chair of its governing board. She has taught children and adults at Suzuki Institutes and workshops throughout the United States and abroad for over 30 years.
Locally, Dr. Beth maintains an active private studio at Crozet Arts. She performs as principal cellist of the Waynesboro Symphony, is a member of the Afton String Quartet, and plays regularly with groups throughout the region. She was, for many years, principal cellist for the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and was on the faculty of Kennesaw State University and Mary Baldwin University.
Dr. Cantrell earned degrees in cello performance and music history from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia. Prior to moving to Virginia with her family in 2001, she was principal cellist for the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and was on the faculty of Kennesaw State University. She was active in the Atlanta area for 18 years as a teacher, chamber and orchestral performer, adjudicator, and recording studio musician.
Elizabeth Roberts, Music Advisor
Elizabeth Roberts, Principal Bassoon and Outreach Coordinator of the Charlottesville & UniversitySymphony Orchestra, also serves as Principal Bassoon of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Roberts joined the music performance faculty in the McIntire Department of Music at theUniversity of Virginia in 2001. She is the bassoonist with the Albemarle Ensemble, UVA’s resident faculty woodwind quintet. She freelances on bassoon and contrabassoon with orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and the Richmond Symphony. She has performed as a soloist with the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra, the Harid Conservatory Orchestra, the Waynesboro Orchestraand at the 2010 International Double Reed Society Conference. Ms. Roberts is an adjunct faculty member at Lynchburg College and in the Adult Degree Program at Mary Baldwin College. She teaches bassoon, reedmaking and chamber music in the Charlottesville area.
A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Ms. Roberts holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois. She taught kindergarten for two years in suburban Chicago, then began pursuing her dream of becoming a professional musician. She earned a Professional Studies Diploma and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Harid Conservatory, where she studied with Arthur Weisberg and received the Award for Outstanding Musical Performance; and a Master of Music Performance degree at the University of Southern California, where she studied with Stephen Maxym. During her second year at USC she was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda, was selected to be a Presidential Fellow, and was awarded the Dean’s Special Commendation. Ms. Roberts has completed additional studies on bassoon with Frank Morelli and Nancy Goeres, and on contrabassoon with Lew Lipnik.
As a student, Ms. Roberts held fellowships at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (CT) and at the Aspen Music Festival (CO) where she served as principal bassoonist of the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra at Aspen for three summers. She has participated in the master class program at the Banff Music Centre where, during the summer of 2008, she was selected to perform chamber music with faculty members Richard Killmer, James Campbell, Frøydis Ree Wekre and Frank Morelli. Ms. Roberts has performed and taught at the Wintergreen Performing Arts Festival (VA), Beyond the Notes (UVA), Music Mind and Reading (NC) and at the Cascade Festival of Music (OR). She currently serves as the Music Advisor for Crozet Arts, and was nominated for the 2008 Virginia Governor’s Award for the Arts.
Ms. Roberts has given world premiere performances of works by Arthur Weisberg, Bernard Rands, Gary Schocker, and Walter Ross. She also gave the Virginia premiere of a recently discovered concerto for bassoon by Gioacchino Rossini.
Boomie Pedersen, Theatre Advisor & Instructor
Boomie Pedersen was born and raised in New York City and was for many years a professional-track scholarship student with the Joffrey Ballet. She gave up the dance to attend Princeton University, where she eventually majored in English and Theater and won the Frances LeMoyne Paige Prize at graduation for both theater and dance. She spent 10 years on and off in Tokyo, Japan, where she did professional voice-over work, ran Tokyo Theater for Children, was actor, director and board member for Tokyo International Players and wrote several commissioned pieces for Earth Day and other special events. She also taught English at several Tokyo colleges and worked with a group using drama to teach language skills, as well as doing a stint at Temple University as a theater teacher. Next came a brief 18 months in Los Angeles, where she was involved in the Asian Theater Lab and acted in the premiere performance of Widescreen Version of the World by Han Ong, as well as working with the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival. When she relocated to Charlottesville in 1995, Boomie became involved at Live Arts both as an actor (Scrooge, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Assassins, Edward the II, Copenhagen, Noises Off, Old Times) and a director (Three Tall Women, Buried Child, Play About the Baby, The Underpants, Glengarry Glen Ross). She also worked with the Nelson County Drama Foundation and mounted an outdoor production of Earl Hamner’s The Conflict at Mountain Cove Vineyard in 1998 and 1999. She has worked with Offstage Theater, Four County Players, Piedmont Virginia Community College, UVA’s Drama Department, Heritage Rep and Wintergreen Performing Arts. She taught theater at Renaissance School in Charlottesville for four years, served as an adjunct theater teacher at the Governor’s School in Fishersville and was adjunct professor of Acting and Directing at Randolph College in Lynchburg. Boomie lives in Crozet with three of her six children, a husband/theater collaborator and several cats and dogs. She has been Co-Artistic Director of the Hamner Theater with Peter Coy since the theater opened in 2005 and has directed and produced over a dozen productions there. She served as Artistic Director for the Earl Hamner Playwrights Conference (now the Virginia Playwrights’ Initiative) in 2006 and 2007 and continues in that capacity for the Virginia Playwrights and Screenwriters Initiative. She recently saw her long-time vision of theater collaboration come to fruition with the founding of the Central Virginia Theatre Alliance (CVTA) of which the Hamner is a founding member. Boomie recently completed her MFA in Pedagogy and Performance at VCU.
John A. Hancock, Visual Arts Advisor
John A. Hancock has over 30 years’ experience teaching a broad range of painting, watercolor, drawing, and design to adults, college students, and teens. As an artist, he has exhibited his work in competitive exhibitions and solo shows around the country and in England. To see his art and read more, please visit his website: www.johnahancock.com.