Institute Faculty
Alyssa Beckmann (RYT RCYT) is the Founder and Director of the Kansas City Suzuki Academy and Institute. Ms. Beckmann holds degrees from Vanderbilt (BM), and Boston Universities (MM), in Viola and Violin Performance and completed post-graduate studies in viola with Bruno Giuranna in Lugano, Switzerland at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. She was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center for three summers, where she worked closely with members of the Juilliard, Takacs and Guarneri String Quartets and has performed and presented at the International Viola Congress.
Ms. Beckmann has served on the faculty of the American Suzuki Institute, the Colorado Suzuki Institute, the Ithaca Suzuki Institute, Point CounterPoint, and the Heartland Chamber Music Festival. She has presented at the American Viola Society International Congress, and Suzuki Association of the Americas Conferences. She was raised a Suzuki student and has been an active teacher for the last two decades, studying with many teacher trainers including her mother Julia Hardie, William Preucil, Teri Einfeldt and Carol Smith. She was the Upper Strings Coordinator of the Greenwich Suzuki Academy, where she taught violin, viola and chamber music for many years. Ms. Beckmann is a frequent substitute with the Kansas City Symphony. In her spare time, she enjoys teaching yoga and spending time with her cellist husband Matt Beckmann and their two children. Alyssa is a registered Yoga Teacher and Children’s Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance.
Dr. Julia Hardie is a Suzuki Association of the Americas viola teacher trainer. Julia was the founder and director of the Central Texas String Academy in Waco, Texas for forty years. Her background includes a DMA in Viola from the University of Iowa under William, Preucil, Sr. and study with violists, Bruno Giuranna and Paul Doktor. Julia has served on the faculties of NM St. U. and Baylor U, as conductor of the Waco Youth Orchestra, and is past president of the North Texas Suzuki Association. Julia served as principal and assistant principal violist of the Waco Symphony for forty years. She often presentsat workshops where she is an advocate for starting viola study at an early age, and she teaches at Suzuki Institutes throughout the country.
Dr. Nicholas Hardie teaches cello, chamber music, and advanced performance techniques at the Greenwich Suzuki Academy, which he directs hand in hand with his wife, Heather.
An avid chamber musician, Nick was a founding member of the Satori Quartet with whom he held a residency at the University of Colorado at Boulder and an apprenticeship with the world-renown Takacs Quartet. He has also been heavily influenced by both current and former members of the Juilliard Quartet with whom he worked extensively, including mentorship through the exclusive Juilliard String Quartet Seminar and multiple years attending Kneisel Hall. His wide range of professional chamber music engagements have included the Aspen Music Festival’s Winter Chamber Music Series, the Marsh Chapel Cantata Series regularly broadcast on WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, and faculty chamber concerts at Boston University and Peabody Conservatory. He has also soloed with orchestras across the country, from Connecticut to Minnesota to Texas, and performs locally as principal cellist of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony.
Nicholas Hardie holds a Doctorate in cello performance from Boston University, a Master of Music degree from Peabody Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music from Baylor University. A dedicated and passionate teacher, Nick has previously served on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory’s Preparatory Department, and has taught for Manhattan School of Music Precollege division as a long-term substitute. He has taught for the David Einfeldt Chamber Music Seminar, and the Baylor University intensive String Quartet Seminar. He has also been hired to assist the cello sections of Dartmouth College and the Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore, and held a graduate assistantship, conducting and teaching both graduate and undergraduate cellists at Boston University through the Orchestral Program. He attended the Juilliard Quartet Seminar, Takacs Quartet Seminar, Kent Blossom Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival through Yale, Round Top Festival Institute, and spent three wonderful summers at Kneisel Hall.
Beth Titterington has been involved in the Suzuki Method since the autumn of 1972 when she first heard the Japanese Talent Education Tour Group. She has studied with many people in the Talent Education field including, most importantly, Dr. Suzuki. She traveled to the American Suzuki Institute in the summer of 1973 to study the Method. She went back each summer thanks to the encouragement of the director, Margery Aber. Mrs. Titterington is currently a Violin Teacher Trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas and served on the SAA Board of Directors from 2006-2009. She founded an SAA regional affiliate, the Heart of America Suzuki Association, in 1979. From 1975 to the present, she has taught at hundreds of Suzuki Institutes and Workshops in the United States, Canada and in England. She received her M.M. from the University of Missouri ( KC) Conservatory in 1977 and then studied the baroque violin with Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin and Michaela Comberti in London. Mrs. Titterington has been adjunct faculty at both the University of Missouri (KC) Conservatory and the University of Kansas. She continues to maintain her private studio, Kansas City Talent Education. As a baroque violinist and gambist, she and her husband John directed the Kansas City Period Orchestra for 20 years. She continues to enjoy teaching children to play the violin and training new Suzuki teachers ………..both of them equally!
Patti Leddy, Zumba & Yoga
At the age of four, Patti started taking classes in creative movement and has been “creatively moving” ever since. She attended tap, jazz and ballet classes until college when she became a member of her university’s dance company. A career in education kept her busy teaching high school Speech, Drama, English and Journalism, but she continued to keep moving taking various aerobics and dance classes when possible.
She received her Zumba license in 2006 training with the Zumba creator Beto Perez. Shortly after that, she became licensed to teach Zumba Kids and Zumba Kids Jr. She is an ACE and AFAA Certified Group Exercise Instructor and 200-hr registered yoga teacher. She currently provides Zumba Kids programs at elementary schools and teaches yoga in early childhood, elementary and middle schools. At least once a week, you will find her traveling around Kansas City presenting her themed kids yoga programs in many branches of the Mid-Continent Public Library System. She also teaches adult Zumba, Zumba Gold and Zumba Toning classes.
Mia Kelso is a recognized classical violinist in addition to a multiple state and national fiddle champion. Mia grew up in Lorena, Texas and began studying Suzuki violin at age 6.
In her high school years, Mia was accepted to the Texas All-State Symphony three times and won the Waco Youth Symphony Concerto Competition. In 2011, Mia was featured on the classical radio show From the Top which features the top young classical musicians in the nation.
During high school, Mia won the Texas State Junior Fiddle Championship, the Colorado State Junior Fiddle Championship, the Western Open Fiddle Championship, the National Junior Fiddle Championship, and at age 19, won the Grand National Fiddle Championship, becoming the youngest female to ever do so. In 2017, Mia won the Grand Master Fiddle Championship and subsequently made her Grand Ole Opry debut in September of 2018.
Mia has performed and soloed with many ensembles around the country including the National Repertory Orchestra as a section player and soloist, the American Institute of Musical Studies Orchestra, the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra, and the Round Top Festival Institute Orchestra as concertmaster. Mia is also a substitute violinist with America’s Orchestral Academy, the New World Symphony.
When Mia graduated from Baylor University’s music program, she also retired as the three-year concertmaster of the Baylor Symphony Orchestra , and was awarded the Presser Undergraduate Award, an award given by music faculty to the top music student guided solely by consideration of excellence and merit. Additionally, she won the Baylor University’s school-wide solo competition, Pro Semper Musica, and performed on the winner’s recital on the SMU campus in Dallas.
In May of 2018, Mia graduated with a Masters Degree from Indiana University with Kevork Mardirossian and is now teaching her own Violin/Fiddle studio which has produced two National Champion Fiddlers. Mia also regularly performs with the with the Dallas Symphony and Abilene Philharmonic.