Winds/Strings

Jessica Prus Harris – Flute, Piano

Jessica has studied flute and piano privately since she was in middle school. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Flute Performance from Northwestern University and the University of Louisville. She also recently completed her Master of Music Education degree at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. Jessica performs on flute and piccolo with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. Jessica has been teaching piano and flute for the Stafford Music Academy since 2008.

Mary Allen-Lynch – Flute, Piano

Mary Allen-Lynch has an extensive background of over 40 years in music education and music performance. Having taught piano, flute, voice lessons as well as Music History at Culver Academies, a college preparatory boarding school in Northern Indiana for over twenty years, she brings a wealth of teaching and performing experience to her current students at Stafford Music Academy. Her teaching philosophy has always been that of an artist-teacher as well as being student centered. She believes wholeheartedly in meeting students where they are in terms of individual learning styles and their personal goals for studying music.  Mary Allen-Lynch holds a Bachelor of General Studies from Indiana University with a focus on Music, Folklore and German. She also holds a Masters in Music and Arts Technology from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She is a seasoned professional and has played the piano for 56 years since the age of 6. She studied privately with Purden Lausten and Thomas Lawston in her early years of piano. In addition to piano, Mary Allen-Lynch began studying flute at the age of 10. She continues performing on both flute and piccolo in the Bloomington Community Band and the Bloomington Community Band Flute Choir. She was also very active in teaching, coaching and performing with the Music Theater program at Culver Academies. In 2012 she traveled with and coached a student theater group’s musical production during performances at The Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland. In addition to teaching at Culver Academies, she has also maintained a private teaching studio working with both children and adults of all ages throughout her professional life. In addition, she has worked extensively as a musician within various worship traditions and spaces, playing piano, organ, flute and as a song leader.  Locally, she currently sings in the soprano section of the choir at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington as well as accompanying the choir at Beth Shalom on occasion.  Mary Allen-Lynch believes in using a variety of methods, techniques and technology to help students learn and grow as musicians. In addition, including elements of music theory as a natural part of early learning as appropriate is dear to her heart! She has accompanied extensively and enjoys working with and supporting soloists. Another part of Mary’s musical life is volunteering locally with music and memory sessions, utilizing the power of music within the brain to positively impact the lives of those with dementia and Alzheimer’s as well as their families and caregivers. She currently volunteers at Better Day Club and and in Gentry Park’s memory care residence. Mary Allen-Lynch has traveled and lived abroad for long periods of time, including Malaysia and Japan. She counts her years of living in many diverse cultures as a hugely formative factor in her education. She teaches music so that others may find their voice in many ways and enjoy the many benefits that music lessons and education bring to the quality of life.

Joseph Ittoop – Clarinet

North Carolina native Joseph Ittoop is finishing up his MM in Vocal Performance at IU and will be pursuing a Doctorate in Vocal Performance with a minor in Collaborative Piano at JSoM. Mr Ittoop holds an undergraduate degree from UNC School of the Arts in Winston Salem, NC and has gone on to perform opera and oratorio in the US and in Europe before coming to IU.

Past engagements include Alfredo Germont (La Traviata), B.F. Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Rodolfo (La Boheme), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Ferrando (Cosi Fan Tutte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Gonzalve (L’Heure Espagnol), Fritz (L’amico Fritz), and Lenski (Eugene Onegin). Past concert appearances include soloist in Britten’s Saint Nicolas Mass and Rejoice in the Lamb, J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass, Magnificat, and Weihnacts-Oratorium, Beethoven Mass in C and Choral Fantasy, Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass, Händel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Theresienmesse and Die Schöpfung, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Paulus, Mozart’s Requiem and Great Mass in C Minor, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. This past summer, Joseph was part of a European choir tour at both St Paul’s Cathedral London and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In addition to singing, Mr. Ittoop plays clarinet, classical and jazz piano, saxophone, arranges and composes.

Anoushka Divekar – Clarinet

Anoushka Divekar (she/her/hers) is a first-generation American who remembers coming home to hearing her mom singing Hindustani Classical Music, as her dad played Tabla. Her love for music was early and nurtured well. She started clarinet at the age of 10, after two years of learning violin and piano. While she developed a love for performing, and a great fondness for the teachers who had supported her endeavors, she’d tell her mom that her music was “wrong” upon coming home. However, she was so taken by the art form that she therefore began study at the University of Colorado Boulder in Clarinet Performance and Music Education. Throughout her degree, she noticed many inequities in the school system, leading her to question the way she was taught, and her cognitive dissonance about her own Indian heritage.

Anoushka also grew to acknowledge the many privileges she held, which allowed her to pursue her passions. Performing many recitals and concerts led her to realize that the works of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ people, and women were consistently left out of the music that she played, and the faces she saw in her schools. Throughout her undergraduate, she was part of CU Boulder’s Diverse Musicians’ Alliance, a group that sought to normalize and amplify all voices in the realm of music making. She is a part of the clarinetrepertoire.com team, continuing Dr. Maggie Greenwood’s dissertation of cataloguing a database of clarinet works written by people with a range of gender identities in an effort for them to be played on more clarinet recitals. This led her to creating the Take Two Knees concert, and pledging to play works by all kinds of composers on her programs.

Anoushka currently attends Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in pursuit of a Doctor of Music, with a Doctoral Minor in Music Education. Anoushka graduated with her Bachelors degree in Music Education and Clarinet Performance in May 2020 from the University of Colorado Boulder. She graduated with her Master’s degree from Texas Tech University in May 2022. Her primary teachers are Professor Gábor Varga, Dr. David Shea, Professor Daniel Silver, and Dr. Christine Bellomy. She has attended Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Eastern Music Festival, and Rocky Ridge Music Festival, and has performed most recently with CU, TTU, and IUs top ensembles. She serves as principal clarinet in the virtual Dad Village Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, she won first prize in the International Clarinet Association’s Clareidoscope Festival Collegiate Category Essay Competition and Performance Competition in April of 2021.

Anoushka looks forward to a future of performing and teaching. Anoushka is a classroom and private teacher and has now become adept at teaching both in person, and online. She is passionate about social justice, and restorative justice education and feels compelled to use music as a vehicle to make change.

Sean Burdette – Trumpet, Trombone

Sean Burdette is a trumpeter, educator, and entrepreneur based in Bloomington, Indiana.. Primarily a classical performer, Sean is also proficient at jazz and baroque styles. He holds an a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University (2021). As an active performer, he has played with the West Virginia Symphony, Bourbon Baroque Orchestra, and Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, and has performed with prominent artists such as Joshua Bell and Nicole Parker. While at Indiana University, he was a student of John Rommel, Edmund Cord, Marie Speziale, and Kris Kwapis. In 2019, Dr. Burdette published a series of method books titled "Brass in Color," that uses an innovative, color-coded tablature to teach young students how to play brass instruments. Brass in Color was a Finalist in the 2019 Music Teacher Awards for Excellence in London. In addition to being a performer and educator, he founded Songburd Music Publishing - an independent music publishing company that provides publishing services for new composers.

Havuka Lund – Violin

Olivia Hunt, Cello

Cellist Olivia Hunt is currently pursuing a performer’s diploma at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as a student of Eric Kim. Raised outside of Atlanta, she began her musical studies at the age of nine. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and Master’s of Music from Indiana University. She has performed with festivals around the world including the Aspen Music Festival, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, National Music Festival, Montecito International Music Festival, and the Brancaleoni International Music Festival. She frequently plays with various orchestras in the midwest including the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and Owensboro Symphony.