Marinus Ensemble | Come. Listen. | Inspiring Chamber Music, Innovative Programming | Board of Directors

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Board of Directors

Walter Sommers

President

Walt Sommers has spent his entire career in the investment business and is currently employed by Piper Jaffray & Co., a Minneapolis based New York Stock Exchange member. He enjoys classical music and has been a season ticket holder for the “Visiting Orchestra Series” from its inception to the time the series ended. Walt believes the Curtis recital and orchestral programs are the best musical values in Philadelphia and is a regular attendee.

He has lived in Chestnut Hill with his wife for the past 35 years, having been born in Illinois and moved to the area after college. He graduated from the Johns Hopkins University and received an M.B.A. from Columbia University in the city of New York.

Thomas Harmon

Thom is a fundraising professional with over 14 years of experience, mostly in the field of academic healthcare. Thom began his career at Penn Medicine before spending the majority of his career in various leadership roles at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Thom is currently the Director of Leadership Gifts at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, part of the Temple University Health System.

Erin Nolan

Secretary

Erin Nolan currently works at NPR’s From the Top, America’s largest national platform celebrating young classically-trained musicians ages 8-18. She has worked in a variety of roles at From the Top, including as Music Director, but currently holds the immensely fulfilling role of managing the scholarship program, which awards twenty scholarships a year to talented and inspiring young musicians with financial need.

Erin received the majority of her training as a musician in Europe, having grown up in Italy and England. Although she traveled to the States for university studies, as a performer, Erin worked primarily as a chamber and orchestral musician in London, England, having performed and toured extensively as a violist in the English Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Erin trained with the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Cleveland String Quartets, and in 2004, performed in four Carnegie Hall performances with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project.

Erin’s love of joining other musicians, whether through classical music, prayer, or traditional music of other cultures, has led to her performing with diverse groups throughout Europe and the USA, as well as in Lebanon, Panama, Bosnia, and Croatia.

Rachel Kuipers Yonan

Creative Director

A lover of chamber music, Rachel co-founded the Marinus Ensemble with her brother, cellist Joseph Kuipers. Praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “perfectly balanced”, Marinus is a passionate group of artists, dedicated to engaging audiences through interactive performance of great music. They have performed for such series as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Curtis Presents, and WRTI Performance Studio. Integrating her interest in music and philosophy, Rachel is a Visiting Scholar at Jesus College, University of Cambridge where her scholarship focuses on the role of music in personal formation and flourishing. She received funding for this project through Duke University as the inaugural McDonald Agape Fellow in Theology and Music. Beyond her own innovative work with Marinus, Rachel has been invited to perform at prestigious festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Open Chamber Music Prussia Cove, Festival Mozaic and Taos Music Festival. Ms. Yonan has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Roberto Díaz, Joseph Silverstein, James Dunham and Robert Levin; joined the Dover and Escher Quartets for chamber concerts; and worked extensively with Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley and Edgar Meyer.

Ms. Yonan is a graduate of both the Curtis Institute of Music and Rice University. Beyond music, she loves gardening with her husband and son, reading the literature of Byatt, Berry and Greene, and traveling to out-of-the-way places.