Rachel Baer
PMA Head Strings Director/Cello Instructor
From a very young age, Rachel Baer was instilled with a love for music. She began taking piano lessons at the age of 5 and would continue for 12 years straight- later adding cello, guitar, singing, and songwriting.
Rachel first discovered her love for teaching by assisting her own music teachers as well as volunteering at summer music camps.
Classically trained, she graduated from Master Musicians School of Music and has been certified in the Mark O’Conner Method of teaching. She is a member of the South Carolina Music Educators Association and helps prepare students for Region & Allstate Orchestra.
She has played in multiple orchestras, weddings, church events, and studio recordings, and has participated in many recitals and scholarship competitions, receiving a Superior performance four years in a row.
Rachel is passionate about helping encourage each of her students to not only learn and appreciate all types of music, but to reach their goals of becoming the musicians they hope to be.
Caleb Baer
Violin/Viola Instructor / Strings Director
Caleb Baer started playing music at age five and settled on the violin at seven. He continued classical violin training into high school, as well as picking up other instruments along the way such as the mandolin and guitar. He enjoyed participating in orchestra, bands, and chamber music in high school, which led to his decision to pursue music full time in college.
Caleb has a degree in music from Morningstar University and a Certification in the O’Connor Violin Method from Gardner-Webb University.
Caleb currently teaches music students at Piedmont Music Academy, Cramerton Christian Academy, The Fine Arts Academy of Belmont, and Acorn Acres String Camps, as well as teaching privately in the Charlotte, NC area.
He is dedicated to helping students find the same enjoyment for music that he has!
Hannah Bledsoe
Violin Instructor
She plays weekly in multiple church worship bands and performs at weddings, parties, and concerts, as well as the occasional street performance, in a duo with her brother, a cellist. She regularly performs with the Gardner Webb University orchestra and as a guest musician with the Western Piedmont Symphony and the Rutherford County Symphony.
Melinda Boyle
Violin Instructor
Melinda is a musician, mom to musicians and a teacher of musicians of all ages! Though she has played violin since age 10, she started singing and playing the piano well before then. As a nurturing teacher, her goal is to give her students a solid foundation of holistic musicality and then expose them to a world of music genres, including western classical and American bluegrass, as well as sounds from across the Atlantic. She shapes each lesson to fit her students’ learning styles and will either find music to play or create it for them. As a perennial learner, she is currently taking lessons on the Erhu, the Chinese 2 string violin.
She teaches locally, in Columbia, and also online, where she has students from all over the world.
She holds Master’s degrees in worship studies and ethnomusicology, specializing in world fiddle styles. You will find her performing all over South Carolina in church orchestras, weddings or special events, and worship bands.
When she is not practicing, performing or teaching, she likes to be around water—paddling a kayak across a lake, swimming in a pool, or flying across the ocean to another land to hear their music.
Martha Murray
Violin Instructor
(Information coming soon!)