Meet our
co-founders

Anne McKee is a violinist and Suzuki instructor based in central Maine. At Pineland Suzuki School, she has a studio of all ages and serves as Assistant Artistic Director and Director of Capital Strings. She is also on faculty at Bay Chamber Music School and New England Suzuki Institute. 

Anne has received Suzuki training from Terry Durbin, Laurie Scott, Ann Montzka-Smelser, and Mark Mutter, and string pedagogy training from Rictor Noren. Her teaching is also heavily informed by her own experience growing up as a student at Pineland Suzuki School! She started violin lessons at age 4 with Betsy Kobayashi, attended New England Suzuki Institute for ten summers, and played with Capital Strings under Steve Kecskemethy. 

In addition to her teaching, she is an active performer around New England as a member of the Bangor Symphony, principal second violinist of Colby Symphony, and concertmaster of the Augusta Symphony. She is especially passionate about chamber music and enjoys putting together performances with colleagues between Maine and Boston, including recent collaborations with Music From Salem, Halcyon Quartet, and Vibrant Matter Collective. 

Anne holds a Master of Music degree from Boston Conservatory and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College. Some of her musical accolades include first prize in the Judith Elser Concerto Competition, featured soloist with Salem Philharmonic & Augusta Symphony, second prize at Peter E. Tannenwald Young Artist Competition, and finalist in Boston Conservatory’s all-school concerto competition. Her long-term teachers include Betsy Kobayashi, Lydia Forbes, Eva Gruesser, and Katie Lansdale. Additionally, Anne has taken masterclasses with Sergiu Schwartz, Alexi Kenney, Grigory Kalinovsky, and Joseph Lin, as well with the Ying, Jupiter, Lydian, and Ariel quartets. She has enjoyed performing at Bowdoin International Music Festival, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Music From Salem, Fivesparks Music Festival, and the International Portoheli Festival in Greece. 

Outside of music, Anne enjoys running marathons, spending time with her cat, cross-country skiing, and watching Studio Ghibli movies. Learn more about Anne at anneamckee.com.

Lori Scheck teaches violin lessons and group classes at Pineland Suzuki School and is an assistant organizer of Capital Strings. She is also a faculty member at Elm City Community Music School.

Lori has completed Suzuki teacher training at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut, the New England Suzuki Institute in Waterville, Maine, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. She has a particular interest in fostering young violinists and educating parents about the Suzuki method, including how to become effective and successful practice partners for their children. She is a former long-time board member of the Maine Suzuki Association and organized the MSA Fall Festival for many years. Lori is also a certified Music Together teacher. 

Lori serves as Education Director, Orchestra Manager, and mentor for the Kennebec Valley Youth Symphony Orchestras. She is also one of the founding educators of the Pineland Crescendo Suzuki Tour Group, a collaborative outreach project of Pineland Suzuki School that brings young Suzuki string students from Maine, Massachusetts, and New Jersey together through music, cultural exchange, and a shared commitment to artistic excellence and peace.

Outside of music, Lori enjoys crafting, creating vintage-inspired décor, and spending time with her dog.

Barbara Paschke studied at Ithaca College and also earned Master’s in Music Performance from New England Conservatory. She has studied with many Suzuki cello teachers including Gilda Barston and Rick Mooney. Barbara and her husband David are both long time cellists with the Portland Symphony, commuting many years from Stow, MA. In Stow she maintained a studio of over 40 students ranging in age from 3 to 80. In 2019, they moved to Poland Maine. She has led the cello groups at the Maine Suzuki Festival in both 2022 and 2023. She joined the Pineland Suzuki School in 2023, where she teaches newly recruited beginners and coaches a more advanced chamber group. Barbara is hoping to add more cellists to the strong string training program in Central Maine. Building a warm and inspiring rapport with her students, her approach is a positive, playful approach to learning good technique and helping students to find a new voice with their music.

As long as she can remember Maisie Newell has played the fiddle! Her musical experiences have run the gamut from playing in a bicycling circus band touring through Greece to playing in the orchestra for the World Ballet in Charlotte N.C. She studied the Suzuki method with Betsy Kobayashi at Pineland Suzuki School's beginnings and then went on to study at University of Southern Maine and the Hayes Conservatory in N.C. Maisie lives in Montville with her husband and kids. She farms and teaches. She especially still loves playing with her family (and friends and students) for contradances.

Deirdre Wood Becher is a fiddler and step dancer transplanted from California to Maine. She doesn't remember when she didn't play the violin and is from a big family of fiddlers / violinists. The small violins she played as a kid have now passed through 11 fiddling relatives! 

Deirdre’s earliest musical memories include practicing “Up like a rocket” in her Suzuki group class and noticing the fancy sparkly red shoes that the girl next to her was wearing!  As well as learning classical violin, Deirdre's family became immersed in the Irish and Scottish music world. She and her siblings attended fiddle camps every summer where they learned from the top Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton fiddlers and dancers. Their love and dedication to music and dance evolved into a family fiddle and dance band, Celtic Spring.  Celtic Spring brought her lots of really cool opportunities like traveling all over the States, and to Europe and Australia to perform at festivals, schools, and theaters and their band was featured on TV including Good Morning America, the Today Show, and America's Got Talent, in which they placed in the top five of Season One. These opportunities were shnazzy but what most speaks to Deirdre about music is its beauty.  Some of the most deep moments of her life have been playing tunes out in nature at fiddle camps where the beauty, connection, and joy was transcendent -  that is what keeps her excited to share fiddle and dance with the next generation! 

In California, Deirdre ran a fiddle and dance school and two of Deirdre's fiddle students competed at the Scottish Fiddle Nationals and both won first in the Junior competition.  In 2019, Deirdre, with her husband and kids, relocated to Maine and were thrilled to discover the wonderful music culture of Maine and to join PSS both as a Pineland Suzuki parent and as a teacher. For the last few years, Deirdre has been teaching step dance and fiddle to the Pineland Fiddlers as well as the Music Mind Games and Movement to the youngest PSS students. 

Deirdre's hobbies include being in nature, gardening, thrifting/ antiqueing, collecting and reading good children's literature, and creating of all sorts. Deirdre is so happy for the opportunity to share the joy, beauty and connection that music and dance offer with PSS!

Brendan Wilson started playing piano at the age of 5, with a focus on classical-style playing. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from the University of Vermont. Brendan has worked in various venues as a music specialist and accompanist for camp and school Broadway shows.

He has worked on a variety of music projects that involve music collaboration, improvisation and choral arrangements that have recently been performed. He teaches piano and taiko Japanese drumming in various places around the Kennebec County area. He has released a couple of improvisational piano albums and serves as the piano accompanist and assistant to the Pineland Suzuki program since 2017. Some of his favorite pieces include La Folia, Czardas, Veracini Gigue, Vivaldi A minor Concerto, and the Bach Double Concerto.

Brendan hopes to continue with his accompaniment and expand on coaching opportunities and potentially, a little Suzuki piano - just to see what it’s like. On his off days, Brendan likes to take walks on sunny days, create and edit YouTube videos, and has an interest in health, finance and entrepreneurship.

Katie began to play violin in the school orchestra in 3rd grade - the shiny instrument and the chance to make music with friends caught her attention right away.  A few years later she started lessons with a Suzuki teacher in Wisconsin, her home state.  Neither of her parents are musically oriented, so it was a surprise to everyone that she could make that violin sing!  Katie continued with classical music until the beginning of college and then took a big break until her daughter began taking Suzuki and fiddle lessons with Ellen Gawler.  At that moment, her love for the instrument was re-ignited at the chance to learn a new style of playing - fiddle! Taking fiddle lessons from Ellen became her new favorite hobby and she loved learning along with her daughter. Her 5 year old son is learning too, and together with her husband Miles who plays many instruments, they make up the Kirby Family Band and play for family events as well as the occasional farmers market.  

Katie currently teaches 8 Suzuki students in Yarmouth after completing her Book 1 training at the New England Suzuki Institute in 2026 with Ed Sprunger.  She continues to study Irish fiddling with Liz Knowles in Portland and delights in every chance she gets to play her beloved violin/fiddle, at home, church or at local Irish sessions.  In addition to playing the violin, and making music with her family, Katie loves to sing, read, and bake sourdough bread.  She is also a special education teacher by training — substitute teaching in the local schools as well as tutoring.  She is looking forward to a very fun year teaching Music Mind Games at Pineland Suzuki School.