Upbeat Colorado

Priscilla Arasaki holds a bachelor degree in Music Studies from the Butler School of Music at
the University of Texas at Austin and a masters degree in Music Education from the
University of Colorado Boulder. She began playing piano at the age of 4 at the Yamaha
Music School in Albuquerque, New Mexico and violin at the age of 10 with Strelsa Burks in
Austin, Texas. During her time at the University of Texas she studied with Dr. Eugene
Gratovich and while she was a CU Boulder she studied with Hurumi Rhodes. She has
received teacher training certification through the Suzuki Association of the Americas with
Christie Felsing, Susan Baer, Ed Kreitman, and Mark Mutter.
Priscilla has had experience teaching a wide range of students in a variety of settings. She
has taught Orchestra, Mariachi and music elective courses at the middle school and high
school level in public schools. She has also maintained a private studio throughout her
teaching career, primarily using the Suzuki method. She then had the opportunity to teach
at the university level when she taught the String Tech and String Pedagogy courses at CU
Boulder as a graduate level TA.
Priscilla’s background is very unique in that she is considered a “nikkei”. In other words,
Priscilla is of Japanese descent, but ethnically influenced by Peruvian culture. Her parents
are both Japanese, but grew up in Peru, and so both cultures a large part of Priscilla’s
upbringing. For this reason, her first language was Spanish and grew up speaking and
hearing that language regularly.
This background has heavily influenced Priscilla’s teaching and performance. She enjoys
working with students that come from minority and underrepresented communities. As she
had similar struggles navigating a system so different than one her parents grew up with.
She also performs with Las Dahlias, an all-female group that performs primarily mariachi
repertoire.
Today, Priscilla teaches at Sunset Middle School in the St. Vrain Valley School District. She
primarily teaches Orchestra, but has also grown the mariachi program at Sunset and has
helped start mariachi programs at three schools, with two more programs starting in the
next school year.

Dianne has performed, recorded and toured extensively with a number of orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony and, as principal cellist, the Shreveport (Louisiana) Symphony. She has also performed with a number of chamber ensembles including the award-winning Lark Quartet of New York, the Apollo Quartet (Pittsburgh) and the Honolulu Symphony String Quartet. As a composer, Dianne has been published by MMB Music, and her works have been performed by such groups as the Lafayette Quartet, the National Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Amarillo Chamber Orchestra and the Utah Symphony, among others.  Dianne is also the founder and former director of Denver Eclectic Concerts, now know as DAS-Eclectic (at Bauers Restaurant and Listening Lounge). She is currently on the faculty of Rocky Ridge Music Academy of Denver.

Sarah Biber has played the cello and viola da gamba across the United States, Australia, and China. She studied the cello at Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Rejto, and then at the Sydney Conservatorium with Georg Pederson, where she performed in the Opera House with the Sydney Symphony and as a member of the Sydney Sinfonia, the training orchestra of the Symphony. After returning from Australia, she founded, directed, and taught the string orchestra program at KIPP DC: AIM Academy, a charter school in the Anacostia neighborhood of DC, at the time, grades 5-8. Sarah received her last degree, a Doctorate of Musical Arts in cello performance, at Stony Brook under renowned cellist Colin Carr.   From 2010 to 2011, she was an assistant professor of cello performance and pedagogy at Montana State University, teaching music theory and string pedagogy to future music educators and founded Second Strings, an orchestra based in DC of adult amateur string players and Hill Harmony, an organization providing string classes and instruments to public schools in SE DC.  Since 2015 Sarah has lived, performed, and taught in Colorado.  She lives in Golden with her partner Keith Bradley, their two daughters, three cats and a parakeet named birdie.

Carol Rankin studied at the Mannes College of Music and received her Master of Music degree with distinction, and Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her primary teachers were Nadia Reisenberg, Leonard Shure, and Edith Oppens. She has also coached with Eugene Lehner, Blanche Honegger Moyse, Gilbert Kalish, Richard Goode, Gyorgy Sebok, Thomas LaRatta, and Richard Becker. Additional studies in piano and chamber music were at Kneisel Hall, Aspen Music Festival, and Tanglewood’s Chamber Music Fellowship Program for Pianists. As winner of the Frank Huntington Beebe Award for Musicians, she received a grant for one year’s study at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet, Hungary. She has studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics at the Longy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is currently pursuing teacher certification at the Dalcroze School of the Rockies in Denver.Ms. Rankin has been on the faculty of the South Shore Conservatory of Music, the Washington Conservatory of Music, and at the College of William and Mary. She has also taught at New England Conservatory, Regis University in Denver, Kinhaven (a summer chamber music program for young people,) and as a chamber music coach for the Denver Young Artists Orchestra. She maintains a private studio in Denver.Ms. Rankin has performed throughout the United States and in Hungary as a chamber musician, accompanist and soloist. She has appeared in live performances on Hartford television and WNYC radio. She has been a soloist with the Little Orchestra Society of New York, the Hartford Symphony, the Connecticut Symphony, the Susquehanna Symphony, the Mannes College Orchestra, The Lone Tree Symphony Orchestra, and others. In Denver she collaborates frequently with singers and members of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. She has premiered works of living composers such as Peter Pindar Stearns, Shulamit Ran, and Virginia Samuel.In 2001, with an assisting grant from Bread For the Journey, Ms Rankin founded Upbeat Colorado, a Colorado based 501(c) 3 non profit. Upbeat Colorado brings outreach concerts into schools, daycare centers, hospitals, retirement homes, churches, coffee houses, and other places in the community. In 2015 Upbeat Colorado added to its mission of outreach by providing scholarships for music lessons to students from low income families to receive high quality music education. Ms Rankin is also a co-founder of El Sistema Colorado in Denver.

Adrianna Abarca is a Denver native and a graduate of North High School and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the co-owner of Denver-based Ready Foods, a national supplier of prepared foods for the Food Service Industry. Ms. Abarca is on the Board of the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado. She is a member of the Latino Audience Alliance Committee of the Denver Art Museum, and the “El Movimiento” Committee of History Colorado. She is also a strong supporter of the Museo de las Americas and the Mexican Cultural Center. Ms. Abarca administers the Abarca Collection of Mexican and Chicano art. Additionally, she works closely with and contributes to numerous non-profits throughout Colorado.

For over thirty years, Mike Green has provided training and consultation to organizations throughout North America and internationally. Through community organizing and community development he has helped them to engage their local communities as partners, addressing issues around children, health, economy and environment, to create stronger, more welcoming local communities. Mike has been a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute with Northwestern University for 25 years.

After being “on the road” for many years, Mike came home to work in Colorado, using the skills and experience he’s gained to contribute to community change and community innovation with the Denver Foundation.

Mike was the training director of the ABCD Institute’s Neighborhood Circle for four years. This was a learning partnership of twenty community organizations across North America, formed to explore “what works’” for community building. With Henry Moore, John McKnight, and Jody Kretzmann, Mike founded the ABCD Training Group in 1997, which offered training, consultation, and workshops for over ten years. Mike Green, Henry Moore and John O’Brien have published a book and DVD about ABCD implementation for successful community partnerships: “When People Care Enough To Act: ABCD In Action” (published by Inclusion Press, Toronto, 2007.) The book is about community partnerships that work with residents at the center.

Mike Green grew up in a small Texas town and has lived in Denver for many years. He is most importantly married to Carol Rankin, the founder of Upbeat Colorado, and has one grown child, Annie. Mike’s present framework for practice came from three key life experience areas: community organizing, social work and business. He has community organizing experience developing neighborhood resident organizations, congregation based organizations, and community partnerships among neighborhoods and agencies to address social and economic issues. Mike had the opportunity to work in Denver for Metropolitan Organizations for People, now known as Together Colorado, two times from 1984 to 1988.

Mike has also worked in business having started three different successful companies, He has experience in business development, marketing, organizational development, and management. Mike was a licensed clinical social worker (L.C.S.W.) for 20 years and worked as a family therapist. Mike has worked as a social worker in human services, public welfare, mental health and schools. Mike helped start one of the first charter schools in Colorado, P.S. 1.

A key question often asked in Mike’s work is  “How can helping agencies, local government, and schools shift from offering “service to clients” towards offering both services AND support for “citizen action?”  He believes it takes both good programs and organized community members to solve most community problems today.

Much of Mike’s work is about the question of building more inclusive welcoming communities: How do marginalized clients move to being valued, contributing members of the community?  Mike’s inclusion work has a focus on two related issues: organizing local residents in everyday life for inclusion of more isolated people; and helping service provider agencies get organized to support these local community groups in their work for community inclusion. Mike’s daughter, Annie, is a person with cognitive disabilities who inspires his work.

Mike wants to contribute in Colorado working on the necessities of a good life that only more organized local communities can achieve: health, safety, a good environment, stronger local economy, well being of children and families, access to the arts and affordable food.

All families and children need the opportunity for art and music in their lives. Mike feels that Upbeat Colorado is so important because it recognizes that beautiful music and high quality music education must be available to all people.

SoYoung Lee, Executive/Music Director at Rocky Ridge Music Center, received her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She has held director positions at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory Adult Education & Preparatory Department, Millikin University Preparatory Division, and the Boulder Arts Academy & Boulder Ballet.  A strong believer in the concept of artist as entrepreneur, she cofounded two organizations: Colorado-based AirTurn, a company dedicated to empowering musicians through technology; and Notes at 9,000 at Winter Park, a multi-genre music competition that launches emerging musicians by providing concert opportunities, funding, and mentoring. She is passionate about building community through the arts, and serves currently as a trustee on the board of Boulder County Arts Alliance and as a member of the Estes Arts Presents Task Force. An award-winning pianist and a Regents scholar, SoYoung is a recipient of the Ernő Dohnányi Piano Prize and the Gwendolyn Koldofsky Accompanying Fellowship at University of Southern California.  She recently released a CD In This World with flutist Claudia Anderson. Equally at home as a teacher, she served on the music faculty at Millikin University and State University of New York, Fredonia, and was a visiting Piano Pedagogy faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  SoYoung enjoys her multi-faceted career as a performing artist, administrator, teacher, producer, and arts advocate.

Benita was born in Cerro, New Mexico, and grew up in Denver, Colorado.She was first employed by the Denver District Attorney’s in 2000 as the Community Justice Advocate. Throughout her years of community advocacy, Benita has developed deep-rooted relationships throughout Denver neighborhoods, due to her prior work and connection with the Denver Latino community. She has been instrumental in engaging minority residents to participate in strategies to address public safety and quality of life issues affecting their communities.For over twenty years Benita has done event planning for community, health, social and fundraising events, such as Globeville Community Days,the Mexican Consulate Convention, National Hispanic Scholarship Fund Ski Fiesta, Senior Health Fair Centro Bienestar, and Latinas Honoring Latinas.Benita retired in 2011 from the Denver District Attorney’s office and immediately was hired by The Denver Foundation to implement The Aurora Time Bank Program. Henceforth she has become the Aurora Time Bank Program Coordinator with 2040 Partners for Health. She is also one of the co-founders of the Latina Safehouse Initiative.Benita is the recipient of the Latinas Honoring Latinas Community Advocate Award and the City of Denver Mayor’s Diversity Award.Benita came from a family that valued music, and grew up playing the violin.She would like to see all children have that same opportunity: to have music in their lives.