SPONSORING TEACHERS

Amy Likar

Amy Likar began her career as a flutist and became fascinated with performance health and wellness through her own recovery from stress-related injuries. She has since integrated her expertise in Alexander Technique and Body Mapping into her flute teaching, chamber music coaching, and master class teaching. By developing students’ physical ease, presence, and confidence, she helps them reach their musical potential.

As the Director of Training for the Association for Body Mapping Education, Amy Likar has trained, licensed and mentored over 40 professionals. These educators are now teaching in their own private studios and in institutions such as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Amsterdam Conservatoire, Columbus State University, and Oberlin Conservatory.

Likar serves on the faculty at Saint Mary’s College of California as instructor of flute and is a teaching artist mentor for the Oakland Symphony’s award-winning Music for Excellence program. With a focus on supporting and building community and music learning for diverse student populations, Amy’s teaching integrates musical learning with whole body awareness.

A member of the Oakland Symphony, Amy has also performed as a freelance musician with Opera Parallèle, West Edge Opera, the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet. Highlights of her performance career include a critically acclaimed premiere of Martin Rokeach’s Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra, in addition to the premieres of solo and chamber works by Valerie Coleman, Michael Stephens, Donald Sloan and Daniel Felsenfeld.

As a guest artist, Likar presents recitals, workshops and masterclasses. Residencies often integrate workshops for students and faculty across music, dance and theater departments.

She is a Verne Q. Powell Performing Artist and available for custom clinics and residencies.

Janet Alcorn

Janet was an opera and concert singer from 1960-1990, always involved in vocal health and rehabilitation. She took several Alexander Technique workshops with Barbara and Bill Conable.

Her primary focus is teaching “What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body,”™ including an expanded 15-hour workshop for Choral Conductors given in late June for license renewal credit. She has given several WES workshops of various lengths for NATS chapters around the country. As Associate Professor Emerita on the music faculty of Iowa State University, she continues to teach Body Mapping as an integral part of her voice teaching. Janet has also taught the “What Every Musician” course at flute conferences and to the music faculty of ISU. She continues to work with individual musicians. Janet is also one of ABME’s Sponsoring Teachers.

Stephen Caplan

Dr. Stephen Caplan is Professor of Oboe at the University of Nevada Las Vegas as well as Principal Oboist of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Sierra Winds, and is an Artist for the Buffet Group. His solo recording, A Tree In Your Ear, features a wide variety of musical styles, including a performance with frogs and coyotes! Caplan has also worked with many of classical music’s leading musicians, such as violinists Hilary Hahn and Itzhak Perlman and singers Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. On the Las Vegas Strip, he has enjoyed accompanying superstars Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Roger Daltry, Gladys Knight, Vanessa Williams, and many others.

Initially attracted to Body Mapping in order to make oboe playing easier, Dr. Caplan now teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses on Body Mapping and Music Wellness at UNLV, as well as offering private instruction. He is excited to see how Body Mapping makes performance easier for all musicians, and many of his students have used Body Mapping techniques to overcome severe injury as well. In the summer, Dr. Caplan escapes the desert heat to teach in the Italian Alps at the Orfeo Music Festival.

Bridget Jankowski

In 1998, Bridget Jankowski was the first person to become a Licensed Body Mapping Educator after logging more than 150 hours of training with noted Alexander Technique teacher and Body Mapping pioneer Barbara Conable. Bridget is an original member of the Association for Body Mapping Education’s Board of Directors and currently serves the organization as co-chair of the Image Committee, as a member of the Training Committee and Sponsoring Teacher, and most recently was hired to serve as their Executive Director.

Bridget has taught Body Mapping courses and workshops in a variety of settings across the United States as well as online to international audiences. She is the author of the newly revised What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body, and Body Mapping for Music Ministers (GIA). She is also the founder of the Choral Mapping Program, an online Body Mapping curriculum for choirs.

In complement to her Body Mapping work, she is the full-time Director of Music at St. Matthew Parish in Akron, Ohio where she is the principal musician and directs two choirs. She maintains a small private piano and Body Mapping studio and is a sought-after accompanist in the Northeast Ohio area, working with individual soloists, high school choirs and community theaters.

Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer Johnson, professional violinist, is an internationally sought-after Master Teacher/Teacher Trainer in Body Mapping and is renowned for her expertise in helping musicians to move according to the design of their bodies to prevent playing injuries and promote ease. She has presented for the New York Philharmonic’s Zarin Mehta Program and was a keynote speaker at AUSTA, Brisbane 2015 Conference. Jennifer was a featured guest of Juilliard’s Noa Kageyama on the Bulletproof Musician podcast in October 2019. She was invited to teach Body Mapping at the Starling-Delay Violin Symposium at Juilliard in May 2023 and is a regular guest speaker for Nathan Cole’s online studio.

Jennifer has written three books on Body Mapping for musicians including What Every Violinist Needs to Know About the Body and is presently making a documentary about Body Mapping’s Founder, Barbara Conable. Jennifer is Lead for musicians’ health for Canada’s Music and Health Research Institute, based in Ottawa, Canada.

Melissa Malde

Melissa taught voice and vocal pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado for 22 years. Though she is now the Associate Dean of the College of Performing and Visual arts, she is still an active performer. She has sung with numerous national and international organizations, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony, the Bad Reichenhall Orchestra, Vancouver Opera, Opera Colorado, Kentucky Opera, and the Colorado Music Festival.

Melissa won a German Academic Exchange grant to study in Germany. Prizes include the Kulturforum Gesangwettbewerb (Munich), the Concerto Competition (Cincinnati), the Brice-Gooter Award (NATSAA), and the Sudler Award and the Farwell award (Chicago).

Melissa is a frequent clinician on Body Mapping. She has presented at the Conference of the West Central Region of NATS, the Conference of National Pastoral Musicians, the Multidisciplinary Conference on the Rehabilitation of the Performing Voice, the International Conference on the Arts and Humanities and the National Conference of the College Music Society.

Lisa Ann Marsh

Lisa Marsh is a member of the adjunct piano faculty at Portland State University. As Director of the Coordinate Movement Program for Pianists at Portland State University, she specializes in retraining injured pianists. Her additional background in somatic education includes 19 years as a Registered Nurse in the fields of Neurosurgery and Emergency Medicine, 8 years of piano technique study at the Taubman Institute of Piano, and 5 years of study of the Alexander Technique and Body Mapping with Barbara Conable. She is also a Body Mapping Educator Sponsoring Teacher.

Ms. Marsh is former Principal Keyboard with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and pianist with the Onyx Chamber Ensemble and the Marsh- Titterington Piano Duo.