Staff & Board of Salt Bay Chamberfest

Wilhelmina Smith, Founder, Artistic & Executive Director
Miriam Fogel, General Manager
Grace Owens, Production Manager

Board of Directors

Paul Weislogel, President
Sarah Fisher, Secretary
Vivian Brodsky
Ben Harris
Elizabeth Lipton
Penelope Mardoian
Diana Morris
Sarah Peskin
Russ Zajtchuk

Wilhelmina Smith, Founder, Artistic & Executive Director

Cellist Wilhelmina Smith is the recipient of a 2015–16 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Performing Musicians. She made her solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra while a student at the Curtis Institute of Music and in 1997 was a prizewinner in the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition. She has gone on to solo with orchestras including the Orquesta Millenium of Guatemala and the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and has performed recitals across the U.S. and Japan. A strong supporter of new music, she has worked frequently with composers such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, with whom she collaborated to perform his cello concerto, Mania, and gave the American premiere of his solo cello work, knock, breathe, shine. Her recording of solo cello works by Salonen and Kaija Saariaho was released in 2019 by Ondine.

As a chamber musician, Ms. Smith has performed with Paul Tortelier, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Pamela Frank, Dawn Upshaw, and Benita Valente; and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Brentano, Miami, Borromeo, and Galimir string quartets. She has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society, and is a founding member of Music from Copland House. In 2005, she formed the Variation String Trio with violinist Jennifer Koh and violist Hsin-Yun Huang, a group that has performed across the US and Europe.

Ms. Smith’s solo CD of sonatas by Britten and Schnittke with pianist Thomas Sauer was released on the Arabesque label in 2006. Her recordings of chamber music include the complete chamber works of Aaron Copland, and works by Sebastian Currier, John Musto, and Aaron Jay Kernis. wilhelminasmith.com

Miriam Fogel, General Manager

Miriam Fogel joined the Salt Bay Chamberfest as General Manager in early 2017. In addition, she is also Project Manager for the Menuhin Competition Richmond 2020. She has extensive experience working with music festivals, including Aspen Music Festival (CO), Spoleto Festival dei 2 mondi (Umbria, Italy), Stresa Festival (Lombardy, Italy), Brevard Music Center (NC), and the Mostly Mozart Festival (NY), in addition to Salt Bay Chamberfest for two prior summers (in 2012 and 2016). In addition to festivals, she focuses on orchestra management, and worked for the New World Symphony (Miami, FL), Richmond Symphony (VA), The Knights (Brooklyn, NY), and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, Italy). Miriam grew up in New York City and graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in music.

Grace Owens, Production Manager

This is Grace Owens’ first summer at SBC, and we’re delighted to have her! Yay Grace.

Paul Weislogel, President
Bristol, ME

Paul Weislogel and his wife, Judy, bought their farmhouse in Bristol in 1995 as a vacation home and finally retired here in 2007. Paul’s career in New York entailed negotiating and maintaining journal-publishing agreements with major medical societies, and the acquisition of new ventures for the publishing houses of Elsevier Science and Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott. After earning degrees in biomedical sciences research from Iowa State and Princeton, he taught chemistry and biochemistry at the U.S. Naval Academy. He subsequently conducted post-doctoral research at the Medical School of the University of Amsterdam and later, in this country, was the principal investigator for a National Cancer Institute research contract. A member of the vestry of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Paul sings with its choir and previously with Tapestry Singers. In addition, he serves on the board of Heartwood Theater. The non-gardening months allow for frequent trips back to New York, where Paul and Judy are patrons of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Sarah Fisher, Secretary
Damariscotta, ME

Sarah Fisher recently retired as Head of Painting Conservation at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. where she also worked as Senior Painting Conservator. Previously she held positions at the Balboa Art Conservation Center in San Diego, California, the Intermuseum Laboratory in Oberlin, Ohio and at the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich, Switzerland. Following a B.A. in art history from Wellesley College, she was apprenticeship-trained in Europe, first in Florence, then in Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg, Zurich, Amsterdam and Brussels, the latter on a Fulbright Fellowship at the Royal Institute for Artistic Patrimony. She has published and lectured in her field and has traveled extensively to Europe and Japan to assure the safe handling and shipment of paintings on loan for exhibition abroad. She has steadily volunteered for the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) serving as a board member, head of the Membership Committee, and as the project guide and a contributing author for the publication of the AIC Painting Specialty Group’s catalog.
Sarah lives in Damariscotta with her husband, Derek.

Vivian Brodsky
Washington, D.C. & South Bristol, ME

Vivian Brodsky has been involved in the visual arts as a docent at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Design for the last 20 years where she served for a term as Docent Chair and as docent at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for 7 years. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and receiving her Masters in Social Work from NYU she worked as a social worker for 30 years – mainly in school social work. Among other social work positions she served as the Director of Senior Services for Northern Westchester Jewish Community Services. For several years she was on the faculties of Fordham University and Catholic University where she taught and supervised graduate students. She has served on various Boards including the Mt Kisco Day Care Board and her Condo Board for 9 years. Originally a Philadelphian, she and her husband Marc raised 2 children in Westchester County, NY and for the last 21 years they have lived in Washington, DC and South Bristol, Maine.

Ben Harris

Ben Harris is a Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. A native of Dallas, Texas, he has a B.A. from Hampshire College, where he first encountered Wilhelmina Smith (riding her tricycle) and her family. He taught at Vassar, Bowdoin, and in the University of Wisconsin system before coming to UNH, where he teaches the history of psychology and psychiatry. He and his wife Rebecca Mitchell have been season ticket holders at Lyric Opera of Chicago since 1987 and were founders of its Lighthouse Chapter (SE Wisconsin). They have spent summers at their cottage in Pemaquid, Maine for the last 30 years.

Elizabeth Lubetkin Lipton
New York City, NY & Pemaquid, ME

Elizabeth Lubetkin Lipton is a native and current New Yorker, and has spent the last 30 summers in Maine, 21 of them on Riverview Road in Pemaquid. She received her Master of Social Work from the Columbia School of Social Work, and worked for over 23 years in various administrative and executive positions in the New York City and State Government. She also worked as the Deputy Director of Labor Relations at Time Inc. Since leaving government service, she received training and still practices as a labor arbitrator and mediator.

Elizabeth currently serves on a number of boards. She is the Vice President for Development for the Women’s City Club of New York, and previously was its President and Vice President for Public Policy. She has also served as co-chair of the Goddard Riverside Community Center’s Musical Evenings Concert Series for the last 25 years, which raises funds through five chamber music concerts a year performed in private homes. Distinguished musician performers featured in the Concert Series have included Jeremy Denk, Romie de Guise-Langlois, Fred Sherry and Mina Smith.

Penelope Mardoian
New Canaan, CT & South Bristol, ME

Penelope Mardoian grew up in Ramsey, New Jersey, attended Hood College in Frederick, Maryland and graduated with a BA in music in 1962. She married right out of college and was a general music teacher and choral director at Overbrook Regional High School in Lindenwold, New Jersey for five years. She and her husband moved to Connecticut in 1967 and she began teaching private piano lessons and retired after 44 years. She was president of the Schubert Club of Fairfield County and the New Canaan Beautification League. She was also chairman of the Young Musician’s Festival which provided for pianists and other musicians to be evaluated in a non-competitive setting for nine years. Currently, she is a life member of AAUW and on the Music Ministry Team of the New Canaan Congregational Church. Her outside interests include going to concerts at the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall. She has been a summer resident of South Bristol for over 60 years.

Diana Morris
Baltimore, MD

Diana Morris is the director of Open Society Institute-Baltimore, the sole field office of the Open Society Foundations in the United States. The office supports efforts to reform policies that prevent residents from participating fully in the civic, economic, and social life of the region. While a significant portion of the work relates to state policy, the office looks to the Baltimore community to identify needs, demonstrate effective approaches and measure impact, given the city’s demographics and importance to the state.  Diana also directs Open Places, an Open Society Foundations initiative that is making long-term investments in Buffalo, San Diego, and Puerto Rico.

Previously, Diana was the director of the Blaustein Philanthropic Group and a program officer at the Ford Foundation, working on refugee and migrant rights globally and on social justice issues in Eastern and Southern Africa. She began her career as Attorney-Adviser for Human Rights and Refugee Matters in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State. Diana holds an A.B. from Smith College and a J.D. from Boston University, and is a member of the New York State Bar.

In Baltimore, Diana currently serves on the board of Health Care for the Homeless and is a member of the Police Commissioner’s Advisory Council and the Baltimore City Department of Health Local Health Improvement Council.

Sarah Peskin
Brookline, MA & Walpole, ME

Sarah Peskin grew up in a musical household in Princeton, New Jersey, and particularly enjoys her role as an enthusiastic audience member. She retired from the National Park Service in 2009 after a 30-year career that included heading the organization’s planning and legislative office for the North Atlantic Region. She also spearheaded planning of the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park, and managed the design and planning of Harbor Park Pavilion on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. While serving as planning director for the Lowell (Massachusetts) Historic Preservation Commission, she was active in the development of that city’s Mogan Cultural Center, Boarding House Park, and Park Trolley System. She is a director of the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, and recently prepared the successful proposal for nomination of the Frances Perkins Homestead as a National Historic Landmark. She also serves on the board of Friends of Fairsted, the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. A graduate of Smith College, Sarah holds an M.A. in Urban Planning from New York University and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. She lives with her husband Dr. William Kelley in Walpole, Maine, and Brookline, Massachusetts.

Russ Zajtchuk

Russ Zajtchuk trained as a cardiovascular surgeon at the University of Chicago, joined the US Army in 1970, and is a Vietnam veteran. He held numerous academic, administrative, and command positions over his 28-year career, including the Chairman and Training Program Director of Cardiac Surgery at both the Walter Reed Army and the Naval Medical Center.

He served as Commanding General of Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, TX from 1991–93, later retiring from the Army in 1998 as Commanding General of the Army Medical Research and Logistics Command in Frederick, MD. He then worked at Rush University Medical Center as Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology and International Health.

Dr. Zajtchuk received numerous awards for service and valor in the Army as well as honors from foreign governments. Among these honors are membership in the Russian Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Russian Military Medical Academy, a medical training institution founded by Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Russ and his wife, Joan, became “summer people” in 2003 and reside at their cottage at Pemaquid Point. They have always been interested in the arts and support arts institutions in Chicago. Joan is on the Board of the Ryan Opera Center, a young artist opera training program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Joan and Russ have sponsored several of their artists. Russ is a Life Member of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine Council.

Russ is a dedicated Rostropovich Vishnevskaya Foundation Board of Directors member since 1997. “Slava” Rostropovich was a personal friend. This Foundation provides immunization and health assistance to children worldwide.