About Us
Castle Hill String Quartet
13
Meet our musicians
Haley Dietz
Violin
Haley Dietz, a native of State College, PA, is a classically trained violinist whose passions include both teaching and performing. Haley began studying the violin at age 5, after being inspired by a girl playing the violin on Sesame Street. In May 2018 she graduated from the University of Maryland where she received her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance under the instruction of Irina Muresanu. Haley currently studies with Will Fedkenheuer of the Miro Quartet. Haley is an active chamber musician and is currently a member of the Central Texas Philharmonic Quartet, the resident string quartet of the Central Texas Philharmonic. She also performs with various ensembles throughout the greater Austin and Texas areas. Haley has performed in chamber music masterclasses with members from the St. Lawerence String Quartet, Guarneri Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, Quartuor Danel, and the Elias Quartet.Haley has participated in numerous summer programs across the country. This includes, National Orchestral Institute, Round Top Festival, Brevard Music Center, and California Summer Music Program. In addition to performing, Haley has a passion for teaching. She holds positions with Austin Soundwaves and Westlake High School where she strives to create a learning environment that is both structured and engaging and believes that personal betterment is equally as important as musical achievement. Haley’s ultimate goal in all her teaching is to instill a lifelong love of music in her students. Outside of music you can find Haley spending time with her rescue pup, hiking various trails in the Austin area, and enjoying great food in the city.
Abi Bellorín
Violin
Music is a joyful personal practice and the art through which I teach, collaborate, and build community. Growing up, I loved playing trios with my Grandparents and cousins in the Hudson Valley on a visit, working on duets with my brother, and joining family sing-a-longs on beach trips.As a pre-college student at NEC in Boston, I noticed my love of teaching for the first time in an assistant role in the Project STEP program, inspired to see students at the pre-k level engage in music and movement classes for the first time. I went on to spend my undergraduate years in the Hudson Valley. I continued to gravitate towards teaching, I learned to listen deeply and create community on the Residence Life staff, and I studied and performed chamber music as frequently as I could.In 2013, ready to deeply focus in my own musical practice, I moved to the California to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to advance my playing. Surrounded by nature, chilly fog, delicious coffee, and inspiring teachers and colleagues, I became a founding member of the Amaranth Quartet. The ensemble toured, performed, recorded, led workshops, and collaborated with composers for five transformative years. Amaranth Quartet was featured on the Kronos Quartet Festival 2017 at SF Jazz, was in residence at the Banff Centre, and collaborated with young composers to bring countless new works to life.Since 2015, I have been a core member of San Francisco’s unconducted chamber orchestra, One Found Sound. The unique ensemble brings the magic of chamber music to enthusiastic audiences in unique and immersive concert experiences. Each time that I participate in a week of rehearsals and performance, it feels like going home. I worked as a teaching artist at the Flying Carpet Festival in Mardin, Turkey in 2018, performing and leading workshops with artists from around the globe.I started calling Austin home in 2018, joyful to join the city’s vibrant community of teachers, creatives, and collaborators. I am on faculty at Suzuki Strings of Austin, teaching a violin/viola studio and co-leading group classes of all levels. I’m thrilled to be a co-founder and performer with Austin Unconducted, an ensemble that is unconfined, unafraid, and unapologetically Austin.In a lifelong effort to find balance, when my violin case is closed, I can be spotted going for a run, making another French press of coffee, or off on a camping adventure with my husband Luis.
Karl Mitze
Viola
Karl Mitze received his Master’s in Viola Performance from the University of Maryland where he studied with Daniel Foster. Originally from Dade City, a sleepy Central-Florida town, he received his Bachelor’s of Music from the McDuffie Center for Strings in Macon, Georgia. He enjoys performing music of all genres from folk to jazz and is an active collaborator across many genres both on the concert stage and in the recording studio. His concert travels have allowed him to perform in many amazing places, including Carnegie Hall, Haydn Concert Hall in Esterházy Palace, the New World Center, and some beautiful beach in the Florida Keys. In addition to performing on the viola and mandolin, Karl enjoys song-writing and composing often professionally but always for fun. As a founding member of Invoke, he sings, composes original music, and performs on a variety of instruments. Recent accolades include First Prize of the Open Category of the M Prize in Ann Arbor, Michigan and First Prize at the Coltman Competition in Austin, Texas. With Invoke he was also selected as member of the Young Professional String Quartet at the University of Texas at Austin (2016-18) where he studied with the indomitable John Largess and the Miró String Quartet. He continues to live in Austin, Texas where he spends his free time hiking throughout Central Texas, playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends, and feeding his dog, Max, table scraps.
Geoff Manyin
Cello
Geoff of Invoke was the Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016-2018. Since being selected as Interlochen’s Emerging Artists Quartet in 2014, the group has been a featured artist and on faculty at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp. The group also participated in the Emerging String Quartet Program at Stanford, and was an Artist in Residence at Strathmore and the Fellowship String Quartet at Wintergreen Performing Arts. In 2018, Invoke was named a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition in New York, NY, received First Prize at the M-Prize International Chamber Arts competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received First Prize in the Coltman Competition in Austin, Texas. More importantly, Geoff is passionate about scrumptious vegan food, always searching for Austin’s best tacos, Thai, or tofu scramble. Don’t forget about good drink too – just be sure to think twice before asking him about mezcal or whisk(e)y. An avid videogamer, you’ll often find him enjoying a role-playing game, a story-rich one-off, or whatever may strike his fancy that month. Sometimes though, all he needs to be happy is a stroll through a local park on a crisp afternoon, a great Netflix show, or a nice chat with an old friend.
