As co-founder and co-director of Around Hear, Marji Gere wears many hats, including program designer, performer, teacher, grant writer, webmaster, and ambassador. She feels grateful to be able to spend her time making fun, free, welcoming classical music experiences happen for all kinds of people in her neighborhood.
Marji discovered her love of chamber music in college, thanks to coachings with the Maia Quartet and summer camp sessions at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music (NH). Since then, she has dedicated herself to chamber playing and has helped found various ensembles, including the Boston Public Quartet and the Red Hedgehog Trio. As violinist with Around Hear, she loves playing all kinds of repertoire with friends, old and new.
As a teacher, Marji leads the Around Hear all-ages violin class and maintains a home studio. She has also taught with the Charlestown Working Theater and musiConnects, and has led workshops for New England Arts for Literacy and Habla Center for Language and Culture (MX). In the spring of 2026, she took on the directorship of Musical Pathways: a youth outreach initiative of Electric Earth Concert Series (NH).
Marji has long sought connections between her loves of music, words, and art. Among her multimedia projects, she has created puppetry and dramatic works for Around Hear, including this favorite one from 2019. She has also co-created a puppet musical with An Exciting Event, which toured to San Francisco, New York City, and Boston, and works of toy theater with Great Small Works which are being been presented in venues all along the East Coast. In recent years, she has turned her creative attention toward fiction, and is slowly but surely finishing her first book: an adventure novel in which the characters frequently break into song (composed by Dan Sedgwick).
Daughter and sister of musicians, and graduate of the musically-rich public school system of Davenport, Iowa, Marji received Bachelor's degrees in Music & English from the University of Iowa. In 2002, she fledged the nest to serve as fellow of the US State Department’s Cyprus-America Scholarship Program; guided by artists and educators in the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, she investigated the roles of the arts in conflict resolution on the partitioned island. Following this international experience, she earned a Master's in Education from Harvard University.
Marji has received recognition for her community-based approach to music from the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust, the St. Botolph Club Foundation of Boston, and the Somerville Arts Council.
Dan Sedgwick is a pianist, composer, and teacher with wide-ranging musical interests and a special devotion to instrumental and vocal chamber music. As a co-founder & co-director of Around Hear, he works alongside Marji Gere to develop artistic and educational programming, perform at community events, teach weekly keyboard classes, and build support for the organization’s diverse activities.
Dan holds a doctorate in composition from Rice University, as well as an A.B. from Harvard University, where he
later served as a teaching assistant in music theory, composition, keyboard skills, and acoustics. His creative portfolio includes a Sonata for Violin and Piano, an album of xenharmonic rounds with An Exciting Event, collaborations with spoken-word artist Tamara Plummer, and an in-progress song cycle featuring text by Marji Gere. As a pianist, he has performed for chamber music series across New England and beyond, including the Roosevelt Island Chamber Music Society (NY), Scrag Mountain Music (VT), and the Dilijan Chamber Music Series (L.A.). His work as a musician and educator has received recognition and support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Boston Foundation, and the Somerville Arts Council.
Dan’s musical journey began at home under the guidance of his mother, a lifelong pianist who became his first teacher when he was five years old. Growing up in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was immersed in the city's public school arts ecosystem, attending the music magnet programs at Burncoat Middle and Burncoat High Schools. Performing in a wide array of ensembles—including jazz band, brass ensemble, orchestra, concert band, and chamber groups—Dan discovered firsthand what it felt like to be anchored by a vibrant, supportive musical community, a foundational experience he seeks to recreate through Around Hear.
Photography by Jennifer Moy