Faculty
Margaret Nichols Baldridge
Dr. Margaret Nichols Baldridge combines an active teaching schedule with a varied performance calendar. She is a sought after teacher, performer and adjudicator. The violin and viola professor at the University of Montana since 1992, Dr. Baldridge actively teaches violin, viola and chamber music around the state and region. For the past nine summers she has been Artist Faculty at the prestigious Brevard Music Center Festival in Brevard, North Carolina. As a dedicated teacher and proponent of string teaching Dr. Baldridge has served as the Montana State ASTA President and as a reviewer for the ASTA journal and the Guide to Teaching Strings 7th Ed.
Her diverse performance activities include concerts and tours with The Sapphire Trio around the United States and abroad. Recent engagements with the Sapphire Trio include a 2006 State Department Funded tour of Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where the trio performed concerts at Embassies, schools and for the Kuwait International Music Festival. The Sappire trio has performed concerts and master classes in Austria, Germany, and Japan and concerts at national conventions of ASTA, MTNA, AAMC, and at The Mayo Clinic. Other professional performing activities consist of performances with the String Orchestra of the Rockies and The Missoula Symphony, as concertmaster, and concerts and tours with the Montana Piano Trio, the resident trio at The University of Montana. Her performances with these groups have been aired on Public Radio and on String Orchestra of the Rockies CD recordings Under the Northern Sky and We’ll Be Together Again.
Dr. Baldridge holds DMA and BM degrees from The Eastman School of Music and an MM degree from Northwestern University. Her teachers include Catherine Tait, Gerardo Ribiero, and Charles Castleman.
Previously, Dr. Baldridge performed in orchestras and chamber music groups in the Heidelberg Castle Festival, Germany; The Des Moines Metro Opera Festival, Iowa; and the Flathead Festival, Montana.
Contact Dr. Baldridge: margaret.baldridge@umontana.edu