“Chamber music – a conversation between friends.”
– Catherine Drinker Bowen
Experience classical music in a whole new way. The Shoreline Music Society transforms a concert experience into a conversation among friends. Your ticket brings you an up-close-and-personal experience with the music, Artistic Director Robert Nordling, and Shoreline’s world-class performers. Welcome to the conversation – welcome to the Society.
Looking for a good educational and team-building opportunity? Shoreline Music Society holds team-building workshops in Michigan and beyond. Participants are invited to engage with professional musicians from around the world. These workshops strengthen communities; participants will be encouraged to collaborate and communicate in new ways, leading to better work and school environments.
The Team
Robert Nordling serves as the Music Director of the Bandung Philharmonic (Indonesia), the Baroque on Beaver Island Music Festival (Northern Michigan) and the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra (Chicago). Robert has appeared in orchestral performances across the world, and conducts orchestra clinics, music educational workshops and master classes in schools in the USA and abroad. He has served on the music faculty of the Calvin College Music Department and Trinity International University, where he conducted the orchestras and taught in the areas of music history, music appreciation and conducting.
A grand-prize winner of the Coleman Chamber Music Competition and Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, Matt has served as Principal Trumpet of both the Sarasota Opera and Midland Symphony, and as Associate Principal trumpet of the Traverse Symphony. He was Executive Director of the non-profit Beaver Island Performing Arts Alliance from 2021-25 and the Director of its annual Baroque on Beaver Festival from 2012-25.
Wendy Traschen is the strategic account director and principal at B+B Marketing Communications, a global business communications firm, based in Midland, Michigan. There, she pilots creative ideas with resounding drive and passion, the same creative vision she brings to Shoreline Music Society. She also co-owns a wine bar and restaurant.
Susannah Thomas combines a background in music education with a distinguished career of 20+ years of Human Resources and leadership experience. Susannah retired from The Dow Chemical Company where she held key executive roles including leading Dow’s Global HR Operations and HR Director, a role in which she partnered with executives on strategic HR matters such as talent management and organizational design and culture. Susannah holds an MBA in HR and Finance from Michigan State University.
Robert Hart has a Master of Music degree in flute playing from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Miami School of Music. He credits his compositional development to more than three decades of private study with Stephen Rush of the University of Michigan. Robert is retired from a 40-year career at Merrill Lynch where he was a Senior Wealth Management Advisor, including eight years as Resident Director of the Saginaw branch office. His composition Contemplating Fire, produced by Shoreline Music Society and conducted by Robert Nordling, was rated the best Tri-Cities arts event of 2022 by area cultural affairs critic Janet Martineau.
Jim Young is the PricewaterhouseCoopers Professor Emeritus at Northern Illinois University. A graduate of Ferris State University (B.S.) and Michigan State University (M.B.A. and Ph.D.), Jim served on the consulting staffs of Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers before beginning his doctoral studies. Prior to his appointment at Northern Illinois University, Jim served on the faculty of George Mason University and had research appointments with the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. Jim’s academic research focuses on studying the responses of corporate and individual taxpayers to income tax laws using tax return data. His views on tax policy have appeared in a variety of news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
