Dr. Marschnee Strong, Executive Director, is a pianist, educator, and arts leader who cultivates relationships within her community. Throughout her career, she has served on numerous arts organization boards. Her recent work includes marketing, fundraising and development with the Artist Presentation Society, and she serves as Vice President and Chair of Music in Schools and Colleges with Missouri Federation of Music Clubs. Through these, and similar, organizations she coordinates numerous music galas, festivals, and competitions.
Additionally, Marschnee ardently works to build support systems for young and aspiring artists by offering them the skill set, knowledge, network, and opportunities to build thriving careers. After relocating from the Chicago area, she opened an independent music studio in St. Louis, Missouri which offers individual lessons, creative and educational workshops, and performance opportunities for young artists. She subsequently founded St Louis Music & Performing Arts Club, which connects musicians and students with scholarships and awards through one of the nation’s largest non-profit music organizations. Her career passions led to doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University in Leadership and Learning in Organizations, where she received her Doctor of Education in May 2024.
Caroline Jesalva, Co-Artistic Director, Caroline Jesalva joined CBM in the 23-24 season. She is a violinist and vocalist traversing the worlds of classical music, improvisation and experimental music. Inspired by Dadaism, her music explores experimental theater, poetry, classical repertoire, and free jazz.
She was the 2018 Prize Winner of the Chapel Hill Philharmonia Young Artist Concerto Competition, a two-time consecutive winner of the Philharmonic Association Concerto Competition, and a finalist in the Ronald Sachs International Music Competition. She has also held fellowships through YellowBarn Young Artists, Bang-on-A Can, Black House Collective, A Far Cry, and Quince Ensemble. In 2023, Caroline completed her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music with a B.M. in Violin Performance, under the tutelage of Nicholas Kitchen.
Scout Fynn, Marketing and Community Engagement Coordinator, is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and cultural practitioner. Her work takes on many forms often informed in response to current themes and her own curiosity.
She explores intersections between the written word, new media, and performance to create cultural experiences that reflect the social landscape, promote artistic impact, and interrogate the complexities of human experience.
Scout is a graduate of The Market Theatre Laboratory and during her studies, performed in two Naledi Award-winning productions, “No Easter Sunday For Queers” directed by Mwenya Kabwe, and her first-year class production of “Eclipsed” directed by Sylvaine Strike. Since then she has curated for arts festivals such as Time Of The Writer and The Artfluence Human Rights Festival at the Centre For Creative Arts and most recently for The Voices of Women Museum, a virtual exhibition that explored the physical presence of memory through the collected narratives of marginalized South African women.
In 2022 she was selected as a finalist for the Distell National Playwright Competition for her dystopian satire “GLITCH” and her written work has appeared in several festivals such as the National Arts Festival virtual fringe, POPART Joburgs 24 Hours In The City theatre festival and had her most recent work, a visual essay, published on the IQOQO reference platform, in response to her participation in The French Institute of South Africa’s Re-Imagining Heritage, Archives and Museums convening as one of the programs selected mentees.
Tom Clowes, Co-Artistic Director, founded Crossing Borders Music in 2011. As Executive and Co-Executive Director from 2015 to 2025, he oversaw its dynamic and sustained growth from a volunteer-run start-up to a professionally-managed arts, culture, and education organization with a diverse range of community-led programming.
Through fundraising and grant-writing efforts, he’s also supported the financial development of small non-profits primarily serving BIPOC communities including Building Leaders Using Music Education – Haiti, Refugee Women for Peace and Justice, the Chinese Fine Arts Society, and his local church. For nearly 15 years, Tom taught at Garfield Park’s treasured Chicago West Community Music Center, and remains invested in its community. Since 2000, Tom has been teaching youth at Haitian summer music camps. Requests from Haitians for better media representation following Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake led to the creation of Crossing Borders Music.
Wilfred Farquharson, Co-Artistic Director, Wilfred Farquharson is a violist from the Atlanta, GA area that now calls Chicago, IL his home. He currently serves as Co-Artistic Director of Crossing Borders Music (CBM) as well as violist of the CBM, D-Composed, and PlayOutChicago ensembles.
As a member of these ensembles, Wilfred concertizes all over the Chicago area, as well as nationally and internationally. Recently, he made his solo debut with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and has been a featured artist on WFMT’s Rush Hour Recital series. Orchestrally, Wilfred has performed with and been a substitute musician with the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Re-Collective Orchestra and many more.
Sarah Kim, Co-Artistic Director, violinist Sarah Kim has performed extensively as a chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
As a resident artist at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music from 2008 2013, Sarah performed internationally with the Apple Hill String Quartet, directed summer chamber music sessions, and taught master classes in universities such as UCLA, Colby College, Boston Conservatory, University of New Mexico, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
Jessica T Carter, Young Composers Project Teacher/Mentor, is a composer, violinist, mezzo-soprano, voice coach, and educator from Indiana described as “evocative” and “lyrical” by Aspire Magazine and Apricity Magazine, respectively. Specializing in concert music, film scoring, and musical theatre, Jessica’s aim and goal as a composer is to exude the message of hope and freedom to all but specifically to marginalized children. In 2020, she was the winner of the Indiana University South Bend Symphonic Composition Competition. In the same year, Jessica was published for her ground-breaking research entitled “Concert Music of the Civil Rights Movement: Uncovering the Erasure of Black American Composers in the United States.” She has been commissioned by organizations including Crossing Borders Music, Castle Of Our Skins, and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. Jessica received a Master’s of Music in Composition under the tutelage of Dr. Jorge Muniz at Indiana University-South Bend. Jessica has also worked as a public-school music teacher. Learn more at www.jtcartermusic.com.