Crista Shoemake

Violin Teacher

Crista Shoemake

SAA Member

Contact

Salt Lake City UT, UT
817-716-3312
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Crista Guthrie Shoemake is a performer, arranger, music educator, and ambassador. Her bourgeoning career has taken her around the country, as well as internationally, and has allowed her to share the stage with ensembles and artists such as the Idaho Falls Symphony, Teton Chamber orchestra, BYU-Idaho Sinfonietta Orchestra in its Midwest USA and Eastern Canada tours, and the Honors Performance Series Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. Her international performances have taken her to European countries such as France and Italy, and Central America in Costa Rica. ​Her musical endeavors have given her guidance and association with artists like Rachel Barton Pine, the Aeolus Quartet, William Hagen, Chloé Trevor, Arnaud Sussmann among many others.​

As an educator, Crista’s teaching has taken her to countries such as Costa Rica and small towns such as Eureka, California. She taught violin lessons in the Spanish language for one month in rural San Jose, and ran a three-day Suzuki camp for 24 kids in Eureka, CA, teaching private lessons, group classes, fiddling, arranging, and orchestral workshops. Her teaching is specifically geared towards the Suzuki method, aural skills, and fun learning.  Outside of education, Crista arranges music for solo violin, string quartets, other chamber groups, mariachi, orchestra, violin with piano, guitar, and many other mixed ensembles. She found her love for arranging while improvising with her next door neighbor and his guitar. He was writing a song for his wife who had just passed away from ovarian cancer. He was going to have her play a classical piece for him afterwards, but she began strumming along with his chords and came up with a countermelody to his song. She ended up performing with him at his wife’s funeral. She then began arranging music for weddings and other events because of that experience. 

In 2015, she joined the violin-piano duo 92 Keys, a classically-trained group who created thrilling, cinematic arrangements of popular songs and created music videos for them on YouTube. She contributed to the first 92 Keys EP, available on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and other music platforms. Since then, she has performed solo arrangement works by the Beatles and Queen and performed in unconventional venues such as an airport terminal, Trader Joes grocery store, IKEA, a New York City subway station, and an animal sanctuary in Costa Rica. 

Crista studied with Nicolette Solomon in Dallas, TX for 13 years at the Suzuki Music Institute of Dallas, and later received her BM in String Performance under Dr. Dallin Hansen from Brigham Young University-Idaho in 2017, and her MM in Performance Pedagogy from ASU, under the tutelage of Dr. McLin. Crista was awarded full scholarships to both universities, as well as music festivals such as Montecito International Music Festival, the Mike Block String Camp, Chloé Trevor Music Academy, and Teacher Training at the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute.  Crista currently resides in Eagle Mountain, UT as a Suzuki violin teacher and performer. Outside of music, she enjoys the Peanuts comic strip and all of its movies and merchandise, hiking with her husband and puppy Woody, and relaxing with friends with a good movie. She plans to pursue further Suzuki Teacher training in the summers and learn continuously as a lifelong student.