Associate Professor Kiesewetter has been on the faculty of Bard College since 2007, where she maintains a violin studio in the music department and Conservatory. She is the Director of Orchestral Studies in Bard Conservatory and Professor of Orchestral Practice for the graduate orchestra The Orchestra Now. Professor Kiesewetter has a small studio of undergrads and also is available for audition coaching. Her students at Bard participate in a weekly studio class, and she offers weekly upper string technique or audition preparation classes each semester. She also coaches audition preparation for The Orchestra Now, and runs string sectionals for the orchestras.
Philosophy of teaching
Professor Kiesewetter was a student of Ivan Galamian but also sought out advice from many other fine players of the day. While a member of the Colorado Quartet was lucky enough to study intensely with Robert Mann of the Juilliard Quartet, and from him, she realized that the imagination of the music must come first, the technique will follow. As her career developed, she found that sometimes the key to fluidity in playing needed to come from mental and physical freedom, and so she has always been open to meditation, Alexander and Feldenkreis techniques, and other approaches to body awareness. Score study is of paramount importance to her, as is working away from the instrument and singing to conceptualize the phrase.
Ms. Kiesewetter formally was an adjunct violin teacher and orchestral coach at Columbia University.