Bio//
Cassandra most recently completed her master's degree at Butler University studying viola performance with Richard Auldon Clark, while performing her duties as the Graduate Assistant to the BSO. In her freelance career, she is both a violinist and violist. She has experience in different ensembles, chamber music, solo playing, and has performed in a variety of settings, classical and more. She is the violist of the Woombiles Rock Orchestra, based in Indianapolis, and has performed with one of Indiana's most successful live music quartets, The Deoc Ensemble.
She enjoys playing and teaching a wide variety of genres on her instruments including Celtic, bluegrass, and gypsy. In the beginning of her violin career, she studied under Butler alumni and prominent Celtic violinist in the Carmel, IN area, Emily Thompson. Throughout high school she studied with ISO violist Beverley Scott. In her viola performance studies Cassandra has gained further experience playing in chamber groups and pit orchestras for musicals, ballets, and opera at Butler. In 2022, she won the solo viola position for Giselle. She also composed a string trio under the guidance of Richard Auldon Clark in the spring of 2020.
In 2013, Cassandra began working at her father’s music store, Carmel Music Center, in Carmel, Indiana where Tosh worked in retail as well as teaching violin and viola. Besides teaching music, she is a passionate artist and taught drawing at the store as well.
At Carmel High School Cassandra was also a member of United Sound. United Sound was a group in which the orchestra students of Carmel High taught special needs students how to play violin, viola, and cello. Cassandra, as one of the group leaders, was responsible for teaching a child who was blind how to play violin. Despite the immense challenges he faced, he made significant progress and went on to perform with the group at the Palladium in Carmel.
As a well-rounded artist, she also enjoys creating realism art. Cassandra is a portraitist and has had a passion for art from an early age. Although she primarily draws, she also enjoys painting with oil, ink, and acrylic. Over the years, she has done several commissions for various projects, from realistic portraits to landscapes. Click here to visit her art website: https://cassandrarennard.wixsite.com/toshart
She recently relocated to the Chicago, IL area following the completion of her master's degree from Butler in 2022. Here her music and art career will continue and grow.
