Briar Forsythe
Co-Founder, Executive Director
Briar was born in New York City and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She attended New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music, studying voice with Anna Gabrieli. During her summers she attended festival programs at Tanglewood in the Berkshires and Crittenden Opera of Boston. Professionally, Briar decided to pursue a career in Hospitality. With her family, she opened The Mary Prentiss Inn in Cambridge, Massachusetts and then The Kendall Hotel, focusing on the culinary arts with The Black Sheep restaurant. When the opportunity arose to pursue her own business, she opened Willowdale Estate, which hosts year round weddings and events in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Willowdale will be celebrating its 20th year in 2027. Briar is incredibly passionate about supporting musicians and has hosted many classical concerts at Willowdale. Partnering with Vica to develop Kaleidoscope Arts has been an exciting endeavor and fulfilling a dream of being a Patron of the Arts.
Victoria Schwartzman
Co-Founder, Artistic Director
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Victoria Schwartzman (formerly Mazin) performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Victoria has appeared with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra chamber players, at Bard Music Festival, and at the Music Mountain Festival, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Hall, at Summit Music Festival, at Bargemusic, in the Gessner- Schocken concert series in Cambridge, WMP Concert Hall, and the Nicolas Roerich Museum concert series in New York City. As a member of the Yanvar Trio, she was a prizewinner in the Val-Tidone Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Zinotti International Chamber Music Competition, both in Italy.
After graduating from Jerusalem Conservatory, Victoria continued her education at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. While pursuing various degrees in solo and chamber music performance, she was selected to perform in masterclasses given by Dmitri Bashkirov, Menahem Pressler, and Richard Goode, among others. Her principal teachers include Irina Kivaiko, Issak Kossov, Victor Rosenbaum, Sally Pinkas, Eda Shlyam, and Eteri Andjaparidze.
As a soloist with orchestra, Victoria has performed with the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, the New Westchester Symphony Orchestra, the Longy School of Music Chamber Orchestra, and the Riverside Orchestra. She has performed at the Quartet Program in Pennsylvania and participated in the Tel-Hai International Piano Festival in Israel and the Lyrica Chamber Music Festival in New Jersey. Also active in the field of opera and art song, Victoria was a vocal coach and accompanist at the Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Bard Music Festival, the Brevard Music Center, the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute, and the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival in Graz, Austria.
Victoria is as committed to performance as she is to education. She has given a piano masterclass in various schools and colleges and master's class in Russian vocal repertoire at Queens College, NY. She is on the coaching faculty at Montclair State University, and the piano faculty at the Bard College Preparatory Division. She joined the AIMS in Graz faculty during the summer of 2024.
Victoria is a Steinway Artist.
Savanah Carlson
Director of Operations & Design
Savanah Carlson is a connector, creative thinker, and lifelong believer in the power of the arts to bring people together. By day, she works in partnerships, education, and community building within the dental industry, but creativity has always been one of the biggest threads running through her life.
A longtime lover of theatre, music, storytelling, and all things Shakespeare, Savanah is happiest somewhere between a great idea and figuring out how to make it happen. She brings that energy to Kaleidoscope Arts through marketing, design, audience engagement, and helping tell the story behind each performance.
Outside of Kaleidoscope Arts, Savanah is a speaker, educator, podcast co-host, and unapologetic collector of creative projects. She believes experiences will always beat things, laughter belongs in almost every room, and the best art leaves you feeling a little different than you did when you walked in.
For Savanah, Kaleidoscope Arts is about more than putting beautiful music on a stage. It’s about creating experiences that make people feel something and building a community they want to come back to.
Grace McLean
Social Media Marketing Manager
Grace is a Black Creole performer from New Orleans, Louisiana. She danced competitively for years and attended New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) during high school to train in Musical Theatre. During her summers she would regularly perform regionally with Tulane Summer Lyric Theater. Her love for theater grew so strong that she decided to continue her Musical Theater training in college and received a Bachelor of Music in Music Theater from Oklahoma City University. In addition to the rigorous training and performing Grace went through at OCU, she also worked as the music school’s National Live Auditions Coordinator StuPro. After graduating, Grace started her own private vocal studio, moved to New York, and joined the 1st National Tour of Miracle of 34th Street. Soon after the tour ended, she toured New Jersey theaters with American Theater Group’s production of “My Fair Lady.” While recovering from an injury, Grace took over Kaleidoscope Arts’ social media and marketing department. Grace is a huge social rights and mental health advocate. Everyday she leads with kindness, compassion, and empathy. She cannot wait to share meaningful artistic moments created through Kaleidoscope Arts.