Cheri Cross graduated with a B.Mus degree in Church Music with an emphasis in violin from Bob Jones University. She studied with Dianne Pinner and held Principle 2nd in the BJU String Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Leonovich. Prior to college, Cheri studied with Valerie Bobbett Gardner (student of Jascha Brodsky at Curtis Institute, and student of Sydney Harth at Carnegie Mellon University) and her daughter Katie Gardner Otwell. Their love for violin, violin technique, and violin pedagogy from a Biblical perspective has played a huge roll into the violinist and teacher Cheri is today. She also spent several summers attending String Workshops held in Indianapolis, IN with with the International Academy of Music. Cheri is the director of the string department at Calvary Baptist Academy in Midland, MI where she directs three orchestras, three beginning string classes, and teaches her private violin and viola students. Her desire is to point her students to glorifying the Lord and ministering to others with the talents He has given them. Cheri plays with the Midland Community Orchestra, and desires to start graduate studies in String Pedagogy in the near future.