Zoë Johnstone Stewart is a performer and educator in the Baltimore area. Currently serving as Guitar Department Chair of the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Institute, she maintains a busy teaching schedule, oversees operations of the department, and co-directs the daylong Fret Fest event as well as the Peabody Summer Guitar Intensive. Additionally, she teaches students in Guitar Pedagogy at the Peabody Conservatory and mentors Conservatory student interns who wish to gain teaching experience at the Preparatory.
She has performed extensively throughout the northeast United States as a collaborator in various chamber groups and, as a founding member of the Atlantic Guitar Quartet, has been featured in the Ulster Chamber Music Series and performed at Marshall University, Loyola University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and at the Engineers Club at the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion as an artist-in-residence. AGQ is an ensemble dedicated to the music of living composers, and in 2010 released their self-titled recording featuring new music by Olivier Bensa, Ronald Pearl, Vid Smooke, Christopher Gainey and Arvo Pärt. In March of 2018 Zoë was a featured performer in the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society’s “Made in Baltimore” 30th anniversary commission concert where she premiered “Storied” by Edmund Scott Miller with guitarist Jeremy Lyons. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and her master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.
Prior to her work at Peabody Zoë founded the Evergreen Academy of Talent Education, a Suzuki guitar school in the Baltimore area. She has taught workshops and master classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts, Salisbury Guitar Festival, the New Jersey Music Educators Association Conference and Marshall University, and has served as an adjudicator for the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society Certificate program. Additionally, she is on the board of trustees of the Guitar Foundation of America. She currently lives in Lutherville, Maryland with her husband and two sons.