Colleen is a freelance musician in the Twin Cities and is highly involved in the Eastern European folk music scene. After graduating in violin performance and music education from Concordia College, Moorhead, and University of Minnesota respectively, Colleen was a teacher of string playing of all age levels in Hastings, Bloomington, and Roseville school districts. Since 2002, she has taught in her own violin and viola studio in Northeast Minneapolis. As an orchestral player, Colleen has played in the Northern Symphony Orchestra, Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra, as well as University of Minnesota and Concordia College Orchestras.

In 2000, Colleen joined the Ethnic Dance Theatre as violinist. It proved to be the beginning of a new love and learning adventure of traditional world music and dance. From there she became a founding member of Orkestar Bez Ime, a Balkan dance band, and the new violinist for the already established Hungarian-Romanian band Sz?span>szka, based in Madison, WI. Both groups strongly emphasize the performance of authentic traditional folk music.

In the summer of 2008, Colleen traveled for ten weeks to Hungary and Romania to collect field recordings and documentary photographs of musicians who are still playing their village-specific folk music.