All Faculty (A-Z Listing)

A | B | C | D | E| F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X| Y | Z


 A

Brian Abrams Brian Abrams
Associate Professor of Music
Music Therapy
Undergraduate & Graduate Coordinator
973-655-3458
abramsb@mail.montclair.edu

Brian Abrams, Ph.D., MT-BC, LPC, LCAT, and Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery, has been a music therapist since 1995, with clinical experience involving a wide range of populations. Dr. Abrams completed undergraduate studies at Vassar College and SUNY New Paltz, and graduate studies at Temple University. Prior to his current position at Montclair State, he served on the faculty at Utah State University (2001-2004) and Immaculata University (2004-2008). He has published and presented internationally on a wide range of topics such as music therapy in cancer care, music psychotherapy, and humanistic dimensions of music therapy. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals, such as Music Therapy Perspectives and Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. His current interests include contributing to the development of the global, interdisciplinary area of Health Humanities. He has also recently helped create a music therapy program at Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. From 2005 to present, he has served on the Executive Board of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), including as President from 2007-2009. On a national level, he serves on the AMTA Board of Directors as Speaker of the AMTA Assembly of Delegates.


Andrew Adelson Andrew Adelson
Adjunct Professor
Oboe
973-622-7212
adelsona@mail.montclair.edu

Andrew Adelson can be heard playing both oboe and English horn in orchestras, chamber music ensembles and as a soloist in the U.S. and abroad. He has been the solo English horn/oboe with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 2000. He has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Riverside Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Mexico City Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, Mr. Adelson has performed with the Aspen Wind Quintet and Bargemusic. He can be heard playing on recordings on the Delos and Koch labels. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Juilliard School, where he studied with John Ferrillo and Elaine Douvas. His connection with Juilliard has continued through teaching master classes in Interpersonal and Ensemble Skills for the Orchestral Player as well as master classes in instrument repair. He has also taught at New Jersey City University, Drew Summer Music and Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Adelson has played on Broadway in the pit orchestras for King and I, 1776, and the Sound of Music. He has spent summers playing in Tanglewood, Interlochen and Waterloo Music Festivals and as a chamber music coach and performer at Rencontres Musicales Internationales at Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, France.


Michael Albaugh Michael Albaugh
Associate Director of Administration
Theory/Composition
973-655-5226
albaughm@mail.montclair.edu

Michael Albaugh recently served as the Director of Music at Interlochen Center for the Arts. From 2001 to 2008, he oversaw all musical and educational programming for the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Interlochen Arts Camp, as well as teaching composition and music theory. He received the National Teacher Recognition Award in 2005 from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts on behalf of the United States Department of Education. His composition students are currently studying in the top music programs in the country and include two Presidential Scholars in the Arts in the last four years. A ProMusica International Grant recipient, he has also conducted field research in West Africa, studying Ewe music and culture in Kopeyia, Ghana. He holds a B.A. from West Liberty State College in music education and guitar performance, studying with Nels Leonard. He holds an M.M. in composition from Bowling Green State University with an emphasis in music technology, studying with Marylin Shrude, Burton Beerman and Samuel Adler. He holds a D.M.A. in composition from West Virginia University, with an emphasis in music theory, studying with John Beall and Andrew Kohn.


Shelley Axelson McCauley   Shelley Axelson McCauley
Assistant Professor
Music Education
973-655-7212
mccauleys@mail.montclair.edu

Before coming to the Cali School, Shelley Axelson held a similar position at the University of Indianapolis in Indianapolis, Indiana, where her responsibilities included teaching conducting, clarinet, and a variety of instrumental music education classes. Prior to her appointment at Indianapolis, Prof. Axelson was the Director of Bands at Central College in Pella, Iowa, Pasco Middle School in Dade City, Florida (co-author of Secondary Music Curriculum), and Richardson Junior High School in Richardson, Texas. Prof. Axelson received an undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of South Florida, a Master's Degree in Conducting from the University of Michigan, and the Doctor of Music degree in Conducting from Northwestern University. Her principal conducting teachers were Mallory Thompson and H. Robert Reynolds.


B

Magdalena Baczewska   Magdalena Baczewska
Adjunct Professor
Piano
973-655-7212
baczewskam@mail.montclair.edu
Magdalena Baczewska - Website

Praised by the American Record Guide for her “world-class playing,” Polish-born pianist Magdalena Baczewska holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Manhattan School of Music and holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Mannes College New School for Music. Dr. Baczewska started piano instruction at the age of five and at twelve made her orchestra debut. Her performances, hailed as “eloquent and technically flawless” (The Washington Post), have been broadcast internationally on radio and television. In addition to her work at the Cali School, Dr. Baczewska serves on the faculty of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City.  She was among the jurors of the International Chopin Competition at Columbia University and the Pulaski Scholarship Committee in New York.  She is a published music critic (New York Concert Review). 


 Seth Baer Seth Baer
Adjunct Professor
Bassoon
973-622-7212
baers@mail.montclair.edu

Seth Baer attended the Juilliard School and Princeton University where he graduated with honors while studying with Frank Morelli. At the age of 19, Seth won a substitute position with the Philadelphia Orchestra. During the 2003-2004 season, Seth served a one-year position with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He has performed with ensembles including the Pennsylvania Ballet, Haddonfield Symphony, Opera Orchestra of New York, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He won First Prize in the Hewlett-Woodmere Young Artist Competition and was featured on the Mcgraw-Hill Young Artist Showcase on WQXR radio. Seth has performed at Bargemusic and is a member of the Fountain Chamber Music Society, with whom he maintains a residency for the Carnegie Hall education department, headlining their CarnegieKids and Musical Explorers series. He has performed at the Music Academy of the West, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto Festival in Italy, and at the Altenburg Music Festival in Germany. He has performed as principal bassoon of the Mark Morris Dance Group Orchestra and the Key West Symphony and is a member of Amici New York, the resident orchestra at the OK Mozart festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Seth has taught classes at the Juilliard School and Mannes School of Music; he has also coached the New York Youth Symphony and New Jersey Youth Symphony.


Gina Balestracci   Gina Balestracci
Academic Administrator
973-655-7219
balestraccig@mail.montclair.edu

Gina Balestracci has been at MSU since 1988. She came to Montclair from Stanford University, where she had been director of publicity and public information in the music department, and before that from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked in the library system. At the Cali School, Balestracci oversees all of the school of music’s academic administrative needs. She also teaches Freshman Seminar for Music Majors, sings with the Collegium Musicum, and teaches in the University’s Honors Program.


 Crystl Baltazar Crystl Baltazar
Adjunct Professor
Theory
Collaborative Pianist
Secondary Piano
973-655-7212

Pianist Crystl Sonomura Baltazar maintains the roles of both performing artist and educator. A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, she is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and the Eastman School of Music. As a collaborative arts specialist, she accompanies and coaches in many of the voice and instrumental studios in the department, as well as performing with faculty in recital. As a soloist, Ms. Baltazar won awards in the Young Keyboard Artist's Association and International Piano Recording Competitions. Also notable are collaborations in recitals with International Horn Competition Winner, Karl Pituch, and masterclass studies with Dalton Baldwin and Malcolm Bilson. She has performed in several concert series, as well as seasons with the Honolulu Symphony and Chamber Music Hawaii. Her teaching credits include Nazareth College and the New Jersey School of Arts. In addition, she freelances for various vocal, choral and chamber venues in the New York metro area. She is currently pursuing her doctorate.


Donald Batchelder   Donald Batchelder
Adjunct Professor; Brass Coordinator
Trumpet
973-655-7212
batchelderd@mail.montclair.edu

Donald Batchelder is Principal Trumpet of the New York City Opera Orchestra, where he has played full-time since 2000. Recognized as an outstanding free-lance trumpeter in the New York area since 1983, he performs frequently with the Metropolitan Opera, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Symphony, and on Broadway. In addition to his work with the New York City Opera, Mr. Batchelder holds the principal trumpet chairs in the Westfield (NJ) Symphony and the Stamford (CT) Symphony. He earned both a Bachelors and a Masters Degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with William Vacchiano and Mel Broiles. Other influential teachers include Vince Penzarella, Arnold Jacobs and Philip Smith. Among Mr. Batchelder's recent solo appearances: When Speaks the Signal-Trumpet Tone by David Gillingham, with the Ridgewood Concert Band; the Shostakovich Concerto for Piano and Trumpet with both the Stamford Symphony and the New York Virtuosi; the world premiere of Trent Johnson's Concertino for Trumpet and Organ; David Sampson's Triptych with the Westfield Symphony; and Herbert L. Clarke's Southern Cross with the Goldman Band. Mr. Batchelder joined the music faculty of Montclair State University in September 2000.


 Stephen Benson Stephen Benson
Adjunct Professor
Guitar
Jazz
973-655-7212
bensons@mail.montclair.edu

Guitarist Stephen Benson is a freelance performer who has remained active on the studio, jazz and broadway scene for twenty years. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT, and a Masters from Manhattan School of Music. He has taught at Hartt School of Music and the Turtle Bay Music School in New York. Benson toured Europe as a member of the Giora Feidman Trio, performed at the Carnevale in Venice, Italy, for two years and at the Grand Canyon Music Festival in Arizona. He has worked extensively on Broadway in such shows as The Lion King42nd Street, and Wicked. He performs many styles of jazz from bebop to fusion to blues and R & B and has worked with artists including Phoebe Snow, John Sebastian and Evelyn Blakey.


 Valerie Bernhardt Valerie Bernhardt
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
bernhardtv@mail.montclair.edu
Valerie Bernhardt - Website

 

New York based soprano Valerie Bernhardt is a 1991 graduate of the MSU music department. She holds two graduate degrees in voice from The Juilliard School, and has trained at the opera programs at Chautauqua, Aspen, the Pittsburgh Opera Center, and the Daniel Ferro Vocal Program. Her many opera and solo performances include Donizetti'sAdelia with Eve Queler's Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall; Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen with the New York City Opera; Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème with the Pittsburgh Opera and Boheme Opera of New Jersey; Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico; Hélène in Verdi's Jerusalem with the Opera Orchestra of New York; First Lady in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the New York City Opera and Pittsburgh Opera; Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello and the title role of Anna Bolena, with Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall; Mass in C Major and Choral Fantasy with the Summit Music Festival; Rutter’s Magnificat at the St. Louis Cathedral; Deborah Franklin in the premiere of Benjamin, a new work by composer John Carbon; and Electra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with Coro Lirico. She has distinguished herself in various competitions, most recently the 2007 Liederkranz Foundation Competition (Wagner Division) as well as the Metropolitan Opera National Council, Palm Beach Vocal Competition, and Opera at Florham Vocal Competition, and has won career grants from the Opera Index and Sullivan Foundations.


Nancy Billmann   Nancy Billmann
Adjunct Professor
French horn
973-655-7212
billmannn@mail.montclair.edu

Horn player Nancy Billmann leads an active freelance career that includes chamber music, contemporary music, orchestral, operatic, and Broadway experiences. Billmann was a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet for 13 years and is active with chamber music ensembles in the New York area. As an orchestral musician, she frequently performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York City Opera, American Symphony, Stamford Symphony, the Manhattan Sinfonietta, and on Broadway. She has appeared at OK Mozart, Tanglewood, the Festival Institute at Round Top (where she was also a faculty member), the Caramoor Festival, and the Monadnock Music Festival. Ms. Billmann grew up in Wisconsin, and received a Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she studied with Douglas Hill. She completed both her Master’s Degree and the Professional Studies Program at The Juilliard School, studying with David Wakefield and has made her home in New York City since 1989.


Rogerio Boccata   Rogerio Boccato
Adjunct Professor
Jazz Percussion
973-655-7212
boccator@mail.montclair.edu

Brazilian percussionist and educator Rogério Boccato was a longtime member of the Orquestra Jazz Sinfonica do Estado de São Paulo, where he has played with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti, João Bosco, Joe Zawinul, among many others. Recently relocated from Sao Paulo to New York, Rogerio is featured on percussion on Kenny Garrett’s Grammy-nominated album Beyond The Wall and on John Patitucci's also Grammy-nominated releaseRemembrance, alongside Joe Lovano and Brian Blade. He has been playing in projects led by Danilo Perez, Edward Simon, David Binney, John Patitucci, and played also with Ben Allison, Dave Stryker, Steve Davis, Paul Bollenback, Mike Holober, and with top-ranking Brazilian artists, such as Toninho Horta, Dori Caymmi, Moacir Santos, Vinicius Cantuária. He is part of the ÁguaMarinha Trio, with Arismar do Espirito Santo and Vinicius Dorin, two of the most amazing musicians in Brazil. Rogério Boccato has been presenting clinics on Brazilian music, focusing on traditional Brazilian rhythms and styles applied to the drum set and to Jazz combo, which  have been enthusiastically received at universities around the United States, Mexico and Portugal.


 Don Braden Donald Braden
Jazz Studies Coordinator
Adjunct Professor
Jazz Saxophone
973-655-7212
bradend@mail.montclair.edu
Don Braden - Website

Don Braden is a musician of the highest caliber. For many years he has toured the world leading his own ensembles, as a special guest, and as a sideman with greats such as Betty Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, and many others.  He has composed music for everything from duo to full symphonic orchestra, in many styles, for recordings, film and television, and worked several years as composer for Bill Cosby. He is also a world renowned educator, having spent over a decade giving master classes at countless schools and universites, and running first class educational programs such as the Litchfield Jazz Camp and Wachovia Jazz For Teens. He is an imaginative, technically excellent, soulful saxophonist, and his harmonic and rhythmic sophistication give him a unique approach to improvising as well as composing and arranging. Most important of all: he has a beautiful sound, and he swings! All this combines with his joyous yet disciplined personality to make him one of the most important musicians working today.


Matthew Brown   Matthew Brown
Adjunct Professor
Tuba
973-655-7212
brownmatt@mail.montclair.edu 
Matthew Brown - Website

Matthew K. Brown won the grand-prize of the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Concerto Competition at the age of 17, and made his concerto debut with the Pennsylvania Sinfonia later that year. TheAllentown Morning Call review acclaimed Brown’s performance as “exciting…..a tour de force!” While studying with Sam Pilafian at Boston University, he became a founding member of the award-winning Paramount Brass Quintet. He continued his studies at Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University. He has performed with the Washington (DC) Brass Quintet, the Avatar Brass Quintet, Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, Miami City Ballet, Ballet Florida, Ann Arbor (MI) Symphony, Alea III, Ensemble 21, and in hundreds of concerts throughout the United States, including weekly internationally televised performances from the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale (FL). Matt is also an active arranger and publishes through his company, Hawkeye Music Publications. Currently, in addition to performing with the Rodney Mack Philadelphia Big Brass, Matt freelances throughout the northeast.


Jerry Bryant
Adjunct Professor
Trumpet
973-655-7212


Heather Buchanan   Heather Buchanan
Associate Professor of Music
Director of Choral Activities
Music Education
973-655-7913
buchananh@mail.montclair.edu
Heather Buchanan - Website
Choral Program - General Information (PDF)

Heather J. Buchanan conducts the 160-voice Chorale, 60-voice University Singers, and 24-voice Vocal Accord. Choirs under her direction have been critically acclaimed for their performances in collaboration with a variety of renowned artists including Meredith Monk, Mícheál ÓSúílleabháin, Tarik O’Regan, and Joseph Flummerfelt; and performed major choral works with conductors Neeme Järvi, Jacques LaCombe, and John Maucceri and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. The University Singers performed Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension at the Guggenheim Museum, and their 2011 recording of the work received a preliminary Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance. In 2011, Dr. Buchanan conducted the MSU Chorale and Symphony Orchestra in the East Coast Premiere of the new American oratorio Parables (Aldridge) at Montclair State University. A licensed Andover Educator, Dr. Buchanan specializes in the teaching of Body Mapping and somatic pedagogy for musicians. She is co-editor of the GIA choral series Teaching Music through Performance in Choir (Vol.3. released March 2011), has published a DVD-Video Evoking Sound: Body Mapping & Gesture Fundamentals, and choral octavos in the Evoking Sound Choral Series (GIA). She holds degrees from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University (Australia), Westminster Choir College of Rider University, and a PhD from the University of New England (Australia).


Charles Bumcrot   Charles Bumcrot
Adjunct Professor
Trumpet
973-655-7212
bumcrotc@mail.montclair.edu

Charles Bumcrot received a B.M. in both Music Education and Performance at San Francisco State University and earned his M.M. at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with William Vacchiano and Alan Dean. He also studied extensively with former NY Philharmonic trumpeter Vincent Penzarella. He is the Principal/Solo trumpet with Orchestra New England (New Haven, CT) and performs with with the American Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Orchestra of St. Lukes, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Solid Brass, New York Chamber Symphony, the Westfield Symphony, Little Orchestra Society of New York, Solisti New York, and has been heard on NPR and NPTV, as well as Japan National Television and Radio. Recording labels include Sony/CBS, CBS Masterworks, Deutsche Grammophon, Delos, Koch International Classics, New World and CSM. Mr. Bumcrot performed the world premier of William Ryden’s Sonata for Trumpet and Orchestra (commisioned by Orchestra New England). He was a member of the orchestra for the Grammy nominated recording of The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives.. He has given masterclasses at universities and other forums in the US and abroad. 


 Patrick Burns Patrick Burns
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Composition
973-655-7212
burnsp@mail.montclair.edu
Patrick Burns - Website
www.myspace.com/pjbmusic

Patrick Burns (b. 1969) teaches courses in orchestration, counterpoint, and music composition at the Cali School, and also teaches instrumental music in the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools. His compositions for symphonic band are performed by bands of every level throughout the country. The United States Army Band, "Pershing’s Own", has performed his music in Washington, D.C. and at Carnegie Hall. His music has also been performed at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. He has been featured as guest conductor and clinician with public school, community, university and honor bands in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and has recorded and, as director of Imperial Brass, has concertized with world-renowned brass artists Philip Smith, Warren Vache, Roger Webster and Chris Jaudes. Patrick’s music has appeared on Bandworld magazine’s Top 100 list of band compositions twice and is published by G. Schirmer, Daehn Publications, FJH Music Company, Wingert-Jones Music and TRN Music Publisher. The Instrumentalist and School Music News have also printed favorable reviews of Mr. Burns’ band music and The Classical New Jersey Society Journal has praised his chamber music. His music can be heard at his websites.


Robert Butts   Robert Butts
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212
buttsr@mail.montclair.edu

Robert Butts is the conductor of the Little Opera of New Jersey (Westfield) and the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey. He has served as conductor with the Skylands Youth Symphony and the Highland Park Recorder Society and Chamber Orchestra. His work with the Highland Pak Recorder Society earned him the 1996 DeMarsh Award from the American Recorder Society. With the Baroque Orchestra of Boonton he presents an annual Vivaldi Festival featuring chamber and orchestral works by Vivaldi and his Venetian contemporaries. He led concerts at the 1999 and 2001 Boston Early Music Festival. He has conducted the Philharmonica de Stat Botosani orchestra in Romania and performances of Verdi's Il Trovatore and Rigoletto with Opera Constatna. He was guest conductor for the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg, Russia. His compositions have been published and he has won awards at the Leo Traynor competitions. He has contributed reviews and articles to Opera News, Classical New Jersey, American Music, Continuo, American Recorder, and Lute Society Quarterly. He served as pre-concert lecturer for the New Jersey Symphony Amadeus Festival at NJPAC and Princeton's Richardson Auditorium. He lectures regularly throughout the metropolitan area. He studied conducting at Juilliard School and received musicological training from MSU and the University of Iowa.


C

Vincent Carr   Vincent Carr
Adjunct Professor 
Secondary Piano
973-655-7212
carrv@mail.montclair.edu

Vincent Carr has become one of the most versatile keyboard musicians in the New York City area. In addition to his work on the faculty of the John J. Cali School of Music, he is the Associate Organist at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey, which houses one of the world’s largest church organs. A graduate of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Mr. Carr studied organ performance with Martin Jean and improvisation with William Porter and Jeffrey Brillhart. A native of Philadelphia, he received both the Bachelor of Music Degree in Organ Performance and the Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in Spanish from Indiana University (Bloomington). While attending Indiana University, he studied organ with Larry Smith and improvisation and church music with John Schwandt and Marilyn Keiser. Mr. Carr leads an eclectic musical career with interests in chamber music, musical theater/cabaret, church music, jazz, global popular music and studio recording. A recipient of the Charles Ives Prize from the Yale School of Music, he has been an award winner in several national performance and improvisation competitions and is in constant demand as a clinician, lecturer and performer.


 John Robert Cart Jon Robert Cart
Director 
973-655-7212

Dr. Jon Robert Cart is Director of the Cali School of Music. He was formerly the Dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Rowan University. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland, a Master of Music from Indiana University, a Bachelor of Music from DePauw University, and has attended the esteemed Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in Aldeburgh, England. Dr. Cart has sung leading tenor roles with the Baltimore Opera, the Harrisburg Opera, Opera Roanoke, Wolf Trap Opera, the Amalfi Coast Festival and the Shaker Mountain Music Festival, and has performed as soloist at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mexican Cultural Institute, the Phillip's Collection and the White House. His solo orchestral appearances include the Indianapolis Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Albany Symphony, and the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic, under such eminent conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Raymond Leppard. His discography includes Serenata Mexicana (Centaur Records) and Träume: the Songs of Wagner and Strauss (to be released) - recordings that have been heard on WPRB 103.3 FM, Princeton, New Jersey, and on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio. Dr. Cart has published and presented at the international, national and regional levels on the topics of Latin American music, the music of Richard Wagner, and transdisciplinarity. Professional memberships include the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD) where he serves on the Global Task Force, the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA), and the College Music Society (CMS). He has been honored by Who's Who Among America's Teachers (2004-2006), Who's Who in America (2006), and Who's Who in American Education (2007).


Barry Centanni   Barry Centanni
Adjunct Professor
Percussion (Program Coordinator)
973-655--3285
centannib@mail.montclair.edu

Percussionist Barry Centanni attended Montclair State University before earning Bachelor’s degree in performance from the Manhattan School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School. He is the principal percussionist with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and performs with many other orchestras including the New York Pops, the New York Philharmonic, the Westfield Symphony, the Colonial Symphony, the NJ State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. His television credits include Live from Madison Square Garden, Live from Lincoln Center, Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman. As a freelance percussionist, he has performed with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sting, Whitney Houston, James Taylor, Elton John and with the bands Yes, the Moody Blues and Metallica. He has taught at SUNY Purchase, the Mannes College of Music, Columbia Teachers College and the Montclair Kimberley Academy.


 Amy Clarkson Amy Clarkson
Adjunct Professor
Music Therapy
973-655-6974
clarksona@mail.montclair.edu
Amy L. Clarkson, MMT, MT-BC, CP, LCAT is a board certified music therapist and certified practitioner of psychodrama, sociometry and group psychotherapy. She received her music therapy training at Montclair State University and Temple University. She has served as a fieldwork supervisor and adjunct faculty member at the Cali School since 1998. In addition to those roles, she is now a clinical training associate, coordinating the practicum training placements for the music therapy program. She also provides music therapy services at Montclair State University's Ben Samuels Children’s Center, working with children who are on the autism spectrum, and serves as a consultant for the Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health. Amy is the music therapist and creative arts clinical supervisor for the PALS (Peace: A Learned Solution) Program of SAFE in Hunterdon, which serves children and families affected by domestic violence. She has presented at local, regional, and national conferences, and has published on the topics of songwriting and identity, music therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders, and the integration of the creative arts therapies in helping children heal from trauma.

Joe Coco   Joe Coco
Adjunct Professor
Rap/Rock
973-655-7212
cocoj@mail.montclair.edu
Joe Coco - Website

Joe Coco is a songwriter, singer and guitarist who has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe since 1970. His many songs and albums (500 songs; 25 albums since 1979) reflect a strong social conscience. He has worked at venues such as New York City's Folk City, L.A.'s Troubador, the Alcomo Blues Festival in Sicily (with duo partner Michelle Lotta) and the Atlantis Club. He has also appeared in all of Italy's premier concert halls during a 1998-99 tour of the the rock opera Tommy. Since 1995, Mr. Coco has collaborated with Michele Lotta in many performances. In 2007 he released Garden State an album about his love-hate relationship with New Jersey. It is a tribute to his native state, receiving excellent reviews in Italy and the US. Silver Lamp -The Full Moon Series, also released in 2007, is an instrumental soundtrack that accompanies his life long painting and drawing series inspired by the moon. In 2008, he released September Sky, a collection of songs about autumn with latin/jazz touches. In addition to his work as a musician, Mr. Coco holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University. He has held solo exhibits in the US and Italy and his work is represented in museums worldwide.


 Paul Cohen Paul Cohen
Adjunct Professor
Saxophone
973-655-7212
cohenpa@mail.montclair.edu

Paul Cohen holds an M.M and DMA degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. He has appeared as soloist with many orchestras including the New Jersey Symphony and San Francisco Symphony. His many solo orchestra performances include works by Debussy, Creston, Ibert, Glazonov, Martin, and Villa-Lobos. He has played in numerous ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, New Jersey Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, Group for Contemporary Music, New York Solisti and the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded three albums with the Cleveland Symphonic Winds under the direction of Frederick Fennell, a compact disk of the music of Villa-Lobos with the Quintet of the Americas, and recordings with the Saxophone Sinfonia, Paul Winter Consort, and the New Sousa Band. Recent recordings include an environmental-Jazz CD of solo improvisations and his solo CD, Vintage Saxophones Revisited, featuring the premiere recording of Cowell's Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 18. He has published more than 100 articles on the history and literature of the saxophone.


Steve Colson
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Jazz
973-655-7212

Adegoke Steve Colson, pianist and composer, has performed internationally as a bandleader of ensembles from trios to orchestras. Born in New Jersey, he graduated from Northwestern University School of Music. In 1972 Steve joined Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a cooperative influencing music internationally in the 20th and 21st Century; he has performed with or featured in his own groups a host of luminaries and innovators. Appearances have taken him throughout the US, Western Europe, Caribbean, Turkey, Israel, and Africa; he has headlined the largest Jazz festivals in the world (North Sea Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Red Sea Festival). Steve has awards from State Arts Councils (IL, NJ, NY, PA), the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, and Arts International. NJ Chamber Music Society commissioned "…as in a Cultural Reminiscence…" – an orchestral collaboration with word masters Amiri Baraka (The Dutchman, Blues People, Last Poet Laureate of NJ) and Richard Wesley (Talented Tenth, Uptown Saturday Night) that has met only standing ovations in the USA and France. Steve is on American, European and Japanese record labels: Columbia/Sony, Evidence, and Black Saint. He is ASCAP-affiliated, and his latest CD collaboration with his wife, vocalist/lyricist Iqua Colson, is Hope For Love on their own Silver Sphinx label.


Charles Corey
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Aural Skills
Harry Partch Institute
973-655-7212


Lynn Coyle   Lynn Coyle
Adjunct Professor 
Music Therapy 
973-655-7212 
Lynn Coyle, MM, MMT, MT-BC has been the Director of Music Therapy at Matheny Medical & Educational Center, a premier facility for people of all ages with developmental disabilities, since 2000. She has presented regionally to educators, administrators, as well as music therapists. She has served as the treasurer for the New Jersey Association for Music Therapy, and was a member of the New Jersey Task Force for Occupational Regulation.

Mary Ann Craig
Professor Emerita
Director of Bands
Euphonium


Kelly Crandall   Kelly Crandall
Adjunct Professor
Vocal Coach
973-655-7212

A seasoned opera coach and pianist, Crandell gained prominence in his collaboration with mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade on both an arrangement of Anna Madrigal Remembers commissioned by the Seattle Men’s Chorus and the role of Despina from Cosí fan tutte. More recently, his reputation as a talented vocal coach has earned him work with singers with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the Grammy Award winning ensemble Ars Nova Copenhagen in Denmark, the Belgian opera house La Monnaie, and the San Francisco Opera. Crandell is currently on staff at Rutgers University, coaches privately in Jersey City/Manhattan, and runs a small company that creates and manages media for artists around the globe, SectionMG Studio.


D

David Dabbon  

David Dabbon
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Aural Skills for Musical Theater 
973-655-7212
dabbond@mail.montclair.edu
David Dabbon - Website

David Dabbon is a composer/arranger in New York City.   He was part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s second Workshop of Tin Pan Alley Rag.  David Dabbon has worked at Pittsburgh CLO as part of the music staff for the past three summer seasons, some productions include:Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat starring Shoshana Bean and David Osmond, Oklahoma, White Christmas, and The Full Monty.  He was the arranger and conductor for the Richard Rogers Award ceremony, honoring Shirley Jones. David Dabbon was also arranger for PCLO’s annual Gene Kelly Awards 2008 and 2009.   He worked on the Goodspeed Opera House revival of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. From 2006 to 2008, he was on the faculty at Pittsburgh Musical Theater, teaching music and tap classes to students interested in the arts. He earned a Master’s  in Choral Conducting from Carnegie Mellon University studying with Dr. Robert Page and a Bachelor’s from the Hartt School of Music in CT in Musical Direction and Composition.   For three years David Dabbon was brought in as an instructor for the University of Hartford’s Educational Main Street program.  Currently, David Dabbon is teaching Sight Singing for Actors, part of Pace University’s Music Theatre Program.   He is the composer of the new musical American Family (Festival Winner) written with his collaborator Tom Bruett. 


Lisa DeLorenzo   Lisa DeLorenzo
Professor of Music
Music Education
Graduate Coordinator
973-655-7220
delorenzol@mail.montclair.edu

Prof. DeLorenzo holds an EdD from Teachers College, Columbia University, an MME from Indiana University, and a BS from West Chester State University - all degrees in music education. At MSU she is the Coordinator of Music Education where she teaches music education courses and supervises student teachers. Her interests in creative and critical thinking and movement/dance as well as teacher education have provided material for numerous articles in practitioners and research journals. In addition, Prof. DeLorenzo continually seeks teaching opportunities with young children. Her work as a public school music teacher, with the MSU Preparatory Division, and on a Hopi Indiana Reservation attest to that interest. In 1993-1994, Prof. DeLorenzo was awarded a John A. Goodlad Fellowship for study at the Institute for Educational Inquiry in Seattle. Her fellowship was one of eighteen selected throughout the country to examine teacher education and school renewal. She served on a writing panel for the New Jersey Department of Education to draft the core proficiencies for music instruction in the State of New Jersey and has been a clinician on music teaching throughout the Eastern region of the USA. Her affiliations with teaching organizations include the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA), and other nationally recognized education organizations.


Keriann Dibari   Keriann DiBari
Adjunct Professor
Clarinet
973-655-7212

KeriAnn DiBari-Oberle is currently a member of the Little Orchestra Society, Greenwich Symphony, and Erie Philharmonic. She has performed as principal clarinetist and as a member of the clarinet/saxophone section in many orchestras including the New Jersey Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Choral Society, New York Virtuosi and American Symphony. She has performed with Matchbox 20, the Moody Blues, Joni Mitchell, Michael Feinstein, Crystal Gale, Mandy Patinkin, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Manhattan Transfer. She has won many competitions and performed as soloist in concertos by Creston, Etler, Mozart and Weber. She has performed solo works of Debussy and Poulenc on New York’s WQXR radio; and chamber music at Weil Recital Hall. She can be heard on many television commercials and in movies including Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre DamePocahontasHercules, and The Presidents (PBS). Her performances on Broadway include Disney’s Beauty and the BeastA Christmas CarolRagtime, and Crazy For You. She is heard on the original Broadway cast album of Beauty and the Beast, and on albums by Cy Coleman and the Gotham Wind Symphony. She has spent summers performing in Aspen, the Grand Tetons and Altenburg, Germany. Ms. DiBari-Oberle was a student of Burt Hara, Bil Jackson, John Moses, Peter Simenauer and David Weber.


Gregory Dlugos
Adjunct Professor
Director of Pit Orchestra
973-655-7212


  Karen Driscoll
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
driscollk@mail.montclair.edu

Karen Driscoll’s numerous performances throughout North America have included the title role in Massenet's Manon for Florida Grand Opera and Florentine Opera, Mimi in La Bohème, Susannah, and Despina in Cosi fan tutte for L'Opéra de Montréal, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin for the Seattle Opera, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte for the Baltimore Opera, Nedda in I Pagliacci and Micaëla in Carmen for the Hawaii Opera Theater, Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffman for Palm Beach Opera, and her debut with Long Beach Opera as Sieglinde and Gutrune in Jonathan Dove's Ring Saga. She has won many prestigious awards including the Grand Prize in the Lee Schaenen Foundation competition and the Gilbert Artist of the Year Award from the Florida Grand Opera. In addition, she was a competition winner with Opera Columbus, Connecticut Opera, Young Patronesses of the Opera in Miami, Florida, and a regional runner-up in the National Society of Arts and Letters competition. Ms. Driscoll is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and completed her course work for a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance.


Laura Dolp   Laura Dolp
Associate Professor - Music History
General Education Studies
Program Coordinator
973-655-6883 
dolpl@mail.montclair.edu

Laura Dolp - Website

Prof. Laura Dolp is Associate Professor in Music History at the Cali School of Music. Her interdisciplinary research interests embrace a variety of topics, from late nineteenth-century Austro-German music and visual arts to the music of Arvo Pärt and Orthodox iconography. Currently, she is working on a book-length study of the historical relationship between cartography and the musical score. Her other interests include the relationship of music to modern dance, in the choreography of Mark Morris. Prof. Dolp is a frequent speaker in North America and Europe. Her articles are featured in 19th-Century Music, Journal of Musicological ResearchNaturlaut and Muzyka, and she has been awarded a President’s Fellowship at Columbia University and a DAAD scholarship at Humboldt–Universität in Berlin. She received her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from Columbia University.


E

‌   Marjorie Ellias
Adjunct Professor 
Music Therapy 
973-655-7212 
Marjorie Ellias is a Board Certified Music Therapist who has been practicing for over 21 years. She received her Bachelors Degree at Western Michigan University in 1987. She has extensive experience implementing Music Therapy programs for Gero-Psych and Adult Psych patients in inpatient and partial care settings and has worked with geriatric residents in both skilled nursing facilities and dementia units. She is now providing contractual music therapy services to several facilities and training front line staff. She has been an on-site facility supervisor for Montclair State University music therapy students for 10 years and joined the faculty in 2006 to evaluate students in the field at their practicum sites.
 Lorraine Ernest Lorraine Ernest
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
ernestl@mail.montclair.edu

Soprano Lorraine Ernest has been acclaimed by critics for her portrayal as Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte in opera houses throughout the United States and Europe, Peter G. Davis of New York Magazine writes," Lorraine Ernest brought down the house with her spectacular arias." She has performed this signature role with New York City Opera Metropolitan Opera Company, Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Denver Symphony Orchestra, and the Volksoper of Vienna, as well as with many other opera companies. Other roles include performances with the Opera Company of Philadelphia as Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri, Washington National Opera as Cleopatra inJulius Caesar, alongside Placido Domingo and Mirelli Freni in Fedora, at Carnegie Hall as Mademoiselle Jouvenot in the Opera Orchestra of Orchestra of New York's concert-version of Adriana Lecouvreur, at the Los Angeles Opera as Princess Tatishchev alongside Placido Domingo in Nicholas and Alexandra. She performed first Violetta in La Traviata with Boheme Opera of New Jersey. She was the recipient and winner of awards from the Richard Tucker Foundation, the Mathias Sullivan Foundation, Metropolitan Opera Nation Council finalist, George London Scholarship Winner, Liederkranz first place winner and Birgit Nilsson Competition finalist.


F

Diane Farrell
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212
farrelld@mail.montclair.edu


 Alan Ferber Alan Ferber
Adjunct Professor
Jazz Trombone 
973-655-7212
ferbera@mail.montclair.edu
Alan Ferber is known internationally as a virtuoso jazz trombonist and bandleader. His projects “Scenes From An Exit Row” and “The Compass” have shown his range as performer and leader. He has built a solid reputation both as an ensemble player and an improviser. He has toured with eight-string guitarist, Charlie Hunter, played lead trombone in a premiere of the “Sweet Ruby Suite” with Kenny Wheeler’s Large Ensemble, performed extended engagements with the Lee Konitz Nonet, Don Byron’s Music For Six Musicians, the Benny Wallace Nonet, and the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble in clubs ranging from The Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, Birdland, and Iridium. In addition to jazz, Alan has performed extensively in other genres with artists as diverse as Harry Connick Jr, Nancy Sinatra, Diana Krall, They Might Be Giants, Kelly Clarkson, Dr. Dre, Michael Buble, Paul Anka, and Broadway shows includingThe ProducersFosseDirty Rotten Scoundrels, and A Chorus Line. He has appeared on TV shows including Late Night with David Lettermanthe Tonight ShowThe ViewBeverly Hills 90210, and Good Morning America. As a teacher, Alan has been professor in residence at the Gremio das Musicas Jazz Workshop in Portugal, the Bar Harbor Brass Week, the Maine Jazz Camp, the Guimarais Jazz Festival, and the Lafayette Summer Music Workshop.

Loren Fortna   Loren Fortna
Adjunct Professor
Guitar
973-655-7212
fortnal@mail.montclair.edu

Loren C. Fortna holds a BA in Music Theoretical Studies from Susquehanna University, where he studied guitar with Stan Mullen. He earned the M.M. at the University of Akron, studying with Stephen Aron, and an Artist’s Diploma from the Cali School, studying with early music specialist Dennis Cinelli. As a performer Loren has performed throughout North America, from New Jersey to Vancouver (BC) as a soloist, accompanist, ensemble member, and conductor. A review inSoundboard Magazine stated:  “Fortna’s rendering of works…displayed impressive attention to detail and nuance.  His deep admiration and understanding of the music of Piazzolla was riveting.” He has worked with award winning conductors and composers, most notably Owen Middleton, Patrick Burns and William Payn. Loren was a featured “Spotlight” performer at the 2000 and 2006 Triennial National Assemblies of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and the 2007 University of Akron Alumni Guitar Festival. Since 2001 Loren has been teaching vocal and general music in the New Jersey public schools. In 2004 he joined the Springfield Public Schools where he was named District Teacher of the Year for the 2008-2009 school year. 


Johanna Frymoyer
Adjunct Professor
Music History
973-655-7212
frymoyerj@mail.montclair.edu


G

Darren Gage
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Aural Skills
973-655-7212


 Jeffrey Gall Jeffrey Gall
Professor of Music
Voice
Music History
973-655-7213
gallj@mail.montclair.edu

Jeffrey Gall made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1988 - the first countertenor ever to sing at the Met. He sang Tolomeo in Handel'sGiulio Cesare, and in 1994 returned to the Met for Britten's Death in Venice. He studied voice at the Yale School of Music with Blake Stern, and holds degrees in Slavic languages from Princeton and Yale Universities. He sang with such early music ensembles as the Waverly Consort and Pomerium Musices early in his career and then moved on to solo roles in Baroque and contemporary opera. He has sung principal roles at La Scala, Teatro San Carlo (Naples) and La Fenice in Italy; the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Salle Garnier in France; the Monnaie in Brussels; the Netherlands Opera; the Cologne and Frankfurt Operas in Germany; the Canadian Opera, as well as the Spoleto, Edinburgh, Innsbruck, Halle, Schwetzingen, and Bordeaux Festivals. In the United States he has sung at the San Francisco, Chicago Lyric, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Boston Operas, and has made many concert appearances at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as at the Kennedy Center in Washington. He has recorded for CBS, Harmonia Mundi, Erato, Nonesuch, Titanic, and Smithsonian Records, and appears in the title role on the London video of Peter Sellars' production of Handel's Giulio Cesare. Prof. Gall has conducted clinics and master classes in both standard repertory and early-music techniques at music schools across the United States. In addition, he is a founding member of the Italian vocal ensemble Il Terzo Suono.


Claire Ghetti
Adjunct Professor
Music Therapy
973-655-7212

 Peter Gillis Peter Gillis
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
gillisp@mail.montclair.edu
Peter Gillis - Website

A voice the Ottawa Citizen has called “golden,” Canadian tenor Peter Gillis holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Juilliard School. His performance history is extensive, including regular engagements at Italy’s Festival Dei Due Mondi, his Carnegie Hall debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and appearances at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Opera.  Among other venues have been the Opera Company of Boston, the Opera Orchestra of New York, the Lenox (MA) Music Theatre Group, Milwaukee’s Skylight Opera Theater, and the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, SC. Canadian performances have included several Celtic Colours International Festival appearances, concerts with Symphony Nova Scotia, and a national tour of Canada with folk luminary Rita MacNeil. He has sung Tom Rakewell in Opera Nova Scotia’s The Rake’s Progress. Dr. Gillis also holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and Indiana University at Bloomington.  Part of the MSU faculty since 2004, he has taught at universities throughout the Metro New York area and maintains a private studio in Great Notch, NJ.  Adjudicating activities have included the Nova Scotia Music Festival, the New Glasgow Music Festival, the New York Singing Teachers Association’s Young Professional Competition at Steinway Hall, and the Master Teachers Series at Dalhousie University and Acadia University.


Karen Goodman   Karen Goodman
Professor of Music
Music Therapy
973-655-5268
goodmank@mail.montclair.edu
Karen Goodman - Website

Karen D. Goodman, credentialed as a music therapist, special education teacher and creative arts therapist, has enjoyed varied and extensive clinical practice at facilities including New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and The Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center. Former Editor-in-Chief, Music Therapy: The Journal of the American Association for Music Therapy, Goodman has designed and taught 31 courses in the music department and served as the coordinator of the undergraduate and graduate music therapy programs for over two decades. She received her undergraduate and graduate education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Hunter College, Montclair State College and New York University. As an author, recent contributions to the literature include: Music Therapy Groupwork with Special Needs Children: The Evolving Process (2007), hailed as “astonishing and challenging ” (Clive Robbins), “a gold mine” (Nordic Journal of Music Therapy) and “a standard work”(Canadian Journal of Music Therapy) and her  book, Music Therapy Education and Training: From Theory to Practice (2011), “that should find its home on every academic book-shelf.” (Dr. Suzanne Hanser, Foreword). Prof. Goodman lectures worldwide on clinical techniques for psychiatric and developmentally disabled clients, work developed with the support of 24 research grants. In addition to her teaching, consulting, supervising and writing, Prof. Goodman serves as Senior Music Therapist in the Music Therapy Clinic, Affiliate Faculty for the Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health, Visiting Specialist for the Department of Psychology (winter/summer) and Editor to The International Journal of Clinical Medicine.


Melissa Gonzalez
Adjunct Professor
Rap/Rock
973-655-7212


  Joshua Groffman
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Composition
973-655-7212

  Romie de Guise-Langlois
Adjunct Professor
Clarinet
973-655-7212

Praised as “…extraordinary...” and “…a formidable clarinetist...” by the New York Times, Romie de Guise-Langlois has appeared as soloist with the Houston Symphony, Ensemble ACJW, the Yale Philharmonia, McGill University Symphony Orchestra and at Banff Center for the Arts. She is a winner of the 2011 Astral Artists’ National Audition and was awarded the First Prize in the 2009 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg competition; she was additionally a First Prize winner of Woolsey Hall Competition at Yale University, the McGill University Classical Concerto Competition and the Canadian Music Competition. An avid chamber musician, Ms. de Guise-Langlois joins the roster of CMS Two in 2012. She has toured with Musicians from Marlboro, and has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia and Boston Chamber Music Societies, 92 Y Street, and Chamber Music Northwest among many others. She has performed as principal clarinetist for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New Haven and Stamford Symphony Orchestras and she is a member of The Knights Chamber Orchestra. A native of Montreal, Ms. de Guise-Langlois earned her B.M. degree from McGill University and her M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she studied under David Shifrin.


H

 Marsha Heller Marsha Heller
Adjunct Professor
Oboe
973-655-7212
hellerma@mail.montclair.edu

Oboist Marsha Heller has been recognized for her expressive playing and beautiful tone by the New York Times and Performing Arts Magazine, among many others. She studied with Harvey McGuire of the Cleveland Orchestra, at Oberlin Conservatory with DeVere Moore, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and in New York with Harold Gomberg and Henry Schuman. Since her debut as winner of the Concert Artists' Guild Competition in 1971 she has performed with diverse groups including the American Symphony, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Martha Graham Dance Company, Bronx Arts Ensemble, and New York Pops. She has been a frequent guest soloist at the Berkshire Bach Society, Ogunquit Chamber Music Festival and the New Jersey Chamber Music Society. She is a member of the Queen's Chamber Band, which performs Baroque and contemporary works. Her recordings include Music of Carlos Surinach, Ritmo Jondo and Three is Company, all with the Bronx Arts Ensemble, JCF-the Buckeburg Bach and Ragtime at the Ritz with the Trio Bell'Arte, and Viva Italia with the Queen's Chamber Band. Ms Heller has taught oboe and chamber music at MSU since 1991.


Darrell Hendricks
Adjunct Professor
Brass Techniques
973-655-7212


William Hess
Adjunct Professor
Euphonium 
973-655-7212


Niko Higgins
Adjunct Professor
Music History 
973-655-7212


Ting Ho   Ting Ho
Professor of Music
Theory/Composition
Composition Program Coordinator
973-655-7221
hoti@mail.montclair.edu

Ting Ho, a New Jersey Distinguished Artist (1988), has received composing grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the American Music Center and Meet-the-Composer. He is the recipient of the Louis Lane Prize, and his works have been performed at Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall in New York City, and in concerts and new music festivals in the United States and Europe. Born in Chungking, China, he composed a two piano work that was featured in a Voice of America broadcast to the Orient. In 1991, Prof. Ho's composition Wild Geese Alighting was the required Chinese performance piece for children eight years old or younger at the Sixth Annual International Young Artist Piano Competition Featuring Chinese Music held in Washington, DC. Prof. Ho received his Ph.D. in music composition from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester (NY). He is a new music specialist, adjudicator and consultant for numerous community and educational arts organizations and schools.


Brian Holman
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212


Diana Hughes
Adjunct Professor
Piano for Non-Majors
973-655-7212
hughesy@mail.montclair.edu


I


J

 Clay James Clay James
Assistant Professor
Musical Theatre
Program Coordinator
973-736-7341
jamesbr@mail.montclair.edu

Director and choreographer Clay James teaches musical theatre in MSU's Departments of Music and Theatre/Dance. He came to Montclair in 2005 after serving as head of musical theatre for the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Miami. He has also taught at Florida Atlantic University, Miami Dade Community College and New World School of the Arts. His directing and choreography credits include the St. Louis Muny Opera, Playhouse in the Park, Shores Performing Arts Center, North Shore Music Theatre, and Walt Disney Productions, among many others.



Yi-Wen Jiang   Yi-Wen Jiang
Artist-in-Residence
Shanghai Quartet
Violin
973-655-7734
jiangy@mail.montclair.edu

Violinist Yi-Wen Jiang was born into a musical family in Beijing where both parents were professional musicians. Beginning his violin studies with his father at age six, Jiang made his concerto debut at the age of 17 with the Central Opera House Orchestra in Beijing where he played the Prokofiev D Major Concerto Opus 19. After winning top prize at the first China Youth Violin Competition in 1981, Jiang was accepted to study with Professor Han Li at the Central Conservatory of Music. In 1985, after receiving a full scholarship from McDonnell-Douglas, Jiang came to the U.S. to study with Taras Gabora and Michael Tree. In 1990, with the support of the Ken Boxley Foundation, he went to Rutgers University to work with Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri Quartet. Other teachers included Gérard Poulet and Pinchas Zuckerman. As a prizewinner at the Montreal International Competitions, he appeared as a soloist with the Victoria Symphony and Montreal Symphony. Jiang had appeared at many international music festivals by the age of 22. He has recorded for the Record Corporation of China. As a composer, Jiang has arranged over 50 pieces for string quartet and other instruments, many pieces composed with Eastern repertoire and Western influence. In addition to his extensive touring and recordings schedule, Jiang maintains a close relationships with his students. Jiang teaches at Montclair State University and the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He is also guest professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Shanghai Conservatory. 


Steve Johns   Steve Johns
Adjunct Professor
Percussion
Jazz Drum Set
973-655-7212
Steve Johns-Website

Visiting percussion specialist Steve Johns studied with master drummers Alan Dawson and Bob Gullotti and attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied classical percussion with Fred Buda and Vic Firth. He moved to New York in 1982. He has worked, recorded and collaborated with Donald Byrd, Nat Adderley, Eddie Henderson, the Count Basie Orchestra under Frank Foster, the Vanguard Orchestra, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin Big Band, Benny Carter, Phil Woods, Illinois Jacquet, Michael Brecker, Stanley Turentine, Slide Hampton, Kenny Burrell, and many others. Steve was the drummer for NPR's Billy Taylor's Jazz at The Kennedy Center in which he recorded 75 shows with guest including Wynton Marsalis, Nancy Wilson, Joe Lavano, Arturo Sandoval, Ray Barreto, Milt Jackson, Jon Faddis, Randy Brecker, Grover Washngon, Gary Burton, and Harry Sweet Edison. Mr. Johns's recordings include Ceremony on Malaco with saxophonist Peter Brainin (Cats Paw Records) and No Saints/No Sinners (Playscape Records). As well as having a busy performance schedule, Mr. Johns has taught at the Vermont Jazz Center, the Jazz In July Program at the University of Massachusetts, the Thelonius Monk Institute in Aspen Colorado and Williams College in Massachusetts.


Aaron Johnson
Adjunct Professor
Music in Film
973-655-7212


Minhye Ju   Minhye Ju
Adjunct Professor
Percussion
973-655-7212

Marimbist and percussionist Minhye Ju, a native of Korea, began marimba studies at the age of five. She was awarded first prize from the Chung-Book Music Association and made her debut with the Chung-Book KBS Orchestra. The recipient of numerous awards including the Grand Prize from Dong Yang Times Competition and the First Prize and Critics Prize from Seoul Music Journal. Ms.Ju has also made solo appearances with the Chung-Ju Municipal Music Association, the New Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nanse Gum, the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony and Cheong Ju Philharmonic. In 2003, Ms.Ju was awarded Third Prize by the International Marimba Competition in Paris, France. She has performed with Decapo Opera, The National Chorale, and with many other orchestras including Garden State Philharmonic, Muscia Viva, and New Amsterdam. She holds both her Bachelor and Master Degree from Mannes College of Music, The New School of Music. She studied with Barry Centanni, She-e Wu, Norman Freeman and Jeff Milliasky.


K

  Tony Kadleck
Adjunct Professor
Trumpet
973-655-7212
Tony Kadleck - Website

Tony Kadleck studied both classical and jazz music at New England Conservatory in Boston. He went on to perform and record with the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 1986, he joined the trumpet section of the Buddy Rich Band and moved to New York. He graduated from Manhattan School of Music in 1989. He has toured with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He has recorded with a number of artists, including Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Celine Dion and performed in live concerts with artists including Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Ella Fitzgerald, Issac Hayes, and most recently the Count Basie Orchestra. In addition to playing on countless jingles and for many films and shows, Kadleck is also a composer. His debut CD Extended Outlook features eight of his original works performed by Chuck Loeb, David Mann, Henry Hey, Jon Herington and Andy Snitzer. His musical influences have included his first teachers: Bernard Shifrin in his hometown of Binghamton, NY; and Andre Come, formerly of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Tony is currently a member of many organizations including the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, the New York Pops, John Fedchock's NY Big Band, the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, and John Pizzarelli's Swing Seven.


Miki Kaneda
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212


  Andrew Kaye
Adjunct Professor
Diverse Worlds of Music
973-655-7212

Andrew L. Kaye (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1992) is an ethnomusicologist with research interests in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, popular music, and film music. His publications include Musica dell'Africa Nera. Civiltà subsahariane fra tradizione e modernità (Palermo: L'Epos, 2004), a book co-authored with Leonardo D'Amico; "The film score and the African musical experience" in Approaches to African Music (Valladolid, Spain: Universidad de Valladolid Press, 2006); and "The guitar in Africa" (Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1: Africa, New York: Garland, 1998). A longtime collaborator with pioneering folk music specialist Alan Lomax, Kaye co-edited the Southern Journey a series of 13 compact discs. He has taught as a visiting lecturer at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife, Brazil), the University of Iceland and the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Facultad de Artes y Letras). From 2007 to 2011 he taught courses in African and Caribbean culture and music as part of the Africana Studies faculty at Lehigh University, and since 2009 he has taught courses in Asian and Western musics as adjunct faculty at Columbia University. Andrew has performed as a trombonist in symphonic orchestras as well as a Brooklyn-based salsa band; he is also an aficionado of the Argentine tango.


Tatyana Kebuladze
Adjunct Professor
Secondary Piano
973-655-7212
kebuladzet@mail.montclair.edu

A native of Ukraine, pianist Tatyana Kebuladze graduated from the Gliere State Music College, the alma mater of virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz. For four years she served as accompanist with the New Jersey Children’s Choir, performing throughout United States and Canada, and appeared in collaborations with the New Jersey Chamber Music Society. Her appearances as a soloist and accompanist include concerts at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 92nd Street Y, St. Bartholomew’s Church, and a concert-lecture at Columbia University Teacher’s College (New York City), NJPAC, and Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Newark, NJ). She was a guest pianist at the Niagara Falls International Summer Festival, Canada. Ms. Kebuladze graduated with honors from Montclair State University, and received awards including the School of the Arts Talent Award. She holds a Master of Music degree from Rutgers University, where she worked as Teaching Assistant. She has taught at the Cali School and Westminster Choir College since 2004. She is also the owner and artistic director of Oranta Music Academy. She is a co-founding member of Montclair Piano Trio. She was recently awarded Genia Robinor Pedagogy Teaching Excellence Award presented by the Piano Teachers Society of America in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York.


Bouna Kim
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212

Pianist Bouna Kim has won numerous national competitions in her native Korea and the U.S. Most recently, she won the First Prize at the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, and presented the winners concert successfully at the Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall in March 2012. She has performed as a soloist with the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra of Czech Republic, Wieniawski Poland National Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Chamber Orchestra, Seoul Symphony Orchestra, and Korea Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, she has appeared at numerous concerts as a soloist and a collaborative pianist including venues in Ostrava (Czech Republic), Lublin (Poland), Seoul (Korea), Kyoto, Osaka (Japan) and throughout the U.S. Ms. Kim holds her Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she studied with Arthur Greene as a recipient of the Merit Award Scholarship. She extended her study at the Manhattan School of Music, where she completed her Certificate of Professional Studies under the tutelage of Phillip Kawin. She holds her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied under Ian Hobson.


Monsoon Han Kim   Monsoon Han Kim
Adjunct Professor
Secondary Piano
Accompanist
973-655-7212
kimm@mail.montclair.edu 

Mansoon Han Kim has won numerous competitions including the Yale Gordon Competition, the Yook Young Competition, the Piano Music Competition, and Nan Pa Music Competition. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Seoul National University with Honor. After coming to the United States, she began studies with concert pianist Ann Schein at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, where she received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. She has performed throughout the United States, Canada, South Korea, and China. She has performed with members of the Maia String Quartet, Ceruti String Quartet, the Anchor Trio, and soprano Hyunah Yu. Kim has won the Clara Ascherfeld Accompanying Award, Peabody Career Development Grant. She has studied at summer festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, the Orford Arts Centre, and the Kent Blossom Summer Chamber Music Festival and participated in master classes by Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher, Abbey Simon, Jörg Demus, Sergei Dorensky, and Gabby Casadesus. As an educator, she gave master classes at Arizona State University, Southern Illinois University, and the Pianofest held at Nyack College. She became an adjunct professor at the Cali School after serving as an Assistant Professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.


Soyeon Kim   Soyeon Kim
Adjunct Professor
Piano
Secondary Piano
Collaborative Pianist/Vocal Coach
973-655-7212
kimsoy@mail.montclair.edu

Soyeon Kim has appeared as a solo and collaborative pianist throughout the United States, Europe and Korea. In 2010, she performed at the Water for Haiti Benefit Concert at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, and has performed in many similar venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Sejong Center and ArKo Arts Theater in Seoul, Korea, the Croatian Music Institution in Zagreb, Croatia, Konzerthaus in Berlin and Gasteig in Munich, Germany. She has also performed in many chamber series including those sponsored by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Cathedral Saint John Divine, Trinity at One, and Music at Penn Alps. She has won awards in several competitions including First Prize and Best interpretation in the Liszt in William Garrison Piano Competition, Second Prize in the Artur Balsam Competition for Duos, and the New Triad Foundation Fellowship (New York City). She has participated in masterclasses with such artists as Marilyn Horne, Thomas Hampson, Anna Moffo, Dalton Baldwin, Glenn Dicterow and Edgar Meyer. She has received B.M. and M.M. degrees in piano performance from Seoul National University, and a M.M. degree and D.M.A. degree in accompanying from Manhattan School of Music.


 Sylwia Kloc Sylwia Kloc
Adjunct Professor
Guitar
973-655-7212
klocs@mail.montclair.edu

Sylwia Kloc, a native of Poland, is an active soloist, chamber music player, and a teacher. Her repertoire ranges from the renaissance to the 20th century's most current compositions. Ms. Kloc recieved both her Bachelor and Master Degrees from Mannes College of Music. She studied with Frederic Hand and was awarded the merit scholarship for her excellence in performance. Ms. Kloc and violist Elena Rojas form the ensemble Colloquio di Corde. The duo plays a variety of music, although its main focus is commissioning works from modern-day composers. Ms. Kloc plays Renaissance lute, Baroque guitar, and studied privately with the renowned early music player Dennis Cinelli. In the Spring of 2007 Ms. Kloc premiered and recorded “Ancient Visions” a concerto for Renaissance lute and guitar ensemble by Terry Champlin. She was a scholar recipient for the 2006 "Music in Compostela Festival" in Spain where she studied with Jose Luiz Rodrigo.


Siobhan Kolker   Siobhan Kolker
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
Siobhan Kolker - Website

Siobhan Kolker’s career includes work in opera, musical theater, plays and staged readings, oratorio, song recital and musical comedy improv. New York credits include the New York International Fringe Festival, Verse Theatre Manhattan, One World Symphony and numerous readings of new musicals and plays. She has appeared in the Kennedy Center’s Sondheim Celebration (A Little Night Music; Merrily We Roll Along); performed with the Ohio Light Opera, Washington National Opera, and for ten seasons with the Baltimore Opera, where she appeared both on the mainstage and in their educational outreach program. Favorite theater roles include a critically acclaimed Julie (Carousel) in Maryland. She was also a member of D.C.’s musical comedy improv troupe, Now This! Leading operatic performances include the title role in Massenet's Chérubin, Serpina (La Serva Padrona), Diane (Actéon – Charpentier), Nancy (Albert Herring) and Meg Page (Falstaff), Venus (Orpheus in the Underworld), and Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw). She holds a Bachelor of Musical Arts degree in Voice and History from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music from the Peabody Conservatory. She is a member of the New York Singing Teachers Association, Actors Equity and the American Guild of Musical Artists.


Dmitri Korneev   Dmitri Korneev
Collaborative Pianist - Coordinator
973-655-7212
korneevd@mail.montclair.edu

In addition to his performances as a collaborative pianist at the Cali School, Dmitri Korneev is actively involved in vocal auditions and regional competitions for singers. He is also Executive Director of the “You Need Music” Educational & Performing Enterprise, which holds an annual regional competition with the winner’s recital in Carnegie Hall. As a solo pianist Dmitri spent several years giving recitals throughout Russia, Greece, Italy and United States. His performances in the States included such prestigious concert halls as Carnegie Hall and United Nations Concert Hall in New York. While living in Texas, Dmitri worked at the University of Texas at San Antonio and served as principal accompanist at the San Antonio Lyric Opera. He is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Music (Gnessin) as well as the Central Music School at Moscow State Conservatory. Among Dmitri’s teachers, Prof. Alexandrov and Prof. Slesarev were the most influential.  He has participated in masterclasses held by Claude Frank and Arkady Aronov, and in the La Belle Epoque Festival in New York. In 1998 he became a laureate of the International Piano Competition IBLA Grand Prize in Italy.


Boris Kucharsky   Boris Kucharsky
Adjunct Professor
Violin
973-655-7212
kucharskyb@mail.montclair.edu
Boris Kucharsky - Website

Russian, Slovakian, German violinist Boris Kucharsky was born in Dortmund, Germany, in 1971. At the age of 7 he started to play the violin and in 1984 was admitted to the Menuhin School.  Yehudi Menuhin had a profound influence on Kucharsky: He became his teacher and mentor, partnering him in double concertos and directing the orchestra with his protégé as soloist. Kucharsky received a MM and AD from the Musikhochschule Cologne, where his teacher was Igor Ozim and holds a MM from Yale, where his teacher was Erick Friedman. Kucharsky’s recent concert series included complete cycles of the violin sonatas by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. His set of all 10 Beethoven Sonatas on CD, released in 2010, received great critical acclaim. His busy trans-European schedule is interspersed with regular visits to the US and the Far East, where he is a much sought-after guest in both concert halls and recording studios. Since 2008 he has been teaching at the John J. Cali School of Music. He plays the "Baron Knoop", by Carlo Bergonzi, Cremona 1735.


April Kuhr   April Kuhr
Collaborative Pianist
Vocal Coach
973-655-7212
kuhra@mail.montclair.edu

Pianist April Kuhr received undergraduate degrees in piano performance and accompanying from Pacific Lutheran University and a masters degree in piano performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music. As a Rotary International "Graduate Fellow", she studied at the Konservatorium der Stadt, Wien in Vienna, Austria. Active as a soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Kuhr has performed in Austria, Germany and Italy, as well as throughout the US, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall with baritone, Duncan Harman. Recent projects include a solo performance at the Chopin 200 Piano Festival in New York City, a solo piano recital for the Mason County Community Concerts Association, violin/piano duo recitals with Michael Gillette, Susan Heerema and Marya Columbia, oboe and piano and organ performances with Robert LeClair and trumpet/organ duo recitals with Dominic Derasse. Ms. Kuhr is Director of Music at Saint Cecilia's Church in Englewood, NJ. She has served as organist and choir master for the Catholic Chapel at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where her duties included training and touring with a choir of West Point Cadets. She has also served on the faculties of Hamilton College, Muskingum College, Stephens College and the State University of New York.


Jeffrey Kunkel   Jeffrey Kunkel
Associate Professor
Associate Director for Faculty
MSU Jazz Ensembles/Jazz Piano
973-655-7215
kunkelj@mail.montclair.edu

Jeffery Kunkel-Website

Jeffrey Kunkel (D.Ed., Music Education, Penn State University; M.M., Jazz Studies, New England Conservatory; B.S., Music Education, Penn State University) is Coordinator of the Cali School’s new major in Jazz Studies. Previously, Kunkel served as the Coordinator of Undergraduate Music Education. In 2008 he was presented with the New Jersey Jazz Education Achievement Award, given annually to an educator who has excelled in the field of jazz education. Kunkel spent spring 2007 on sabbatical in Brazil, concentrating his studies on Brazilian jazz and bossa. While there, he presented a workshop at the Federal University of Parana and performed a jazz trio masterclass at UNIRIO in Rio de Janeiro with Haroldo Mauro. He recently returned to Rio for his first featured jazz performance at TribOz in the Lapa district. In the Cali School he teaches courses in jazz history, theory, improvisation, and pedagogy. He directs of the MSU Jazz Band and formerly directed the Vocal Jazz. These ensembles have performed at festivals throughout the trip-state area, and were featured with the Grammy–Award-winning New York Voices in MSU’s annual Crawford Concert in 2006. He was previously on the faculties of James Madison University and Otterbein College, and prior to that taught on the secondary level in Connecticut and Pennsylvania.


L

  Ken Lam
Director of Orchestral Studies
973-655-7584
lamk@mail.montclair.edu
Ken Lam - Website

Ken Lam is the conductor of the Montclair State University Symphony Orchestra and the Cali School opera orchestra. He is the winner of the 2011 Memphis Symphony Orchestra Conducting Competition and was Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for three seasons. He is Resident Conductor at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, Artistic Director of the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestras and Artistic Director of Hong Kong Voices in China. Ken was a featured conductor at the League of American Orchestras' 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview and made his professional debut in 2008 with the National Symphony Orchestra. He was a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival (with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin), the National Conducting Institute (with Leonard Slatikin) and assistant conductor at the Castleton Festival (under Lorin Maazel) He read economics at Cambridge University and studied orchestra conducting at Peabody Conservatory with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar.


Jerome Landsman
Professor Emeritus
Strings


Martha Learner
Concert Manager
973-655-7263
learnerm@mail.montclair.edu

Martha Learner has worked as an administrator, editor, webmaster, musician and visual artist. This experience contributes to her work in the Cali School, where she handles multiple jobs including scheduling and oversight of academic concerts, publications and communications.


Ron Levy   Ron Levy
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212
levyr@mail.montclair.edu

Ron Levy has been called "first-class" by the New York Times. He regularly appears as soloist and in partnership with many of the world's leading singers and instrumentalists. A graduate of Oberlin, Mr. Levy is a founding member of the Hudson Trio, Kaleidoscope, the New World Trio, the Manchester Chamber Players, the Breuckelen Trio, and the Palisades Virtuosi; he has been pianist and harpsichordist of the Oberlin Orchestra, the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, the New Jersey and North Jersey Philharmonics, the Westchester Symphony, and the Albany Symphony. Presently he is Associate Artist with the All Seasons Chamber Players, and is the pianist of the Orpheus Men's Chorus and Ridgewood Choral. Recordings by Mr. Levy are available on the Albany, Centaur, Eroica, Koch International, MMF and High Point labels. In the summer of 2008, Mr. Levy made his debuts in St. Petersburg, Russia, and at the venerable Stratford Summer Music Festival, CA.


 Honggang Li

Honggang Li
Artist-in-Residence
Shanghai Quartet
Viola
973-655-7727
lih@mail.montclair.edu

Honggang Li began his musical training studying the violin with his parents at the same time as his brother, Weigang. When the Beijing Conservatory reopened in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. He continued his training at the Shanghai Conservatory and was appointed a faculty member there in 1984. Mr. Li has also served as a teaching assistant at the Juilliard School and has appeared as soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic and the Shanghai Conservatory Orchestra. In 1987 he won a violin as a special prize given by Elisa Pegreffi of Quartetto Italiano at the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy.


 Weigang Li Weigang Li
Artist-in-Residence
Shanghai Quartet
Violin
973-655-7613
liw@mail.montclair.edu
Quartet Website

A native of Shanghai, Weigang Li has been a featured soloist with the Asian Youth Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony. Mr. Li began studying the violin with his parents at the age of five and went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory at age 14. He then came to the United States in 1981 to study at the San Francisco Conservatory through an exchange program between the sister cities of San Francisco and Shanghai. Upon graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory in 1985, Mr. Li was appointed assistant professor of violin at the school. Shortly thereafter he left China to continue his education at the Northern Illinois University. From 1987-1989, Mr. Li studied and taught at the Juilliard School as teaching assistant to the Juilliard Quartet. His other teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pierre Menard, Shu-Chen Tan, and Isadore Tinkleman. Mr. Li was featured in the film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.


John Lindner   John Lindner
Adjunct Professor
Jazz Improvisation
973-655-7212
John Lindner served as the Director of Bands at Northern Burlington County Regional High School in Columbus (NJ) for 34 years. From 2008-2011 he was an adjunct instructor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University where he coordinated student teaching and practicum placement, taught classes in instrumental methods and conducted student teacher observations. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree (1974) and his Master of Education degree (1978) from Trenton State College. Mr. Lindner is a member of the Music Educators National Conference, the New Jersey Association for Jazz Education and the International Trumpet Guild. He was the guest conductor of the 2004 All South Jersey High School Symphonic Band and the 2011 Central Jersey Music Educators Association High School Symphonic Band. He is currently the NJAJE Past President and was selected by the New Jersey Chapter of the International Association for Jazz Education as the New Jersey Jazz Educator of the year for 2002-2003. He was honored as the 2007 New Jersey Master Music Educator of the year by the New Jersey Music Educators Association and also received the New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education.
Michael Lipsey   Michael Lipsey
Adjunct Professor
Percussion
973-655-7212

Michael Lipsey holds masters degree from Manhattan School of Music. He has performed with such prestigious ensembles as the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society II, Riverside Symphony, Ensemble Sospeso, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Newband and is a founding member of the Talujon Percussion Quartet. The Talujon Percussion Quartet has performed for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, BAM, Tan Dun, Taipei Red Lantern Festival and recorded for Tzadik and CRI Records. He has also recorded for Sony Classical with the BBC Symphony, CRI, Albany, Red Poppy, Mode, and Nonesuch Records. He has performed at festivals around the world including Berlin, Mexico City, Taipei, Tokyo, Moscow, Bang on a Can, Chautauqua, Library of Congress and the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival. He is very interested in creating new works for hand drums and commissions and premieres works in this medium. Recently he traveled to Cuba to study the religious music of that country and continues to study South Indian percussion.


David Lopato
Adjunct Professor
Diverse Worlds of Music
973-655-7212
lopatod@mail.montclair.edu
David Lopato - Website


Renée Anne Louprette   Renée Anne Louprette
Adjunct Professor
Organ
973-655-7212
loupretter@mail.montclair.edu
Renée Louprette - Website

Hailed by the New York Times as "a technically nimble and dynamic organist," Renée Anne Louprette is the Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. She has recently appeared at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Washington, D.C., the festivals of Magadino, Switzerland, In Tempore Organi, Italy, Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium, and Toulouse Les Orgues, France. Ms. Louprette has performed with a number of New York City ensembles including the Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, the Dessoff Choirs, Gotham City Orchestra, the Oratorio Society of New York, the New York Choral Society and Piffaro in venues including Carnegie, Avery Fisher and Merkin Halls and the Miller Theatre of Columbia University. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and a Graduate Professional Diploma in organ performance from the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, where she began organ studies with Larry Allen. She has pursued private studies with Dame Gillian Weir in London and with James David Christie. She earned an award from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, France, studying with Michel Bouvard, Jan Willem Jansen and Philippe Lefebvre. In 2005, she won a Diplôme Supérieur in organ performance from the Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse.


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Michael Mahadeen
Production Assistant
973-655-3215
mahadeenm@mail.montclair.edu


Larry Markiewicz
Adjunct Professor
Marching Band Techniques
973-655-6983


 Anthony Mazzocchi Anthony Mazzocchi
Adjunct Professor
Trombone
973-655-7212
mazzocchia@mail.montclair.edu
Anthony Mazzocchi - Website

Anthony Mazzocchi received a Bachelors and Masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music in NYC. He studied with Per Brevig of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Steven Norrell, David Finlayson and Joseph Alessi of the New York Philharmonic. He received the Janet Schenck Award for Outstanding Musicianship from the school in 1997. He has performed with many orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, Riverside Symphony, and Key West Symphony. He has performed in various Broadway shows and can be heard on numerous recordings and movie soundtracks including Mimic and Live with the Brian Wilson Orchestra. He is a guest clinician with the New York and New Jersey Youth Symphonies, and a guest conductor for the Brooklyn College Wind Ensemble and various honor bands in the New York area. Mr. Mazzocchi has acted as a soloist and clinican at New York University, Brooklyn College, and Cal Tech University. He is on the Board of Advisors to the International Association for Jazz Education, and also serves on the Board of Directors to the Kinhaven Summer Music School in Vermont.


  Lori McCann
Assistant Professor
Voice
973-655-6983
mccannl@mail.montclair.edu

Soprano Lori McCann holds a B.M. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, M.A degree from San Diego State University, and D.M.A. and Artist Diploma from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She has performed extensively in the United States and abroad appearing in opera, oratorio, and recital. She has been featured with the Berliner Kammeroper and the Neue Opernbühne (Berlin, Germany) and with the Virginia Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Whitewater Opera, Sorg opera, Shreveport Opera, and Pacific Chamber Opera in the U.S. Her roles have included the Governess (Turn of the Screw), Fulvia (Ezio, Händel), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Countess (Le nozze di Figaro), Fiordiligi (Cosí fan tutte), Mimi (La Bohème), The Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen), Giulia (La scala di seta, Rossini), Iphigénie (Iphigénie en Tauride, Gluck), Mary Warren (The Crucible, Ward), Jessie (Mahagonny-Songspiel, Weill), Second Lady (The Magic Flute), and Amor (Orfeo ed Eurydice, Gluck). Her repertoire includes Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem; Mozart's Requiem, Vesprae solemnes de confessore, and Regina Coeli; Händel's Messiah and L'allegro ed il pensieroso; Bach's Magnificat, Mass in B Minor, and St. Matthew Passion; and Debussy's La Demoiselle élue; as well as world premieres of oratorios and works by many other composers. She has taught throughout the world and maintained teaching studios in several metropolitan areas including San Diego, Cincinnati, New York City and Berlin. Prof. McCann is the current President of the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and serves on the Board of Directors for the New York Singing Teacher’s Association.


Thomas McCauley   Thomas McCauley
Associate Professor of Music
Director of University Bands
973-655-7036
mccauleyt@mail.montclair.edu

Thomas McCauley conducts the MSU Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band. He came to the Cali School from the University of Indianapolis, where he was Director of Instrumental Music Activities and the founder of the University of Indianapolis Chamber (later Symphony) Orchestra. He holds a DMA degree in conducting from Northwestern University, and Master and Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has been mentored by such notable conductors as Mallory Thompson, Larry Rachleff and Stanley DeRusha. In addition to directing the bands, Dr. McCauley directs a Weekend Wind Conducting Symposium each November with special guest clinicians from around the world, building on his past work with such notable clinicians as Eugene Corporon, Jerry Junkin, Craig Kirchhoff, and Felix Hauswirth. He has appeared with the Northshore Concert Band, the Indianapolis Brass Choir (in Italy), and led the University of Indianapolis Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra on a tour of the major cities of Austria. Dr. McCauley was the creator and host of Music Education Matters, a 30-minute radio talk show heard weekly on WICR in Indianapolis. The Nevada Music Educator’s Association named him Music Educator of the Year in 1995, and the Indiana Music Educators Association honored him with an Outstanding University Music Educator Award in 2006.


 Linda McKnight Linda McKnight
Adjunct Professor
Double Bass
973-655-7212
mcknightl@mail.montclair.edu

Linda McKnight has taught double bass at MSU for over a decade, as she has at Manhattan School, Columbia University, and Columbia Teachers College. She studied with Frederick Zimmermann at the Juilliard School and with Stuart Sankey, Joseph Cascelli, Warren Benfield, Henry Portnoi, and Homer Mensch. She has performed extensively in orchestras and chamber groups throughout New Jersey and New York, including Wayne (NJ) Chamber Orchestra, Colonial Symphony of New Jersey, Masterwork Messiah productions at Carnegie Hall, and Opera Orchestra of New York. She has been a featured guest artist in workshops and clinics across the United States. She succeeded her teacher, the late Frederick Zimmermann, as Master Teacher of Double Bass for the New Jersey Summer Conference of the American String Teachers Association, a position she has held for two decades. She is published in String Tones, Tempo, American String Teacher, and International Society of Bassists magazines. Her edition of Paul Ramsier's Pieces for Friends is available through Boosey and Hawkes.


Marla Meissner
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Composition
Preparatory Center for the Arts, Director
973-655-4443
meissnerm@mail.montclair.edu

Marla Meissner has been awarded degrees from Ithaca College (B. Mus), Montclair State University (M. A.), and New York University (Ph. D). Her training includes electronic music composition studies with Peter Rothbart; acoustic music composition with Ting Ho and Ruth Schonthal; saxophone studies with David Henderson, Steven Mauk, and Daniel Trimboli; music theory and analysis studies with Lawrence Ferrara, John Gilbert, and Marc Holland. She recently completed an extensive study of the music of the Delaware or Lenape Indian. Her compositional output includes an eclectic variety of electronic, electroacoustic, and traditional compositions for various types of instrumental ensembles as well as film soundtracks, theater music, and rock and jazz compositions. Her music has been performed in various venues including Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall and New York City's Angelika Film Center. Her first CD, Selections from the Kaleidoscope, was released in 1999. She is also an active music administrator serving as the Director and Coordinator of Music Theory for the Preparatory Center for the Arts of Montclair State University.


Deborah Mello
Adjunct Professor
Choral Methods 
973-655-7212


Eric Miller   Eric Miller
Adjunct Professor
Coordinator, David Ott Laboratory for Music and Health
Music Therapy
973-655-7212
millerer@mail.montclair.edu
Dr. Eric Miller, biofeedback therapist and board-certified music therapist is author of Bio-guided Music Therapy (2011). He serves as adjunct faculty at Montclair University, and has lectured at the Naropa Institute, Bryn Mawr College, and Immaculata University among other institutions. Recent international presentations include appearances in Seoul, Tapei, Hong Kong, Kiental, Switzerland and Torino, Italy. Dr. Miller serves as Executive Director of nonprofits Music for People, Expressive Therapy Concepts and he also founded the Biofeedback Network. In 2007, he  collaborated with Grammy winning cellist, David Darling on the instrumental CD, Jazzgrass.

Donald Mintz
Professor Emeritus
Musicology


 Bill Moring Bill Moring
Adjunct Professor
Bass 
973-655-7212
Bill Moring-Website 
Bassist Bill Moring is a versatile jazz artist whose scope includes the big bands of legends Count Basie and Woody Herman, jammin' jazz/funk and beyond with the Dave Stryker/Steve Slagle quartet or stretching harmonic and rhythmic boundaries with John Hart and Chris Potter. He attended Indiana State University while also playing in cellist Hank Roberts group, gigging around Indianapolis and Cincinnati and studying with local pianists Claude Sifferlen and Steve Allee. In 1980 he began working with John Von Ohlen's big band, playing at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis, and recording a live record that was Grammy nominated. he also played locally with Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, and Cal Collins. After moving to New York City in 1984 Bill worked with drummer Mel Lewis. He toured with Woody Herman's Thundering Herd and received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant to study with Rufus Reid. He continued his studies with the legendary Homer Mensch. In 1987, Bill toured the world with the Count Basie Orchestra. Other big band experiences include the Village Vanguard Orchestra and the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin Jazz Orchestra. He has played with renowned singers such as Joe Williams, Mel Tormé and Susannah McCorkle, and with jazz legends Frank Foster, AI Cohn, Clark Terry, Mickey Roker, Tommy Flanagan, Junior Cook, Roland Hanna and Ray Barretto. He has also performed and/or recorded with many contemporary artists including John Abercrombie, Gary Bartz, Manolo Badrena, Larry Coryell, Vic Juris, Dave Kikoski, Billy Hart, John Hart, Eddie Henderson, Joe Locke, Mulgrew Miller, Chris Potter, Dom Salvador, Dave Stryker, and James Williams.

Mary Ann Mumm   Mary Ann Mumm
Adjunct Professor
Violin
973-655-7212
mummm@mail.montclair.edu

Mary Ann Mumm made her solo debut with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at age 15, the first prize recipient of the MSO Young Artists Competition. She continued studies at Indiana University with Josef Gingold and served as his graduate teaching assistant. Ms. Mumm also studied with Ivan Galamian and Tadeusz Wronski. Ms. Mumm’s past positions include Assistant Professor of Violin at Northwestern University and violinist in the MET Orchestra. Her ongoing chamber music engagements include numerous international festival performances as well as the New York Chamber Music Festival at Symphony Space. Ms. Mumm’s 2011 world premier recording of the F. Alfano Piano Quintet (Naxos) received international praise and 3 Grammy award nominations. Ms. Mumm serves on the international faculties of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and Filarmonica Joven de Colombia. She coached FJC for the first international broadcast performance of “From the Top” (2012). During her tenure as President of the American String Teachers Association-NJ the state was honored with 5 national awards, ASTA@MSU winning Best College Chapter.


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Eric Olsen   Eric Olsen
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Aural Skills 
973-655-7212
olsene@mail.montclair.edu
Eric Olsen - Website

Eric Olsen (M.M., Jazz Studies, Indiana University, M.M., Piano Performance, Indiana University, B.M. in Piano Performance with an Organ Minor, Syracuse University) is distinguished as both a classical and jazz pianist, organist, composer, and conductor. Mr. Olsen is Music Director and Organist at Union Congregational Church in Montclair, where he has conducted numerous major works with chamber orchestras, featuring musicians from the New Jersey Symphony. He has composed classical works for chorus, piano, and organ, and jazz works for various ensembles. He has performed as a classical and jazz pianist at Carnegie Hall, Birdland, the Knitting Factory, and overseas in France, Germany, New Zealand, and India. Mr. Olsen has recorded six classical albums and four jazz albums, and has worked with many outstanding jazz and classical artists, including Eliot Zigmund, George Garzone, Glenn Davis, Ed Cherry, David N. Baker, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Kevin Maynor. His latest recording is Dyad, a duo album with saxophonist Lou Caimano. Paquito D’Rivera, Grammy winning saxophonist and composer, says of Dyad: "Caimano and Olsen go back and forth through the too often forbidden borders between Classical and Jazz, with the ease of a couple of North-Mexican coyotes crossing the Rio Grande." Mr. Olsen has been a featured soloist with the Livingston Symphony, the Central Jersey Symphony, and the Orchard Park Symphony. He has been a featured jazz performer at the AT&T, Berk’s, and Asbury Park Jazz Festivals.


Pamela Olsen  

Pamela Olsen
Adjunct Professor
Theory - Aural Skills
973-655-7212
olsenp@mail.montclair.edu

Pamela Olsen, MM, LMT, NCBTMB is an operatic soprano trained at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.  She has performed the roles of Dido, Dido and Aeneas; Nedda, Pagliacci; Sieglinde, Die Walküre; Flosshilde, Das Rheingold; and the title roles inTosca & Carmen with local opera groups.  She has also performed in many oratorio and large choral works with orchestra in her role as Alto Section Leader and Soloist at Union Congregational Church in Montclair.  She has performed in Germany, Austria, at Carnegie Hall and at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.  She and her husband, pianist Eric Olsen, perform duo-concerts throughout the tri-state region.  Prior to her appointment at Montclair State, Ms. Olsen has taught private voice, music theory and music appreciation at Indiana University, Essex County College, and at The Newark Community School of the Arts.  Pamela is also a Licensed Massage Therapist in Manhattan & Montclair.


  Darren O'Neill
Assistant Professor - Guitar
Program Coordinator
Research Methods
973-655-7212
oneilld@mail.montclair.edu

Darren O’Neill is that rare combination of scholar and performer. Mr. O’Neill earned
his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Castleton State College in Castleton, VT and
his Master of Arts degree in Music from Montclair State University. Both degrees
centered about guitar performance. He earned his Master of Library Service degree
from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. As a member of Trio Brioso (flute, viola,
and guitar) he gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 1997 as the result of winning the Artists
International New York Debut Competition that same year. As a member of the Nova
Segno Duo (with Dennis Cinelli), he has performed and recorded on antique instruments
from the historic collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was featured in the
2011 exhibition, Guitar Heroes! He has also spent significant time editing and
proofreading the re-engraving of works by Fernando Sor (1778-1839) under the
supervision of Dr. Brian Jeffery, Tecla Publications. His career as a librarian has seen
him working in the Music Research Division of the New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts. He is an honorary member of both Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (music) and
Alpha Psi Omega (theatre).


Stephen Oosting   Stephen Oosting
Associate Professor of Music
Voice Program Coordinator
Voice
Musical Theater
973-655-7927
oostings@mail.montclair.edu

Tenor Stephen Oosting has been hailed as an interpreter of Britten and Bach, Strauss and Mozart, Puccini and Wagner. He has had a long career in opera, where he has sung more than forty leading roles, and in concert work, where he has appeared frequently as an oratorio soloist and recitalist. In addition he has been a frequent champion of new music premiering works for numerous composers. His concert appearances include those with the Aspen Festival, the Madeira Bach Festival, the Vermont Mozart Festival, the Basically Bach Festival, and with the New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony an the Rochester Philharmonic. He has recorded for RCA, Newport Classics, and the Albany labels (the first recording of the American composer Stephen Albert's orchestral song cycleInto Eclipse). He holds a doctorate and a performer's certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and a Master's from Michigan State University. He is also the current NJ State Governor of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.


 Chris Opperman Chris Opperman
Adjunct Professor
Music Business
973-655-7212
Chris Opperman - Website 
Chris Opperman has worked in the major music industry for over a decade at companies including GSO Business Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Universal Music Group, specializing in music publishing and record company operations and is a strong advocate for artist and songwriter rights. In addition, he also runs his independent record label Purple Cow Records through which he produces and releases his own compositions, including 2010's The Lionheart, which is available on iTunes and other digital outlets. Opperman also played piano on Steve Vai's Grammy-nominated compositions Lotus Feet and The Attitude Song and Opperman's orchestration of Vai's For the Love of God has over 8.25 million views on YouTube. Opperman received his B.M. from Berklee College of Music (Music Business) and his M.A. from Montclair State University (Music Composition). In 2009, the MSU Symphony Orchestra performed his orchestral tone poem Ariadne.

LeAnn Overton   LeAnn Overton
Adjunct Professor
Vocal Coach
973-655-7212
overtonl@mail.montclair.edu

LeAnn Overton has enjoyed a busy freelance schedule since moving to New York in 1992. Currently on the faculties of the Cali School and the Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Overton has also served on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the Chautauqua Voice School, the New York Actor’s Studio, the Mannes School of Music, and the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. She has worked as a musical director/coach for several opera companies and summer festivals including Oberlin in Italy, Vocal Arts Symposium of Colorado Springs, Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy, Cincinnati Opera, Tulsa Opera, and in NYC, Opera Northeast, West Side Opera and Brandenburg Opera. In addition to her coaching and teaching, Ms. Overton works at the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic as a surtitle operator. In the fall of 2005 she recorded the CD Race for the Sky with soprano Lisa Holsberg featuring the music of Richard Pearson Thomas. Ms. Overton has collaborated on several occasions with Alexander Technique Instructor Bill Connington on classes specifically for singers.


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Mark Pakman   Mark Pakman
Adjunct Professor
Piano
973-655-7212
pakmanm@mail.montclair.edu

Mark Pakman's solo recitals and collaborations with other musicians have taken him throughout North America, Mexico, Russia and Europe. He performed at New York major concert halls and Richter Museum in Moscow, at a Mostly Mozart Festival pre-concert, Bard and Amati Festivals in New York State, 8th International Cervantino Festival in Mexico, Musica Camerino Festivals in Italy and Bedford Springs Festivals in Pennsylvania. He also appeared on radio and TV. Mr. Pakman premiered compositions by Hayes Biggs and Alexander Zhurbin and wrote program notes for the Russian Disc and Consonance CD releases. A graduate of Moscow State Conservatory, Mr. Pakman has been on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and Preparatory Division and 92nd Street Y School of Music. He serves on the board of the Leschetizky Association. He has judged numerous auditions and competitions including a scholarship competition at the Juilliard Preparatory Division. His students have won prestigious competition awards. Mr. Pakman has been working at Montclair State University since 1980.


Susan Palma-Nidel   Susan Palma-Nidel
Adjunct Professor
Flute 
973-655-7212
palmas@mail.montclair.edu

Flutist Susan Palma-Nidel is the principal flutist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and Speculum Musicae. She has performed as soloist and principal flutist with many groups including Martha Graham and Paul Taylor Dance Companies, the Stuttgart, Netherlands and Royal Ballet, Madeira Bach Festival, Santa Fe Opera and Bach Chamber Soloists. She has performed internationally as soloist in concertos of Mozart, Vivaldi, Telemann, Ibert, Kirchner and Gandolfi and has premiered works of many composers including Carter, Babbitt, and Mackay. She has appeared on over 100 recordings. Her recording of the Mozart Flute Concertos and the Flute and Harp Concerto with Nancy Allen and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was named the "best recording of these works to date" by Gramophone Magazine. Other recordings include the 2001 Grammy winning Shadow Dances (chamber works of Stravinsky) with Orpheus. She has also recorded chamber music with bassoonist Frank Morelli, a Latin-American CD with Denyce Graves, new songs with jazz singer Abbey Lincoln, a DVD with Jane Monheit and a recording with Tony Bennett and KD Lang. Ms. Palma-Nidel is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School.


Helen Yu Park  

Helen Yu Park
Adjunct Professor
Voice
Musical Theatre 
973-655-7212

As a Juilliard graduate, Mezzo Soprano Helen Yu Park’s career was based in the United States for fourteen years performing a variety of mezzo roles in opera, oratorio and musical theatre with numerous companies across the country. Ms. Park’s singing has been described: “effortlessly generated the largest sounds on stage. The mezzo drought may be ending.” (New York Times), and performances of Lady Thiang in the King & I were described: “Helen Yu (Park) makes her rendition of Something Wonderful worth the price of admission.” (Boston Herald), “the King’s No.1 wife, walks away with the honors for singing as well as acting. This time it’s Helen Yu (Park)…” (Toronto Star). Ms. Park made her New York debut with the New York City Opera singing the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro followed by Rosina (Barber of Seville) and Suzuki (Butterfly). Metropolitan Opera debut followed in Wagner’s The Ring Cycle along with her Broadway debut as Lady Tiang in the show The King & I. Additional credits include singing Maddalenan (Rigoletto), Stephano (Romeo et Juliette), Flora (La Traviata), Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte), Nancy (Albert Herring), Taven (Mireille), La Zia Principessa (Suor Angelica), Lola (Cavalleria rusticana), Mallika (Lakme), Cenerentola, and Enrichetta in I Puritani.


Andrew Pecota
Financial Secretary
973-655-7212
pecotaa@mail.montclair.edu

Bassoonist Andrew Pecota serves as the Cali secretary. He performs with many orchestras in New Jersey and is studying for a graduate degree in music theory.


Mary Pinto   Mary Pinto
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212

Mary Pinto received her Bachelor's in piano performance from DePauw University in Indiana. She continued her studies by getting Master's in vocal accompanying and coaching at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana with John Wustman (accompanist for Luciano Pavarotti). Upon graduaton, she worked as a coach and accompanist at the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists (Chicago), at the Dallas Opera, San Antonio Lyric Opera, Omaha Opera, Florentine Opera (Milwaukee, WI).


 Joanne Polk Joanne Polk
Adjunct Professor
Piano 
973-655-7212

Pianist Joanne Polk has performed in solo recitals, with chamber ensembles, and as a soloist with orchestras in Europe, the United States and Australia.  With composer Judith Lang Zaimont, she co-founded American Accent, a New York-based contemporary music group specializing in coveted, repeat performances of new works. She received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Degrees from the Juilliard School, and her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Manhattan School of Music. She has won acclaim for her award-winning recordings of the complete piano works of American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944). She celebrated the centennial of Beach’s Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor by giving the work its London premiere with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Center under the baton of Paul Goodwin. Prior to recording the complete piano music of Amy Beach, Ms. Polk recorded Completely Clara: Lieder by Clara Wieck Schumann, featuring Metropolitan Opera soprano Korliss Uecker. This CD was featured on Performance Today on New York Public Radio.  Her latest CD, Songs of Amy Beach, recorded with baritone Patrick Mason for Bridge Records, was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award. 


Murray Present
Professor Emeritus
Piano


 Jan Prokop Jan Prokop
Adjunct Professor
Voice
Musical Theatre
973-655-7212
prokopj@mail.montclair.edu

Jan Prokop has sung to rave reviews throughout the United States, Europe, South America and the Middle East. Her performances have included concerts, oratorios, operas, musical theatre and cabaret. She has performed in cabaret with jazz pianist Frank Ponzio in Manhattan and released a CD of their performances called I Thought About You. Jan also maintains a private voice studio in Manhattan. Jan's concern about the state of the arts in our current educational climate led her to become a trustee of Arts Horizons, a non-profit organization that touches the lives of over 30,000 children each year by bringing the arts into schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. As a teacher and singer, Jan is deeply interested in the quality of the singing experience and vocal instruction. She is active with the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS-NYC), a professional organization that is dedicated to the highest standards of singing through excellence in teaching and the promotion of vocal education and research. After earning a Master of Music degree at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, Jan received her Doctorate of Music from Indiana University.


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Roia Rafieyan
Adjunct Professor
Secondary Guitar
973-655-7212 


Oscar Ravina
Professor Emeritus (Posthumus)
Violin


Amy Reich   Amy Reich
Adjunct Professor
Theory
973-655-7212
reicha@mail.montclair.edu

Amy Reich studied composition with William Thomas McKinley at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She received a Ph.D. from Harvard University where her principal teachers were Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner. Her works have been performed by the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Collective, Dinosaur Annex, Josquin Cage and presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Series and Composers in Red Sneakers (of which Ms. Reich was a founding member). Ms. Reich has received grants from Meet-the-Composer, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the American Harp Society and Harvard University. She has also been the recipient of a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center.


Ruth Rendleman Ruth Rendleman
Professor of Music
Piano - Theory - Music History
Theory Program Coordinator

973-655-7208
rendlemanr@mail.montclair.edu 

Ruth Rendleman was educated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Manhattan School of Music, and Columbia University. She is a specialist in the performance of eighteenth-century music. She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research and studies at the University of Maryland and has served on the faculty of the Aston Magna Performance Institute. She has performed as a solo artist and in chamber recitals throughout the New York metropolitan area. Her tours abroad have included performances in Korea, China (where she was artist-in-residence at the Shanghai Conservatory), and Australia. In the New York Times, Joseph Horowitz wrote that: "The performance showed force and fluency, consistently communicative. Her work had a firmness of design and continuity of emotion." Her interest in contemporary music led her to commission her colleague, Ting Ho, to write a piano sonata for her. She has received two major commissions from the N.J. State Arts Council for new piano works. Prof. Rendleman founded Montclair State's Preparatory Center for the Arts and Stokes Forest Music Camp. She has served as the music coordinator of the New Jersey School of the Arts and served on the board of the College Music Society. She also served as chair of the Committee on the Status of Women for the College Music Society.


Scott Davenport Richards   Scott Davenport Richards
Associate Professor
Composition
Musical Theatre 
973-655-2099
richardssc@mail.montclair.edu
Scott Richards - Website

Scott Davenport Richards holds a BA degree from Yale University and MFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. He is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson and Frederick Loewe awards. His works bridge many different forms of music and drama. In spring 2008, Charlie Crosses the Nation (music, libretto, orchestration), was performed by the New York City Opera as part of the VOX festival of new opera and A Thousand Words Come to Mind (written with playwright Michele Lowe) opened at The Zipper Theatre. A Star Across the Ocean, a work for four voices and orchestra, was premiered by the Montclair State University Symphony in 2007, featuring Tony Award-winner Chuck Cooper. His works for children include a number of commissions from Theatreworks USA: Corduroy (music, lyrics, orchestration), Sundiata! The Lion King of Mali (music, lyrics, orchestration), Island of the Blue Dolphins (orchestrations) and Junie B. Jones (orchestration). His play-scores have been heard at resident theatres around the country including The Public, The Old Globe, The Alliance, and Madison Repertory Theatre. Highlights include the world premiere of Lee Blessing’s Cobb featuring Oscar Winner, Chris Cooper and Delroy Lindo at The Yale Repertory and the U. S. premiere of Nikos Kazantzakis’sChristopher Columbus at the New Federal Theater. As an actor, Mr. Richards originated the role of Sylvester in the original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.


Michael Rider   Michael Rider
Adjunct Professor
Voice
Musical Theatre
973-655-7212
riderm@mail.montclair.edu

Michael C. Rider is a voice teacher, coach and performer with a specialty in music theater techniques and the development of the belt voice. His students have been seen in New York City on and off Broadway. His students also perform as leads in regional theatre companies around the country and have also been seen around the world in Wicked(Tokyo), Broadway Bound Revue (Beijing), Beauty and the Beast and Last Five Years (Hong Kong). He has also worked collaboratively at the piano with performers for cabarets at The Duplex and Don’t Tell Mama’s in NYC and at several venues in Hong Kong. He has served as a music theater clinician at the Beacon School in New York and for the North East Theatre Festival for the EDTA (Educational Drama Teachers Association). Michael has appeared on stage in both opera and oratorio works by Mozart, Britten, Rossini, Handel, Haydn and Puccini. He has appeared in Guys and Dolls,Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamcoatEvitaAnything Goes,BrigadoonOliver!, and The Music Man. Michael is an alumnus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University (MM) and Penn State University (BM). He is also an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Music Theatre Educators Alliance (MTEA), New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA) and the National Opera Association (NOA).


 Margaret Roberts Margaret Roberts
Adjunct Professor
Strings Technique
973-655-7212

Margaret Roberts has extensive teaching, conducting and performance experience throughout the state of New Jersey. Ms. Roberts served as principal viola for the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Montclair Chamber Ensemble and the Ravina String Quartet. She has performed with the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Los Angeles Modern String Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Bulgarian Chamber Players and as principal viola for the Duluth Symphony Orchestra. She holds degrees in music from Ohio University and Fairleigh Dickinson University, and studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, as well as California Institute of the Arts.  Ms. Roberts served as the president of the NJ chapter of the American String Teachers Association from 2004-2006 and is currently the artistic director of the ASTA/NJ Chamber Music Institute held at Kean University. Ms. Roberts serves on the NJ All State Orchestra Procedures board and is currently on the faculty of the Wharton Music Center. 


 Julia Rolwing Julia Rolwing
Adjunct Professor
Voice
973-655-7212
rolwingj@mail.montclair.edu

Award-winning soprano Julia Rolwing has been hailed for her lyricism and dramatic vocal thrust. Her operatic roles have included Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre, and Freia (Das Rheingold), the title roles of Verdi’s Aida, Puccini’s Tosca,Massenet’s  Cendrillon (Cinderella), and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, along with Mozart’s Donna Anna (Don Giovanni)and Countess Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Lady Billows in Albert Herring, and the Mother in both Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, and Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the Straussian title roles of Ariadne auf Naxos and Arabella, along with Chrysothemis (Elektra), among others. Her concert repertoire includes Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Missa Solemnis, the Verdi and DurufléRequiems, and the Dvorak and Rossini Stabat Maters. Julia is an avid recitalist who has performed numerous solo recitals across the country and throughout Austria. She holds top prizes from the Leiderkranz Foundation, the Wagner Societies of New York, Washington DC, Boston, and Northern California, and the Jüssi Björling Society. She holds a Bachelor of Music Education and a Master of Arts in Vocal Pedagogy from Ohio State University, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Miami.


Jeffrey Rosolen
Production Manager
973-655-7885
rosolenj@mail.montclair.edu


Holli Ross  

Holli Ross
Adjunct Professor
Director, Vocal Jazz Ensemble
973-655-7212
wasserh@mail.montclair.edu
Holli Ross-Website

 
Holli Ross has performed in top clubs from New Orleans’ Snug Harbor to New York’s Blue Note. She has recorded extensively with various vocal ensembles that have led to appearances in Germany, France, and Japan as well as the Monterey Jazz Festival and the JVC Jazz Festival. Holli is a published lyricist with ASCAP and GEMA. Her songs have been recorded by jazz artists, Janice Seigel from Manhattan Transfer, Mark Murphy, Meredith D’Ambrosio and Carmen Bradford of the Count Basie Orchestra. Holli has recorded with Jon Faddis, Claudio Roditi, Romero Lumbambo, Eddie Monteiro, Randy Sandke, Bob MIntzer, and Wolfgang Lackerschmid. Most notably, Holli has recorded several CDs with her female vocal trio String Of Pearls. Holli conducts clinics nationally and abroad and teaches extensively in the New York area, most notably at Hofstra University, Montclair State University, and Mannes College of Music. She is also a member and has performed for the International Association of Jazz Educators.

Frances Rowell
Adjunct Professor
Cello
973-655-7212  

A versatile and enterprising cellist dedicated to musical outreach, Frances Rowell received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Juilliard School. In 1992 the city of Allentown, PA bestowed on Ms. Rowell its Arts Ovation Award for outstanding achievement in the performing arts. She has premiered several cello works written for her, including Gwyneth Walker's North Country Concerto with the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra in 1995 and Douglas Oven's Concerto for Cello with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in 1996. Ms. Rowell has been a member of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 1995. As a member of the Craftsbury Chamber Players she performs chamber music each summer in her home state of Vermont. Ms. Rowell is a past Coordinator of the NJSO's REACH Program (Resources for Education and Community Harmony). She is currently on the roster of Young Audiences of New Jersey in a string quartet program. She also serves Young Audiences as a teaching artist working with young soloists from the radio program From the Top in presentations in public schools. In addition, she holds a United States Patent for a portable endpin resonating platform for the cello.


Steven Ryan   Steven Ryan
Collaborative Pianist
917-414-3025
ryans@mail.montclair.edu
Steven W. Ryan - Website

Steven W. Ryan joined the Cali School faculty in 2006. He has performed as an orchestral keyboardist with most of the major orchestras in New York City, including members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has played celesta with the legendary Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall; piano, harpsichord, and portative organ with the Dessoff Choirs; and synthesizer with the Moody Blues rock band. He has collaborated with conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Neeme Järvi, Bernhard Haitink, Gerard Schwarz, and Maxim Shostakovich, among others. Mr. Ryan took first place in the 2001 Concours des Grands Amateurs de Piano. At the close of this international competition he was engaged to perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor at the Sorbonne in Paris.  In addition to winning the French competition, Steven took second prize in the 2000 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.


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 David Sabella-Mills David Sabella-Mills
Adjunct Professor
Voice
Musical Theatre
973-655-7212
David Sabella-Mills - Website 

Widely recognized as a master-teacher in musical theater, contemporary commercial voice techniques, David Sabella-Mills is also President of The New York Singing Teachers Association (2008-2014), and has been awarded NYSTA’s Distinguished Voice Professional Certification.  He starred on Broadway in the 1996 revival of CHICAGO, and off-Broadway in Kiss and Make Up (NY Int. Fringe Festival), Hexed in The CityFoxy,Watch Your Step, and So Long 174th Street. Regionally, he has appeared in A Little Night MusicSeesawGodspellThe Gingerbread Lady, and The Lisbon Traviata, among others. As a counter-tenor, Mr. Sabella-Mills is the winner of several prestigious voice competitions including the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice CompetitionMetropolitan Opera Eastern Regional Auditions, and the New York Oratorio Society Competition at Carnegie Hall. His opera credits include the title role of Giulio Cesare with the Virginia Opera (recorded for Koch International), L’ incoronazione di Poppea (Utah Opera) and Die Fledermaus (Lincoln Center). Mr. Sabella-Mills toured internationally for many years with the legendary “La Gran Scena” opera company, and has been principal soloist at both Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in works including Bach’s B-Minor Mass, Handel’s Messiah, and Peter Schickele’s comical Three Bargain-Counter Tenors.


Kendra Salois
Adjunct Professor
Rap/Rock
973-655-7212


Stephanie Samaras   Stephanie Samaras
Adjunct Professor
Voice
Musical Theatre
973-655-7212
samarasalles@mail.montclair.edu

Stephanie Samaras is a pioneer in applying healthy classical technique to the training of voices in the pop field. Her lecture and video, Classical Training Applied to the Pop Voice, has been presented at the First International Congress of Voice Teachers in Strasbourg, France, and also at the National NATS convention in Los Angeles. Professionals from the world of Broadway - among them directors Tommy Tune and Jeff Calhoun, and the casting agencies of Hughes/Moss and Johnson/Liff - send singers to work with her. Her students have included Tony Award winner Scott Wise (who acknowledged Stephanie in his acceptance speech), Broadway performer Evan Pappas (star of My Favorite Year and Parade), Patrick Swayze and his wife, actress Lisa Niemi, soap star Ricky Paull-Goldin (Another World, Days of Our Lives and also star of the Broadway revival ofGrease!), Jennifer Garner (Ally McBeal and Alias), Vanessa Ferlitto (CSI New York), and others whose faces are familiar from the TV screen. She has also worked with Carol Leifer (comedienne and Seinfeld writer), Mark Weiner (Weinerville Cable TV), Hiram Kasten (Seinfeld character) and the late comedian Dennis Wolfberg.


Victoria Schwartzman   Victoria Schwartzman
Adjunct Professor
Collaborative Pianist
Vocal Coach
973-655-7212
schwartzmanv@mail.montclair.edu

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, pianist Victoria Schwartzman has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed at the Music Mountain Festival with members of the St. Petersburg String Quartet, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Hall, at Bargemusic, 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. She is a member of the Brahms Piano Quartet. She has performed as soloist with the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra and the Riverside Orchestra. She has participated in the Tel-Hai International Piano Festival in Israel and the Lyrica Chamber Music Festival in New Jersey. She was vocal coach and accompanist at Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, the Brevard Music Center, and the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival in Graz, Austria. She graduated from Jerusalem Conservatory, and studied at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. She has performed in masterclasses given by Menahem Pressler and Richard Goode, among others. Her principal teachers include Irina Kivaiko, Issak Kossov, Victor Rosenbaum, Sally Pinkas, and Eda Shlyam.


  Zachary Schwartzman
Adjunct Professor
Vocal Coach
973-655-7212

Zachary Schwartzman has served as Assistant Conductor for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera Atelier (Toronto), Opera Français de New York, L'Ensemble orchestral de Paris, Bard Summerscape, Gotham Chamber Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Connecticut Grand Opera, Berkshire Opera and Opera Omaha, among others. He was Associate Conductor for two seasons with New York City Opera, as well as conductor in their VOX series, and has been Associate/Assistant Conductor for fifteen productions at Glimmerglass Opera, where he recently conducted performances of Carmen, and Jeanine Tesori’s A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck (world premiere). His credits as Assistant Conductor include recordings for Albany Records, Naxos Records, and a Grammy-nominated world-premiere recording for Chandos Records. As conductor, his orchestral performances have been featured on NPR, including a national broadcast on Performance Today. In 2004, he received a career development grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation. He has been Music Director of the Blue Hill Troupe since 2004, and is an Assistant Conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra. Zachary holds undergraduate degrees in East Asian Studies and Piano Performance from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston.


 Jeff Scott Jeff Scott
Adjunct Professor
French horn
973-655-7212
scottje@mail.montclair.edu

Jeff Scott received his Bachelor's degree from Manhattan School of Music, and Master's Degree from SUNY at Stony Brook. He studied with Jerome Ashby, David Jolley, Scott Brubaker and William Purvis and performed in a wind quintet coached by the late Samuel Baron of the New York Woodwind Quintet. Mr. Scott's performance credits include The Lion King and other Broadway shows such as, On the Townand Showboat. He has been a member of the Alvin Ailey and Dance Theater of Harlem Orchestras since 1995 and has performed under the direction of Wynton Marsalis and Arturo O'Farrill with the Lincoln Center Jazz and Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestras. He has performed extensively as a studio musician and can be heard on movie soundtracks scored by Terrence Blanchard, Tan Dun and on commercial recordings with notable artists such as, Chico O'Farill, Robin Eubanks, Freddy Cole, and Jimmy Heath amongst others. He has toured with artists such as Barbra Streisand and the late Luther Vandross. Mr. Scott is also an arranger and composer whose works include scoring the off-Broadway production of Becoming Something, The Canada Lee Story, the staged production of Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot, and many arrangements and original works for wind and brass quintet, horn quartet, and jazz ensembles. Mr. Scott has been on the horn faculty of the Cali School of Music since 2002.


Suzannah Scott-Moncrieff
Adjunct Professor
Music Therapy
973-655-7212


 Harry Searing

Harry Searing
Adjunct Professor - Bassoon
Woodwind Program Coordinator
973-655-7212
searingh@mail.montclair.edu

Harry Searing is an active freelance artist on both bassoon and contrabassoon in the New York City area and has been for over 30 years. Most notably, he has performed many concerts with the New York Philharmonic with such great conductors as Bernstein, Boulez, Mehta, and Leinsdorf. In addition to performing with practically every classical organization in the New York – New Jersey area, he has performed with several distinguished groups while on tour, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2002 he performed nine concerts with three different organizations on Heckelphone, an extremely rare instrument. He can be heard as bassoon soloist in the soundtrack to Brian DePalma’s 2004 film, Femme Fatale. In addition to performing, Mr. Searing has an extensive career in music publishing, having worked for such publishers as Boosey & Hawkes, Schott, and G. Schirmer. In 2003, he started his own publishing firm, LRQ Publishing, devoted to the bassoon music of the great Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music where is studied with Stephen Maxym.


Martin Sedek
Adjunct Professor
Aural Skills
973-655-7212


 Chia-Ching Shen Chia-Ching Shen
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212

Pianist Chia-Ching Shen has performed internationally and won many prizes including Yamaha Piano Competition (Taiwan), the 13th International Beethoven Sonata Piano Competition (Memphis), the National Taiwan Piano Competition, the Chapman Solo Piano Competition and the Streem Award at Florida State University. She received her Doctorate Degree in Piano Performance at Florida State University, where she served as a graduate teaching assistant and completed her Masters at Mannes College The New School for Music and Bachelors at the Taipei National University of the Arts. She studied with numerous renowned artists, including Heidi Louise Williams, James Nalley, Victor Rosenbaum and Mei-Ling Wang. Her summer studies have included the Vienna International Piano Seminar and the Salzburg International Music Festival in Austria, and the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City. She has given performances throughout the United States, Europe and Taiwan as a solo and collaborative pianist. Her performances in Master Classes for many renowned artists include Vladimir Feltsman, Ann Schein, Boris Bloch, Paul Gulda, and the Orion String Quartet. 


Gloria Shih   Gloria Shih
Collaborative Pianist
973-655-7212
shihy@mail.montclair.edu

Marissa Silverman   Marissa Silverman
Assistant Professor of Music
Music Education
Undergraduate Coordinator
973-655-7779
silvermanm@mail.montclair.edu

Marissa Silverman (BA, MFA, MST, PhD) has taught at New York University (2000-2009), Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, Rutgers University, and Long Island City High School (Queens, New York). She has published in the International Journal of Music Education, Music Education Research, the International Journal of Community Music, Visions of Research in Music Education, and the New York Times. Her research interests include music education philosophy, general music, artistic interpretation, teacher education, and interdisciplinary curriculum development. She is presently at work on two music education texts for Oxford University Press, as well as several book chapters. She holds a PhD in music performance (flute) from NYU Steinhardt, as well as a BA in English Literature. She has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player in many New York venues (including Merkin Hall and Alice Tully Hall) and has performed at many festivals, as well as with such groups as the San Francisco Mozartean. Her special performance interests include the French Baroque, chamber works of the late Classical period, and contemporary Russian music. She is a founding member of the Paumanok Woodwind Quintet, the Elysian Flute Quartet, and Metro Flutes, and has performed with many renowned artists, including Kenneth Cooper, Ronald Roseman, and David Krakauer. 


Matthew Skouras
Recording Engineer
973-655-7212 


Georgia Smith   Georgia Smith
Adjunct Professor 
Music Therapy 
973-655-7212
Georgia M. Smith, MA, MT-BC, ADC is a board certified music therapist, certified activity director and former nursing home administrator. She has been a clinician for more than 25 years and has co-authored an article in Art Psychotherapy Journal on the use of art and music with adult psychiatric patients. She currently provides end-of-life music therapy services for geriatric adults in nursing facilities and client's homes for Hospice of New Jersey. She also provides music therapy services on the Behavioral Health Unit at Morristown Memorial Hospital in the Atlantic Health System. Georgia also has a private practice for adults with developmental disabilities in Southern New Jersey. She has been an on-site practicum supervisor in geriatrics and psychiatry for Montclair music therapy students for many years and has been a faculty supervisor and visiting specialist for MSU since 1998. She has served as Vice President and is currently Newsletter Editor for the New Jersey Association of Music Therapists.

James Smith, Jr.
Adjunct Professor
Guitar
973-655-7212 


Joseph Smith 
Adjunct Professor 
Introduction to Music
(973) 655-7212
smithj@mail.montclair.edu

Joseph Smith is known for presenting lesser-known works through performances, recordings, publications, and broadcasts. His work has been featured on NPR's Performance Today. He writes the column, "Rare Finds," for Piano Today. These have been published as a collection, Piano Discoveries, Ekay Music. He ahs also written for other piano magazines, including the British Piano. Smith has brought many works to public attention through recordings including Familiar Melodies and Piano Waltzes from Beethoven to Poulenc (Brioso). He is editor of such diverse anthologies as Four Early 20th Century Piano Suites by Black Composers, Country Gardens and Other Piano Works by Percy Grainger, American Piano Classics, and Tangos, Milongas, and Other Latin-American Dances for Solo Piano. His anthology of romantic music, Romancing the Piano, has just appeared in the Steinway library of piano music. Mr. Smith has been engaged as lecturer by music schools, universities, and other organizations nationally. He was twice invited to address the International NY Competition for Outstanding Amateur Pianists. Smith has an entry in the new edition of David Dubal's The Art of the Piano, and is cited in Maurice Hinson's The Literature of the Piano.


Dennis Smylie   Dennis Smylie 
Adjunct Professor 
Clarinet and Bass Clarinet 
(973) 655-7212

Bass clarinetist Dennis Smylie received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Joseph Allard. His other teachers have included Alfred Zetzer, Stephan Freeman, Kalman Opperman and Bill Street. He is a member of the American Symphony and the Brooklyn Philharmonic and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet and Opera, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the St. Louis and Montreal symphonies, and Speculum Musicae. Mr. Smylie was the bass clarinet soloist in the premiere performance and recording of Donald Martino's Triple Concerto. He has given recitals and presentations at Juilliard, Oberlin, Yale, Princeton, Kent State University, Florida State University and the University of Washington in Seattle, as well as in Salida, Aspen, Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Space in New York City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Mr. Smylie has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, New World Records, CRI, RCA and Virgin Classics.


George Spitzer
Adjunct Professor
Voice for Non-Majors
973-655-7212
spitzerg@mail.montclair.edu


Peter Stewart   Peter Stewart 
Adjunct Professor 
Voice 
(973) 655-7212
stewartpe@mail.montclair.edu

 

Baritone Peter Stewart has created many new works in collaboration with composers. He has toured extensively in Europe, Australia, Asia, and North America with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in Einstein on the Beach, Monsters of Grace, The White Raven, andLa Belle et la Bete, and has joined the Philip Glass Ensemble at the keyboards in Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Anima Mundi. Mr. Stewart has also created roles and recorded many new operas for Gavin Bryars/Robert Wilson, Julius Hemphill, Anthony Braxton, Meredith Monk, Fred Ho, Harry Partch and Hans Werner Henze, among others.


Dave Stryker   Dave Stryker
Adjunct Professor
Jazz Combo
973-655-7212
strykerd@mail.montclair.edu
Dave Stryker-Website
Whether you’ve heard guitarist Dave Stryker fronting his own group or as a featured sideman with Stanley Turrentine, Jack McDuff, and Kevin Mahogany, you know why Gary Giddins in the Village Voice calls him one of the most distinctive guitarists to come along in recent years.” He was voted one of the Top Ten Guitarists in the 2001 Critics and Readers Poll of Downbeat Magazine, and was elected as a Rising Star for the 5th time in the 2008 Downbeat Critics Poll. A native of Nebraska, Stryker moved to New York City in 1980, and toured with organist Jack McDuff’s group (1984-85). From 1986 to 1995, he performed with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine at major venues throughout the world. He has also performed with Freddie Hubbard, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Smith, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Eliane Elias, Joe Lovano and many others. Dave currently performs with the Stryker/Slagle Band (with saxophonist Steve Slagle), Dave Stryker Organ Trio and his Blue to the Bone Band. He has recorded and published over 130 of his compositions, recorded 20 CD’s under his own name and recorded as a sideman on over 50 others. He has performed all over the world at all the great Jazz Festivals and concert halls including Carnegie Hall, the Monterey Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, and the JVC Jazz Festival. He has taught at the Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, Litchfield Jazz Camp, Veneto/New School Jazz Workshop in Italy, and the Outreach Jazz Workshop in Austria. He is the author of Dave Stryker’s Jazz Guitar Improvisation Method.

Anastasia Swope   Anastasia Swope 
Adjunct Professor 
Voice 
(973) 655-7212
swopea@mail.montclair.edu

 

Soprano Anastasia Ellanna Swope's appearances have included recitals of art songs in New Jersey and Indiana, participation in a Women Composer's Symposium, and an performance on the High Mountain Orchestra's Hobart Manor Series. She collaborates regularly with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in concert, performing a variety of repertoire from Britten to Vivaldi, from Fauré to Rutter. She has sung under the batons of Zdeneck Macal, Robert Spano, and Joseph Flummerfelt, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. She has collaborated with pianist Ana Cervantes in the presentation of Braiding the Tresses: Weaving Poetry and Passion into Song, called "a superb recital, memorably flawless, and what an evening of art song should strive to be..." (Classical New Jersey). She initially pursued a major in classics at the University of the South, but her B.A. ultimately became a double degree in Latin and music. She holds a Master's Degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College, where she studied with Lindsey Christiansen and Glenn Parker.


T

Alexandre Tannous
Adjunct Professor
Music in World Cultures
973-655-7212


André Tarantiles   André Tarantiles
Adjunct Professor 
Harp 
(973) 655-7212

André Tarantiles received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Indiana University School of Music. He has concertized throughout the United States and performed as soloist in all the major concert halls in New York City. He has appeared on national television accompanying opera stars including Aprile Millo, Benita Valente, Renée Fleming, Marcello Giordani, Ramon Vargas, and Christine Goerke. Currently principal harpist for several ensembles including the Metropolitan Opera Guild, New York City Opera National Company, Glimmerglass Opera Festival, Arizona Opera Wagner Festival, New Jersey State Opera, the Center for Contemporary Opera, Teatro Grattacielo, and the Casals Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has also performed in orchestras backing up headliners as diverse as Placido Domingo, Marilyn Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Jones, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Connie Francis, Roberta Flack, John Denver, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole and Patti Lupone. He has performed in The Fantasticks (the world's longest running musical), Radio City Musical Hall and on Broadway (harp and synthesizer). Mr. Tarantiles is featured on CDs for several labels and he is also the official harpist of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.


Gwendolyn Toth   Gwendolyn Toth
Adjunct Professor
Harpsichord
973-655-7212
tothg@mail.montclair.edu

Gwendolyn Toth is recognized as one of America's leading performers on early keyboard instruments and performs with equal ease on the harpsichord, organ, fortepiano, and clavichord. She holds the D.M.A. in performance from Yale University and has taught at Yale University, Mount Holyoke College and Mannes College of Music. She has won prizes in the Magnum Opus Harpsichord competition and in American Guild of Organist competitions. She has been heard in concert throughout North America, Europe and the Far East, and on radio in Holland, Germany, France, and America's National Public Radio. She has performed in early music festivals in the US and Europe. She has recorded CDs of organ works by Heinrich Scheidemann and J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. Her latest solo release is Meantone Organs in Holland. Ms. Toth also has an active career as conductor of historical performance ensembles and orchestras. She is the director and founder of New York City's virtuoso period instrument ensemble, Artek, that has released the first North American recording of Monteverdi's opera, Orfeo. She has worked and recorded with eminent contemporary composer/performers such as John Cage, Rhys Chatham, Petr Kotik, Dave Soldier, Louis Andriessen, and Elliot Sharp at BAM Next Wave Festival, The Kitchen, Bang on a Can Festival, Cage Nachttage in Köln, Germany, and others.


Joseph Turrin   Joseph Turrin
Adjunct Professor
Music in Film
973-655-7212
turrinj@mail.montclair.edu
Joseph Turrin - Website

Joseph Turrin is active as a composer, orchestrator, conductor, pianist, and teacher. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Academy Orchestra. Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Baltimore Symphony, Gewandhaus-orchester (Leipzig, Germany), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Turrin has appeared as a conductor with the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, and New Jersey Symphonies; he has performed as a pianist on many recordings and as orchestral pianist for the New Jersey Symphony. His compositions for film and theater include scores for Alan Alda's film A New Life, Little Darlings, Weeds (with Nick Nolte), Tough Guys Don't Dance(Directed by Norman Mailer), Verna-USO Girl (with Sissy Spacek and William Hurt and nominated for 3 Emmy Awards), Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Kingdom of Shadows (narrated by Rod Steiger), Broken Blossoms(1919 silent film classic directed by D.W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish) and for the restoration of the silent film classic Sadie Thompson. Other silent film classics that he has scored include, Diary of a Lost Girl, Intolerance andThe Hunchback of Notre Dame. His work in musical theater includes performances on Broadway with Michael Feinstein as well as the score forFrankie, with a libretto by Broadway legend George Abbott.


 Kyle Turner Kyle Turner
Adjunct Professor 
Tuba 
(973) 655-7212
Kyle Turner - Website

Kyle Turner has performed over 500 concerts with the New York Philharmonic. He also performs regularly with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Saturday Brass, Concordia Orchestra, Solisti New York, Riverside Symphony, Solid Brass, and the Lake George Opera Orchestra. He has also performed with many other ensembles including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, NYC Ballet, NYC Opera, the American Composers Orchestra, American Ballet Orchestra, New York Chamber Orchestra, the American Horn Quartet, various Broadway shows (playing bass-trombone and tuba), and Harmonic Brass of Munich. Mr. Turner also works in the recording industry and has played for over 75 television commercials, feature films such as The Rookie, Tom & Huck, Journey of August King, Ransom, Michael Collins, Primary Colors, You've Got Mail. He has recorded for many labels including Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, Warner Brothers, Angel, Dorian, EBS, Music Masters, Koch Classics, Arabesque, Musical Heritage Society, and many independent labels. His solo album, Expressions, has received rave reviews since its release in 2005.


Nicholas Tzavaras   Nicholas Tzavaras
Artist-in-Residence
Shanghai Quartet
Cello
Strings Program Coordinator
973-655-6998
tzavarasn@mail.montclair.edu

Praised by the New York Times for his “richly singing” sound, Nicholas Tzavaras is an active a chamber musician and educator. He has performed at the Marlboro, Santa Fe, Taos, and Radio France (Montpellier) Festivals, toured with multiple artists including the "Musicians from Marlboro" and Madonna, appeared on MTV, VH1, the David Letterman Show, and at the White House performing for President Clinton. He joined the internationally renowned Shanghai Quartet in 2000. He is artist-in-residence and coordinator of the string department at the Cali School, and a guest professor at the Shanghai and Central Conservatories in China. Since 2008 he is the guest principal cellist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Tzavaras is a graduate of New England Conservatory and State University of New York at Stonybrook where his teachers were Laurence Lesser and Timothy Eddy. He founded the cello program at the Opus 118 Music Center in East Harlem and serves on its advisory board. Mr. Tzavaras' family appear in the Academy Award nominated documentary Small Wonders and is the subject of the motion picture Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep. He appears with the Shanghai Quartet in Woody Allen's Melinda Melinda.


U

 Paula Unsal Paula Unsal 
Adjunct Professor 
Music Therapy
973-655-7212
Paula Unsal, MA, MT-BC, MM, BS, a professional singer and educator, holds degrees from Montclair State University, Boston University and Northwest Missouri State University. Ms. Unsal was distinguished with the honor award in opera at Boston University for two years, awarded an appearance in a Lincoln Center concert by the New York Singing Teachers Association, as well as winning prizes in Metropolitan Opera auditions. She formerly served on the boards of Bel Canto Opera and the Professional Women Singers Association. In her more recent degree of music therapy, she was awarded the David’s Fund Graduate Scholarship. During her internship, she provided services in the adult psychiatric community, and as a board certified music therapist, Ms. Unsal has worked with adults with developmental disabilities and children on the autism spectrum. She has served as a fieldwork supervisor for Montclair State music therapy practicum students in geriatrics and as adjunct faculty at both Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison campus. Ms. Unsal is a member of the New Jersey Association of Music Therapists and the American Music Therapy Association.

V

Valerie Van Hoven   Valerie Van Hoven 
Adjunct Professor
Secondary Voice and Piano
973-655-7212
vanhovenv@mail.montclair.edu

Valerie van Hoven has studied music at the Hartt Conservatory, and SUNY Purchase. Valerie earned a BA in music education from Montclair State University and a graduate certification from the American Center for the Alexander Technique. For nine years a music teacher in the Randolph, NJ public schools, she now operates her own studio in Denville, NJ where she teaches piano, voice, and the Alexander Technique. Valerie has given workshops in voice and the Alexander Technique at Wagner College on Staten Island, Montclair State University and has assisted workshops at the Juilliard School in NYC. She has appeared as Lorraine in Steppin' Out, Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella, and Eliza in My Fair Lady in regional theater. She has been involved in more that 40 shows as musical director and played piano in the orchestra for many others.


Nancy Vanderslice
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212


 Madeleine Ventre Madeleine Ventre 
Adjunct Professor 
Music Therapy
973-655-7212
Madelaine Ventre, M.S., MT-BC, FAMI, is a Board Certified Music Therapist, a Fellow and Primary Trainer of the Association for Music and Imagery (AMI), and an ATMA (Association for Teachers of Mandala Assessment) approved Instructor. She has been a clinician for over 30 years and in private practice in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) since 1981. Ms. Ventre coordinated the Music Therapy program at City University of New York from 1974-6, has been a Visiting Specialist at Montclair State University since 1978 and has been an adjunct faculty member at New York University since 1981, when she instituted the first university training in GIM. She has trained GIM students nationally and internationally. Ms. Ventre has published in professional journals and books and presented at national and international conferences. She has served on both the national and regional executive boards of NAMT, is a past president of the Mid-Atlantic Region of NAMT and has served on national committees in AMI. She is currently the director of the Creative Therapies Institute and the Center for Creative Therapies and the Arts.
JaNeen Vinson
Auditions Coordinator
School Assistant
973-655-7212

W

Barbara Wheeler
Professor Emerita
Music Therapy


Tanya Dusevic Witek   Tanya Dusevic Witek 
Adjunct Professor - Flute
Chamber Music Coordinator
(973) 655-7212
witekt@mail.montclair.edu

Tanya Dusevic Witek has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Continuum. She has recorded for EMI, Bridge, NHK, CRI, Panasonic and CBC, and her debut solo recording was released in 2006 on the MSR label. Ms. Witek has appeared at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival and has toured with the acclaimed Musicians from Marlboro. As a founder of the Forest Hills Chamber Players, she is dedicated to bringing free performances to community venues in the outer boroughs of New York City. She graduated from the University of Calgary and received her master and doctoral degrees from Juilliard. Ms. Witek is currently a Teaching Artist for Lincoln Center Institute, the New York Philharmonic and is a faculty member for The Academy: A Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and The Weill Music Institute.


  David Witten
Professor of Music
Piano (Coordinator-Keyboard Studies)
Music History
(973) 655-4379
wittend@mail.montclair.edu

David Witten - Website

Pianist David Witten has performed extensively in Europe, Russia, and South America. As a 1990 Fulbright Scholar, he spent five months in Brazil. Witten has recorded piano music of various Latin American composers. Witten's involvement in music has not been limited to performance. He is editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis (Garland, 1997), which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades. Born in Baltimore, Witten studied at Peabody Conservatory, and Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University led to a degree in Psychology. Later graduating with high honors from Boston University, he earned the D.M.A. degree in piano performance. Witten is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at the Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. 


Lars Woodul
Adjunct Professor 
Voice
Musical Theatre
973-655-7212
woodlull@mail.montclair.edu

Lars Woodul’s acclaimed performances in classical and contemporary roles have included Mercutio (Romeo & Juliette) with Opera Northeast, Masetto (Don Giovanni) with Ft. Worth Opera, Germont (La Traviata) with Springfield Regional Opera; and Renato (Un Ballo in Maschera) and The Director (Les Mamelles de Tiresias) as a fellow at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute. He sang in Dellaira's The Secret Agent and as Dr. John Dee in the premier of Bruce Wolosoff’s Madimi with the Center for Contemporary Opera and as Horace Tabor (The Ballad of Baby Doe) with Chelsea Opera. He created the roles for the world premiers of Marc Blitzstein’s Sacco and Vanzetti with the White Barn Theater and David Soldier’s musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s A Soldier’s Story with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. He has performed solo recitals for the Trinity Wall Street Concerts at One series, sung in concerts at Merkin Hall, the Bohemians Club, and the New York Composers’ Concerts, toured North America with Karlsrud Concerts, and performed as a principal artist with the International Zarzuela Festival. He is a graduate of the Yale University School of Music and earned his D.M.A. degree at SUNY—Stony Brook.


X


Y

Craig Yaremko
Adjunct Professor
Woodwinds Techniques
973-655-7212


Lisa Yui  

Lisa Yui
Adjunct Professor 
Piano 
973-655-7212
yuil@mail.montclair.edu

Since making her concerto debut at the age of seven, Lisa Yui has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist and soloist with orchestra. She was the top prizewinner of the Senigallia International Piano Competition, Super Classics International Auditions, Toronto Symphony Concerto Competition, and has twice been the recipient of a Canada Council Scholarship. Ms. Yui has worked with such prominent orchestras as the Tokyo Symphony, Polish National Radio, Toronto Symphony, and the Krakow State Philharmonic. She has recorded the music of Carl Maria von Weber and Jan Ladislav Dussek on the Intégral label. As a lecturer and performer, Ms. Yui has lectured at the Juilliard School, Kunitachi Music University, and Washington and Lee University, among other colleges and venues. She has worked extensively with the Yamaha Disklavier, having given numerous performances on the instrument, as well as long-distance “remote lessons.” She received her bachelor’s degree at the Juilliard School and her master’s and doctoral degree at Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Byron Janis and Marc Silverman. She is director of the Ensemble 212’s Young Artist Competition Series and serves on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music.


Z

Chaim Zemach
Professor Emeritus
Cello