Stanley E. Dahl

Stanley E. Dahl is Assistant Professor of Music at Central College in Pella, Iowa, where he is director of the Percussion Ensemble and the Flying Pans Steel Band. He received his Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Iowa State University where he studied with Michael Geary and Dr. Barry Larkin and his Master of Music in Percussion Performance from Arizona State University where he studied with Dr. J. B. Smith and Dr. Mark Sunkett. 

As a clinician/artist, he has appeared at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, International Association of Pan Convention, Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference, and the Iowa Music Educators Association Conference. He has also given numerous percussion lectures and performances at colleges/universities, high schools, and elementary schools throughout the United States and Mexico. 

Dahl is the interim president of the Iowa Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society, host of the 2010 Iowa Days of Percussion, and a member of the Percussive Arts Society World Percussion Committee. He is also the front ensemble percussion instructor at Southeast Polk High School in Pleasant Hill, IA, director of the Des Moines, IA steel band Tropical Steeland performs steel pans/vocals with the Caribbean-Funk band Jumbies. Stanley E. Dahl is a Pearl/Adams Regional Education Artist.

Cynthia Krenzel Doggett

Cynthia Krenzel Doggett regularly appears throughout the US as a soloist, recitalist, and clinician. In summer 2010 she served as clarinet faculty for Jonathan Cohler’s International Woodwind Festival. Cynthia has been a featured alumna at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Clarinet Day, has given master classes in Romania at the National Conservatory of Music in Cluj-Napoca and in Bucharest, and recently performed a recital of works for clarinet and electronics at the first annual European Clarinet Festival in Kortrijk, Belgium. As an orchestral clarinetist she has performed in orchestras throughout Ohio, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Iowa. In 2008, she appeared as concerto soloist with the Central Iowa Symphony orchestra. A dedicated pedagogue, Cynthia founded the annual event Iowa Clarinet Day to further the education of clarinetists state-wide. She is active in the International Clarinet Association as the state chair for Iowa.

Cynthia is an advocate for new music and has commissioned a number of works for clarinet and saxophone. She has performed at conferences to support these and other modern works, including Society of Composers Inc. (SCI), Iowa Composer’s Forum, and Electronic Music Midwest. Her list of commissioned works includes: The Ox and the Lark by Nikola Resanovic, composer of alt.music.ballistix, for clarinet and tape.

Currently, Cynthia is Assistant Professor of Music at Central College in Pella, IA. She earned her DMA and BM from the University of Wisconsin, and her MM from Kent State University. Her primary teachers include Håkan Rosengren, Linda Bartley, and Andrea Splittberger-Rosen.

Cynthia Doggett is a Yuan Gao Royal Musical Collection performing artist.

Dr. Lynn Hileman

Dr. Lynn Hileman is Assistant Professor of Bassoon and Music Theory at West Virginia University, co-director of the WVU Double Reed Ensemble, and a member of the Laureate Wind Quintet. She is also principal bassoonist of the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, one half of the bassoon duo  Tuple, and a member of the contemporary bassoon collective Dark in the Song. She has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Syracuse and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, New Music New Haven, the June in Buffalo Festival Orchestra, and at the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 International Double Reed Society conferences.

Dr. Hileman is dedicated to reinvigorating concert music through the performance of post-classical contemporary and experimental music, orchestral and chamber music, as well as electronic music and interdisciplinary arts. As a soloist she is in demand throughout the United States as a recitalist specializing in contemporary music, performing at such venues as the Musica no Museu Festival in Rio de Janeiro, the Washington State University Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. She also co-founded and is former president of A\V, a gallery and performance space in Rochester, New York specializing in multimedia and experimental works.

Dr. Hileman holds degrees from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (BM), Yale University (MM), and the Eastman School of Music (DMA), where she was awarded the Andrew G. Bogiages Memorial Prize in Bassoon in 2004. Her teachers include John Hunt, K. David Van Hoesen, Frank Morelli, Christopher Millard, and Richard Beene. Before coming to WVU, Dr. Hileman served on the faculties of Hamilton, Hartwick, and Houghton Colleges, Binghamton University, and the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. Dr. Hileman spends her summers practicing, traveling, baking vegan pastries, and performing at the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival.

Randy Hoepker

Randy Hoepker is the founding director of the Central Iowa Youth Band, a premier organization of Central Iowa's finest high school wind and percussion players, now in its sixth season. Mr. Hoepker also serves as Director of Bands at Hoover High School in Des Moines, Iowa, where he directs the Wind Ensemble and Jazz Combo and serves as chair of the Fine Arts Department. Prior to his position at Hoover, he served as Director of Bands at Southeast Polk High School, where he directed the Wind Ensemble, concert bands, jazz band, pep band, and marching band, and served as music department chairperson.  

He founded commissioning programs that have lead to 18 new works for bands and percussion ensembles by award-winning composers from the United States, Japan, England, Canada, and the Netherlands, including Jun Nagao, Bernard Van Beurden, Bruce Carslon, Jeremy Beck, Eseld Pierce, William Dougherty, Daniel Bukvich, Gregory Yasinitsky, Tracey Rush, Reber Clark, David Resnick, Chrispoher Salerno, Bill Park, and Peter Hamlin.

Mr. Hoepker is the founder and former director of the Altoona Community Band, designated as a “model of quality service” by the Corporation for National Service, and the Central Iowa Youth Jazz Band. Bands under his direction have received Major and Mini grant awards from the Iowa Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and CommServ Iowa. 

Mr. Hoepker has taught saxophone at the Drake University Community School of Music and maintains an active private studio. Prior positions include Assistant Band Director with the Oskaloosa Community Schools, 5–12 Band Director with the Martensdale-St. Marys Community Schools and Graduate Assistant with the University of Northern Iowa Marching, Symphonic, and Basketball Bands. 

Mr. Hoepker holds the degrees of Master of Music in Conducting, Master of Music Education, and Bachelor of Music Education with Jazz Emphasis, all from the University of Northern Iowa.  His primary conducting teacher is Ronald Johnson, with additional study with Timothy Reynish, Mark Heron and Russell Cowieson.

Karey Johnson Sitzler

Karey Johnson Sitzler holds a Bachelor of Music in Instrumental Music Education with emphasis in Strings from Western Michigan University (1977) and a Master of Music in Viola Performance Pedagogy from Arizona State (1983). She has performed with professional symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras, and chamber ensembles in Michigan, Indiana, Arizona, Ohio, and now Virginia for 32 years. She has taught string classes and private lessons to students ages four–adult at beginning to university levels, and has taught in school music programs for 31 years.

In 1986, Mrs. Sitzler founded the Young Strings Academy of Kalamazoo, Michigan, a not for profit private and group lesson school. YSA worked in tandem with area musicians and community groups to provide scholarships and promote excellence in performance. The organization, which she directed until 1998, named her Director Emeritus and continues to serve west Michigan as the Crescendo Academy of Music. From 1989–2000 she was the music director of the Kalamazoo Prep String and Training Orchestras. In 1991 she guest conducted the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony in performance at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra clinic in Chicago.

From 2000–2003, Mrs. Sitzler served the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey, Michigan as Education Director for the Performing Arts and as Youth Orchestra conductor. There, she designed the arts curriculum, organized concerts featuring over 350 students from a three-county area, and coordinated cultural activities for participating schools. The orchestra was invited to open the Bayview Music Festival in June of 2003. Since moving to Virginia in 2003, she has been teaching for the Suffolk, Virginia Public Schools, where she was hired to develop a string program. Working at Forest Glen Middle and Lakeland High Schools she is able to see the students from start to graduation. Her pops arrangements are a favorite on school spring concerts. The Lakeland High Chamber Strings have been featured as guest performers for the “State of the Schools” breakfast for the past two years. This year they traveled to New Orleans for a clinic at Loyola University and a performance at Trinity Episcopal Church. Both LHS and FGMS students perform throughout the community. Since 2004 she has been directing the feeder system for the Williamsburg Youth Orchestras and most recently teaching music appreciation at Paul D. Camp Community College. She maintains a small private studio with students who are successfully auditioning for District, Regional, and State Orchestras and have most recently been receiving scholarships to colleges of choice. She has guest conducted the Virginia Beach All City 8th Grade Orchestra, District II 7th Grade Orchestra, and begun to adjudicate festivals in Tidewater.

Karey and her husband, Tommy, blended a family of six children seven years ago. Three are in college at this time. They are active in the church music scene.

Cynthia Johnston Turner

Before joining the Cornell faculty in the fall of 2004, Cynthia Johnston Turner taught at the University of Rochester, where she directed the Wind Symphony, and served as Director of Music at Parkside High School, Dundas, Canada. Earlier in her career Cynthia taught middle school beginning instrumental music in Toronto and choral music in Switzerland. She currently serves as a faculty member with the summer Performing Arts Institute at Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Seminary and as a guest conductor with the Syracuse Society of New Music, Ensemble X and the Austrian Festival Orchestra in Salzburg.

A Canadian, Cynthia completed her Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Education degrees at Queens University and her Master of Music in Music Education and Conducting at the University of Victoria. Touring with her ensembles inspired her Master’s thesis on the musical and personal transformations that occur on tours, and her DMA thesis at the Eastman School of Music centered on Dialogues and Entertainments by William Kraft, one of this generation’s leading composers. At Eastman Cynthia was the recipient of the Eastman Graduate Teaching Award in conducting, where she studied with Donald Hunsberger, Mark Scatterday, and Neil Varon. She was nominated for the Canadian Prime Minister’s Leadership in Teaching Award and received the National Leadership in Education Award (Readers Digest Foundation), the Excellence in Education Award (Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation), and the Marion Drysdale Leadership Among Women Teachers Award (also from OSSTF).

At Cornell, Cynthia is the Director of Wind Ensembles, overseeing the Wind Ensemble, Wind Symphony, Chamber Winds, and other chamber ensembles. She also serves as faculty advisor to CU Winds, a student-driven organization devoted to the promotion and performance of wind music. Cynthia has commissioned numerous new works for wind band, many of which incorporate other artistic media, and she continues to actively promote commissions by today’s leading composers around the world.

She works closely with the Cornell DMA candidates in composition to help present their new works for wind ensemble in concert.  Under her direction, the Wind Ensemble was invited to perform at the College Band Directors National Association’s Eastern Division Conference in 2007. In 2008, the Merrill Presidential Scholars at Cornell recognized Cynthia as an outstanding educator, and in 2009, she was awarded the Kaplan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellowship.

In January 2006, Cynthia led the Cornell Wind Ensemble on a performing and service tour to Costa Rica that included performances across the country and the donation of over fifty instruments to a rural “escuela de musica.” The Cornell Wind Ensemble returned to Costa Rica in 2008, donating over eighty instruments to three music schools. In 2010, Cornell donated 95 instruments to five music schools in Costa Rica, performed eleven concerts in twelve days, and gave master classes to over 300 music students across the country.

Among other recent engagements, Cynthia has guest conducted the Provincial Honour Bands of Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, Concordia Santa Fe, a professional wind ensemble in New Mexico, the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Latin American Honor Band, the National Band of Costa Rica (San Jose), the Montclair State Wind Ensemble, and the Paris Lodron Ensemble and Austrian Festival Orchestra in Salzburg.

Patrick J. Kearney

Patrick J. Kearney has been the Director of Bands at Johnston High School since the fall of 2000.  During his tenure at Johnston the band program has doubled in size as well as developed a tradition of excellence in concert band, jazz band, and marching band performance. The 2010 Johnston High School Jazz Ensemble was invited to the inaugural Jazz Education Network conference in St. Louis.  A graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Kearney has also served as director of Drake Jazz II. He is currently the Executive Director of the Adventureland Festival of Bands and is the Advocacy Chair for the Iowa Alliance for Arts Education. His wife Cathy teaches orchestra in the Des Moines Public Schools and he is the proud father of Brogan Kearney.

David Kobberdahl

David Kobberdahl received his BME from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri in 1988 and his Master's degree at the Vandercook College of Music in Chicago. He currently works as a Jazz Ensemble Director and Instrumental Music Instructor for the West Des Moines Comm. School District. In addition, David plays trumpet professionally as a member of the Des Moines Big Band, the Latin Jazz Group, Ashanti, and the Jazz Quartet, Old School.

Michael Kris

Michael Kris (Lecturer) is the Instructor of Low Brass and Director of Brass Chamber Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also on the performance faculty at Duke University and the Eastern Music Festival. Mr. Kris is a regular performer with the North Carolina Symphony, North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra, North Carolina Theater, North Carolina Opera, and a variety of chamber music ensembles.

As a performer, Mr. Kris is currently second trombone in the Eastern Music Festival Philharmonic and has been a member of the North Carolina Symphony, serving as principal and second trombone. In addition, he has been a member of the Winston-Salem Symphony and the Greensboro Symphony and has performed with several orchestras throughout the eastern United States.

Apart from his orchestral work, Mr. Kris is an active soloist and clinician performing and teaching throughout the southeast. As a jazz musician, he has toured with groups in the United States and Europe and has worked with artists such as Tony Bennett, Clark Terry and Natalie Cole. Mr. Kris attended McNeese State University and the Cincinnati College/Conservatory of Music where he studied with Mr. Tony Chipurn, retired principal trombone of the Cincinnati Symphony. Mr. Kris has earned a Bachelor of Music Education as well as a Master of Music in Trombone Performance. Prior to his appointment at the University of North Carolina, Mr. Kris held teaching posts at North Carolina Central University, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and St. Augustine’s College.

Matthew McClure

Matthew McClure is the saxophone teacher and Assistant Director of Bands in the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also coaches numerous saxophone chamber groups in the department, including the innovative “Town and Gown” saxophone quartet, which pairs his saxophone students with life-long performers and lovers of music from the community.

McClure earned his Master of Music in Conducting and undergraduate degree in Music Education from The University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  McClure began his teaching career in the public schools of Russell County, Kentucky, teaching elementary, middle, and high school bands. He has studied conducting with Dr. Gary Sousa and has studied saxophone with Jay Romines, Dr. Paul Haar, and Dr. Steven Stusek. He has performed as the winner of numerous concerto competitions and at the North American Saxophone Alliance National Conference. In the Fall of 2009 he founded the North Carolina Saxophone Ensemble, which combines professional saxophonists from across the state with highly enthusiastic and talented “amateur” musicians.

Dr. Philip McLeod

Dr. Philip McLeod completed his PhD thesis “Fast, Accurate Pitch Detection Tools for Music Analysis” in 2008 at the University of Otago, New Zealand. As part of this research he developed the open source software Tartini. This brought together his passions of Computer science, Physics and Music in the hope that he could make useful tools for musicians. The goal was not to tell people how to play, but to provide tools for visualizing what they play so one can analyze, compare, and study their music in a more object manner.

Ironically, Dr. McLeod plays drums, for which Tartini is not much use. But the reason pitch interests him so much is because he considers himself “quite tone deaf”—although he has been making progress!

Dr. McLeod’s other research interests include 3D environment reconstruction from images (computer vision), hair simulation, making computer games, and computer graphics.

He also enjoys climbing mountains, running, meditating, philosophy, and learning new things.

Currently (2010), he is lead research scientist at Areo, and has lectured at the University of Otago.

Susan Odem

Susan Odem received a BM from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an MM from Drake University, studying with Jay Light. She is a member of the Des Moines Symphony, is an adjunct member of the faculty at Central College and Drake University, and teaches a private studio of oboe and bassoon students.

Abigail Pack

Abigail Pack joined the School of Music as Associate Professor of Horn in Fall 2008. Pack, a native of Roanoke, Virginia received her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. in 1994 before earning a Master of Arts degree in Horn Performance and Pedagogy in 1996 from The University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, where she was a teaching assistant and toured with the faculty brass quintet. Ms. Pack most recently received her doctoral degree from The University of Wisconsin-Madison in December of 2004. She completed her doctoral coursework there in May 2001.

She has held teaching positions at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA; Knox College in Galesburg, IL; Western State College in Gunnison, CO; and in the Gunnison Watershed School District in Gunnison, CO. She was awarded the Bolz Teaching Fellowship while in residence at UW-Madison.

Ms. Pack has held playing positions with the Barton Symphony Orchestra, Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, and with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. She currently performs regionally as a member of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Opera Roanoke, Southwest Chamber Orchestra, and with the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. Recent performance highlights include the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa at the International Horn Symposium, International Flute Conference, Washington D.C., The International Midwest Band and Orchestra Conference, Chicago, Illinois, and most recently at The Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. with the Montpelier Wind Quintet.

Click to visit the UNCG Horn Studio web site or email: alpack@uncg.edu

Myron Peterson

Myron Peterson began his current teaching position as a Director of Bands at Urbandale High School in the Fall of 1998. An educational highlight of Mr. Peterson’s teaching career has been the development of the Urbandale All-State Protocol, which is a road map to guide students’ progress as they prepare for the Iowa All-State Auditions. In 2006, Mr. Peterson directed the Urbandale Wind Ensemble as the class 4A honor band at the 2006 Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference. Prior to his arrival at Urbandale, Mr. Peterson taught for two years in the Oskaloosa Community School District.

Mr. Peterson received his Bachelor of Music Education in 1995 from the University of Northern Iowa. There he studied trombone with John Hanson and Max Bonecutter. He also studied trombone with David Stuart of Iowa State University and Mike Schmitz of the United States of America Navy Band.  

Mr. Peterson performs regularly with the Tony Valdez Large Band, the Brix Big Band, the Plymouth Brass Consort, and as a freelance trombonist in various chamber settings around the Des Moines area. He has performed in the pit orchestra at the Civic Center of Great Des Moines for national touring productions, including “The Color Purple” and “High School Musical.” He is an active adjudicator and clinician at music festivals across Iowa.

Mr. Peterson is professionally affiliated with the Iowa Bandmaster’s Association, South Central Iowa Bandmaster’s Association, where he is the president-elect, and the Jazz Educators of Iowa, where he is the founding treasurer.