Festival Mentors & Faculty

Horn

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Dr. Stacie Mickens is Professor of Horn at the University of North Texas College of Music. Prior to UNT, she was Associate Professor at the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University and adjunct faculty at Luther College and Winona State University. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Luther College. 

Mickens has performed with Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Plano Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Opera, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds, Blossom Music Festival, Monarch Brass, Madison Symphony Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. She previously held positions in orchestras in Akron, Wheeling, Youngstown, Lansing, Dearborn, Southwest Michigan, La Crosse, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, and Dubuque. She is currently principal horn of Richardson Symphony and acting fourth horn of The Dallas Opera.

Mickens’ solo album From the Great Lakes features new works by David Morgan and James Wilding. “Stacie Mickens’s playing is superb; her musicality has a sort of confidence that makes one feel entirely secure in her hands...” – Fanfare Nov/Dec 2020. “Stacie Mickens…shows masterful control of her instrument throughout the CD, displaying the diverse sound quality of the horn with beautifully lyrical and melancholic playing…”– Brass Band World Dec 2020.

She is a founding member of the Lantana Trio. Lantana’s 2022 album, Crossing Barriers, features commissioned works by Jeff Scott, Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, Shanyse Strickland, Dorothy Gates, and Erik Morales. The group co-hosted the International Women’s Brass Conference at UNT in 2022. Mickens has additionally been a member of Stiletto Brass Quintet since 2022.  

Trumpet

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Heather Zweifel served as principal trumpet of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra for seven years and has performed with the Atlanta Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa, ON), CityMusic Cleveland, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Opera Cleveland, the Akron Symphony Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the New World Symphony and is solo trumpet on the newly released CD “Winter Moons” by Jerod Impichchaachahaa’ Tate on Azica Records.

In 1996 Zweifel co-founded Burning River Brass, a twelve-member brass and percussion ensemble. Praised for its “power and virtuosity,” “harmonious blend,” and “consistently stirring performances,” BRB has released seven CDs and toured extensively from Alaska to Taiwan including concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Severance Hall. A featured guest at the International Trumpet Guild Conference (2015), the International Trombone Festival (2013), and NTDTV New Year’s Gala at Radio City Music Hall (2006), Burning River Brass has been heard on NPR’s Performance Today and Sunday Baroque as well as radio stations throughout the United States and abroad.

Zweifel has held faculty teaching positions at the University of Akron and Youngstown State University and has lead masterclasses and outreach concerts across the country. She is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and her principal teachers have included Lt. Col. Gilbert Mitchell, Steve Hendrickson, Michael Sachs, and David Zauder.

Trombone

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Hailed by The Boston Musical Intelligencer as "outstanding" and "fearless," Dr. Elisabeth Shafer, a native of State College, PA, is a dedicated performer and music educator. She has appeared in concert with orchestras and ensembles, including the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Columbus, Akron Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, The Jackson Symphony, CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Brass, Columbus Symphony Brass, Akron Symphonic Winds, Memphis Jazz Orchestra, DanJo Jazz Orchestra, Symphony in C, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, the Nittany Valley Symphony, and Barclay Brass. Dr. Shafer was the interim core member of Seraph Brass from 2019 - 2021. She has appeared as a featured soloist with ensembles including The Ohio State University Wind Ensemble, Seraph Brass, The University of Akron Symphonic and Concert Bands, The University of Akron Symphony Orchestra, and the Perry High School Symphonic Winds. She has presented solo and chamber performances at the American Trombone Workshop, the International Trombone Festival, and the International Women's Brass Conference, including a presentation titled "Songs She Wrote: A Joint Recital of Works by Women Composers” highlighting the works of women composers. Dr. Shafer frequently performs chamber and solo recitals at universities across the country. 

Dr. Shafer serves as the Assistant Professor of Trombone at The Ohio State University. Prior to her appointment, she served on the faculty at the University of Memphis and The University of Akron. She has taught at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Trombone Workshop, was a Teaching Artist in the Music in Schools Initiative in New Haven, CT, and is currently on the faculty at Luzerne Music Center, a summer arts organization in the Adirondacks devoted to bringing enriching musical experiences and education to young musicians from around the world. Dr. Shafer has presented clinics for the International Trombone Workshop, the Ohio Music Educators Association conference, and the Tobi Institute and frequently gives clinics at schools and universities across the United States.

Dr. Shafer earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Trombone Performance from Boston University, her Master of Music degree from Yale School of Music in Trombone Performance, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Temple University in Trombone Performance. Her primary teachers include Toby Oft, Scott Hartman, and Matthew Vaughn. Dr. Shafer is a Conn-Selmer Performing Artist.

Flute

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Dr. Virginia Broffitt Kunzer has established a successful and diverse career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, and teacher. She has performed and taught throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe and has been a concerto soloist with numerous ensembles. Kunzer is also the Principal Flute in the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas and Flutist in the Pangaea Chamber Players and the Elicio Winds. Previously, she served as faculty at Western Illinois University and Oklahoma State University. Kunzer maintains an active presence in the National Flute Association through performances and service, performing regularly at conventions. She previously served as a Board Member and a Coordinator of the Young Artist Competition, of which she is a winner.

​As a recording artist, she released a chamber album with the Pangaea Chamber Players [Navona], one with the Elicio Winds [Blue Griffin] and a solo album with pianist Tammie Walker [MSR]. Kunzer has several published flute and piano arrangements through Alry Publications.

​A native of Iowa City, Iowa, she received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Dr. Kunzer is a Miyazawa Performing Artist, and is currently the Professor of Flute at Auburn University. Her past teachers include Randy Bowman, Dr. Tadeu Coelho, Jack Wellbaum, and Dr. Irna Priore.

Oboe

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Lani Kelly plays with Memphis Symphony Orchestra, where she performs principal oboe duties and provides artistic leadership throughout the community. Prior to joining the MSO, Lani Kelly served as Principal Oboe in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra and the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, in addition to recent appearances with the Nashville, Fort Worth and St Louis Symphony Orchestras. Lani loves working with young musicians, and has served as faculty at Alma College and Michigan State University, where she directed several courses and maintained a private studio.

She received her Bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory and her Masters from Michigan State University, where she was awarded the prestigious University Distinguished Fellowship. Lani was a prizewinner at the Sphinx Orchestral Partners Competition in 2023, and a recipient of a fellowship from the Pittsburgh Symphony in 2007.

In her free time, she enjoys jigsaw puzzles, reading, and a nascent skill in carpentry.

Clarinet

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“Berio’s 13 Sequenzas, written over a period of four decades, are big solo works for different instruments. They famously make extraordinary demands on the performer, so much so that anyone mastering a Sequenza stands out as an undeniable master of his instrument. Molina is such a master, and his triumphant performance brought the entire house to its feet.” -Richard Rand, Tuscaloosa News

“Black Dog is a tour de force of virtuosic display and a showpiece for soloist and wind ensemble.  Osiris Molina impressively slides, bends, and growls his way through this rhapsodic piece with a controlled reckless abandon necessary for its success.  Inspired by the likes of Led Zeppelin’s song “Black Dog,” Scott McAllister has crafted a piece which is bound to excite an audience and performers.  It is played here to the hilt by Molina, and the ensemble is right with him –– a performance holding its own with any versions out there.  It’s head-banging fun. Bravo!” William Nichols, The Clarinet

Dr. Osiris J. Molina is Professor of Clarinet and Woodwind Area Coordinator at the University of Alabama. A native of Elizabeth, New Jersey, he has extensive experience as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Dr. Molina is currently Principal Clarinet of the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Principal Clarinet with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Alabama, Mobile, Mississippi, Meridian, and Chattanooga symphony clarinet sections, in addition to work with the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Greater Lansing, and West Michigan symphony orchestras.

Dr. Molina’s chamber work includes his membership in the Vuorovesi Trio, a UA faculty trio consisting of the flute, oboe, and clarinet. Vuorovesi has performed at many ICA and IDRS conferences and have been invited to perform at the 2024 IDRS conference in Flagstaff, AZ and the 2024 ICA ClarinetFest in Dublin, Ireland. In 2024 the trio will release their first album. In addition to Vuorovesi, he is also a member of the Cavell Trio, a reed trio dedicated to established and emerging works for this unique combination. Dr. Molina is also a member of the Capstone Wind Quintet, the faculty quintet at the University of Alabama.

As a solo instrumentalist, Dr. Molina celebrated the 2022 release of Cuba, Alabama, an album consisting of music for clarinet by Cuban composers Andres Alén, Javier Zalba, Paquito D’Rivera, Ernesto Lecuona, and Leo Brouwer on Blue Griffin Records, and in February 2023, Dr. Molina was featured soloist on John Mackey’s new Clarinet Concerto Divine Mischief with the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble at the College Band Directors National Association National Conference at the University of Georgia. He is currently in the final stages of recording an album of works for clarinet and string quartet by Alabama composers due out in late 2024.

Dr. Molina holds degrees from Michigan State University (DMA), Yale School of Music (MM), and Rutgers University (BM), where he studied with Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, David Shifrin, Charles Neidich, Ayako Oshima and Dr. William Berz. Osiris has been active in music education at all levels. He teaches applied clarinet, chamber music and clarinet methods in the Music Education curriculum. Dr. Molina is an endorsing artist for Selmer Paris, Silverstein, Gonzalez, and D’Addario and performs on the Recital clarinet and the Privilege Bass Clarinet.

Bassoon

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Dr. Austin Way serves as the Bassoon Instructor at the University of Missouri and Washburn University, in addition to performing with the Missouri Quintet, Missouri Symphony, and Kansas City Chamber Orchestra along with frequent guest performances with the Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Lyric Opera, and Kansas City Ballet. Prior to this he performed as the Second Bassoonist of the Orquesta Sinfónica Sinaloa de las Artes during its 2015 to 2016 season and served as Acting Principal Bassoonist for the 2016 to 2017 season, where he had the opportunity to tour with the orchestra throughout Mexico, including a performance in December of 2016 in Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the orchestra. Dr. Way has taken part in collaborations with many composers and can be heard performing as the Principal Bassoonist on a recorded collection of concertos for soloists with wind ensemble by Leonardo Balada, recorded for the Naxos Label as well as performing on both bassoon and contrabassoon on the premiere recording of Paul Moravec's operatic adaptation of The Shining with the Kansas City Lyric Opera, recorded for the Pentatone label. Additionally, Dr. Way has performed with a variety of ensembles across the country, including two presentations with chamber ensembles at the 2010 and 2022 International Double Reed Society conferences.

From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Way held the bassoon and contrabassoon fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and now spends his summers serving as Associate Principal Bassoonist for the Missouri Symphony. He is a frequent guest artist with other music festivals as well, including recent appearances with the Ad Astra and Sunflower Music Festivals. As a chamber musician, Dr. Way performed with Pittsburgh’s Incidental Chamber Players during its inaugural season of 2014 to 2015, as well as collaborating with musicians across to country and performs with Washburn’s Bluestem Faculty Woodwind Quintet, the Meadowlark Faculty Woodwind Trio, and the Missouri Quintet with the faculty of the University of Missouri as well as the NAVO Inc. ensemble.

As an advocate for new music, Dr. Way has collaborated with many composers such as his work with Stephen Gryc in preparation for his 2021 performance of Guignol for bassoon and wind ensemble. Other recent collaborations include several Latin American composers for his 2023 recording project, featuring works for bassoon and piano by José Siquiera, Tania León, and Daniel Cueto.

Dr. Way holds degrees from the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory as well as Carnegie Mellon University. His primary teachers include Marita Abner, Per Hannevold, and Nancy Goeres.

Viola

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Timothy MacDuff picked up the viola with guidance from the teachers in his public school program in upstate New York. He decided he wanted to become a professional musician after hearing the chamber music of Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak.

Timothy joined the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and its flagship string quartet, Quapaw Quartet, in 2019. Passionate about education and performance, he and the Quapaw Quartet provide engaging educational programs for students and artistic concerts for communities across the state of Arkansas.

In 2021, Timothy became a faculty member at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where he teaches viola and chamber music. In the summers, he has joined faculties teaching, coaching chamber music, and performing at many festivals nationally including Crane Youth Music Camp in New York, Manitou Chamber Music Festival in Colorado, and Faulkner Chamber Music Festival in Arkansas. Formerly, Timothy taught private violin and viola lessons for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Strings Academy and Summer Strings Camp.

His varied orchestral and chamber music experiences include performances with the New World Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute, Round Top Festival Institute, Lake George Music Festival, Loon Lake Live, and Chamber Music on the Mountain. Timothy has been featured as a soloist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Symphony after winning the concerto competition in 2017.

Timothy received a Bachelor of Music degree from SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music, a Master of Music degree from Rice University and also earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Maryland. His principal teachers include Shelly Tramposh, James Dunham, Joan DerHovsepian, and Katherine Murdock.

Violin

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Violinist Andrew Irvin has a broad range of experience throughout North America and Europe. Solo appearances include works by Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Bruch, Vivaldi, Korngold, Bach, Mozart, Sarasate, Ravel, and Dvorak. Currently, Mr. Irvin lives in Arkansas where he is Concertmaster of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He can also be heard in recording on the Naxos and Potenza labels.

Mr. Irvin served as leader, and soloist of orchestra "Air de Cour," in Rochester, New York. This ensemble received grants from New York's State Legislature and The New York Council for the Arts. Highlights of his chamber music career include performances with Augustine Hadelich, Milton Masciadri, the Ying Quartet, and New York City premiere of composer Steve Mackey's Troubadour Songs.

Mr. Irvin made his European debut at the Heidelberg Schlossfestspiele, where he was principal violin in the festival orchestra and was featured on the chamber concert series. Before moving to Arkansas, he was principal violin in the Arizona Opera Orchestra.

Violin

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Internationally recognized violinist Annie Chalex Boyle has had a wide-ranging career as a chamber musician, soloist, orchestral player, and teacher. Her playing has been hailed by critics as “brilliant” (Kalamazoo Gazette), “eloquent and poignant” (The San Antonio Express Journal), and “has a commanding musical impersonation…in Ives’ Second String Quartet” (Los Angeles Times). Equally comfortable with classical and contemporary works, Ms. Chalex Boyle has performed numerous new works composed for her as well as commissioned for the Harrington String Quartet. Ms. Chalex Boyle has won prizes at the Seventeen Magazine/General Motors National Competition and the Irving M. Klein International String Competition.  She was also the Grand Prize Winner of the Junior Division of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

As a soloist, Ms. Chalex Boyle has performed recitals and been concerto soloist throughout North and South America.  As first violinist of the Harrington String Quartet, the group toured extensively nationally and internationally, including a performance at Carnegie’s Weill Hall and on the roster of Mid-America Arts Alliance. The Quartet performed with guest artists including David Shifrin, Robert Levin, James Dunham, and Pepe Romero.  She has been featured in three PBS television documentaries, heard frequently on NPR’s “Performance Today”, and has recorded on the Albany, Hänssler Classics, and Summit labels.  An advocate of new music, she has worked with many composers including Oliver Knussen, Elliot Carter, and Stephen Hartke.  Most recently, she has worked with American Composer John Corigliano on his Red Violin Concerto during his visit to West Texas with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro David Cho.  Before moving to Lubbock, she taught violin at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, played with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and coached chamber music the Chicago Symphony Youth Orchestra.  She also recorded for numerous television series and pop albums, along with being featured in two national television commercials for Saturn Autos in the early 1990's.  

Born in Illinois, Ms. Chalex Boyle began violin in the Music for Youth Suzuki Program and continued her work with Almita and Roland Vamos. She also attended the University of Southern California studying with Robert Lipsett and worked with Robert Mann and Felix Galimir at The Juilliard School. She is currently an Associate Professor of Violin at Texas Tech University, and is Concertmaster of the Lubbock Symphony and Lubbock Chamber Orchestra. 

Violin

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Dr. Nicole Cherry is Assistant Professor of Violin at The University of Texas at San Antonio and second violinist of the award-winning Marian Anderson String Quartet. Dr. Cherry currently holds the appointment of Faculty Fellow for Faculty Success by the Dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts. Dr. Cherry has held artist-teacher residencies at Texas A&M, Prairie View A&M, University of Washington, and Brown University where she, with the quartet, trains promising string players of all ages. Dr. Cherry has performed extensively in distinguished venues including the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian, and the Banff Centre. A solo tour of the Middle East and Asia included performances before the Queen Noor of Jordan and in underdeveloped townships in Johannesburg during Apartheid. Dr. Cherry serves as artistic director of the Marian Anderson String Quartet Chamber Music Institute held in the Brazos Valley, Texas. In recognition of this outreach with the quartet, Dr. Cherry garnered two Mayoral Proclamations, the Congress of Racial Equality’s MLK JR. Award for Outstanding Arts Achievement and Chamber Music America’s Guarneri String Quartet Award and after a recent visit the quartet was given the Arkansas Traveler, the highest distinction of the Arkansas House of Representatives. A regular presenter on diversity, community engagement and the performing arts, Dr. Cherry has given talks some of the leading arts conferences such as American String Teachers Association, National Association for Music Education, the American Musicological Society in addition to TED Talk. Dr. Cherry’s award-winning research on the nineteenth-century Afro-European violin virtuoso, George Bridgetower has led to engagements in some of world’s most prestigious institutions including University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, Berklee College of Music, Sydney Conservatory of Music (AU), Cambridge University (UK), the Royal Academy of Music (UK) and the Juilliard School. Her work has expanded into a commissioning project, ForgewithGeorge which has engaged some of today’s most exciting composers. The Juilliard School profiled Dr. Cherry in the Journal’s 100th-anniversary issue, “A Quiet Revolution: Juilliard Alumni and the Transformation of Education in America Through the Arts.” Dr. Cherry holds degrees from the University of Maryland, Peabody Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music and the Juilliard School.

Cello

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Hailed by the Chicago Sun Times as a “superb cellist,” Dr. Kimberly Patterson has earned recognition for her artistry as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. Dr. Patterson has won prizes at the Fischoff

Chamber Music Competition, London International Quartet Competition and Bordeaux International Quartet Competition. She has given chamber recitals in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, London’s

Wigmore Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. She is the cellist of the Patterson Sutton Guitar Duo, drawing critical acclaim from BBC Music Magazine, and also concertizing as Juilliard Global Artists.

Dr. Patterson is the Associate Professor of Cello and String Area Coordinator at the University of Memphis, as well as the cellist of the Ceruti Quartet. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, and University of Colorado at Boulder.

Cello

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Jeremy Crosmer is a remarkable young artist—both as a cellist and a composer. He completed multiple graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in cello, composition and theory pedagogy, and received his D.M.A. in 2012 at age 24. From 2012 to 2017 he served as the Assistant Principal cellist in the Grand Rapids Symphony, and joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in May of 2017.

Crosmer is a recipient of the 2021 Ford Musician Award for Excellence in Community Service, presented by the League of American Orchestras, for his work piloting the DSO’s partnership with Kadima Mental Health Services. Additionally, he is the sole composer and arranger for the GRS’s Music for Health Initiative, which pairs symphonic musicians with music therapists to bring classical music to hospitals. In March of 2017 the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital launched a music channel that runs continuously, using four hours of meditative music composed by Crosmer and performed by musicians of the GRS.

​Crosmer is a founding member of the modern music ensemble Latitude 49. He is also a current member of the band ESME—a duo that brings crossovers and mashups of pop and classical music to schools throughout Michigan. ESME released its first CD in December of 2016. Crosmer was also a part of the World Map project with the Four Corners Ensemble, recording Shuying Li’s cello concerto “Matilda’s Dream” in 2020. Crosmer was awarded the prestigious Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award in 2011 to publish, record and perform his Crosmer-Popper duets. The recording with Julie Albers and the sheet music are both available online.

Crosmer has been commissioned multiple times by both the Jackson Symphony Orchestra and GRS. His overture “Ozark Traveler” and his viola concerto Masks: a Heroine’s Tale have been performed around the country. In May of 2022 he performed his work “Threnody” for cello and string orchestra with the DSO. He has played Dvořák, Haydn, Boccherini, Elgar and Saint-Saëns cello concertos numerous times with orchestras across Michigan, and in April of 2023 he performed the American premiere of Fernande Decruck’s Cello Concerto, which was written in 1932.

​In 2021, Crosmer created a database of free, digital editions of music by Classical Black Composers, arranged or transcribed for string quartet, with over 33 pieces available on his website. Crosmer has taught music theory, pre-calculus, and cello at universities across Michigan.

Double Bass

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Kevin G. Mauldin earned his B.M. degree from Memphis State University in 1982 and his M.M. degree from Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music (CCM) in 1985. A native of Memphis, he studied bass with Herman Burkhart, John Chiego and in Cincinnati with Frank Proto. His teaching responsibilities include a private studio with doublebass and electric bass students and the Hot Springs Music Festival as mentor and faculty member since 2007. Kevin taught at the Brevard Music Center and also at the University of Miami from 2000 to 2010.

When not performing with the Naples Philharmonic, Kevin performs with jazz artists in Southwest Florida. He is also a member of the Naples Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra.

Kevin owns an instrument repair shop named KGM String Repair, providing string repairs for professionals and students in the area. He performed in recent seasons using a bow he made. Kevin has been a member of the Naples Philharmonic since 1990.

Percussion

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Equally at home with orchestral, solo, and chamber music, Dr. Matthew McClung has performed with a wide variety of prestigious ensembles throughout the United States.

He has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Grand Opera, plus the symphony orchestras of Arkansas, Austin, Corpus Christi, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Houston, Lexington, Maui, Minnesota, Phoenix, and San Antonio. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Alisa Weilerstein, the Percussion Group Cincinnati, the So Percussion Group, Strike 3 Percussion, Musiqa, Chaski, Drumpetello, Da Camera (Houston), NOVA (Salt Lake City), the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, and the Virginia Arts Festival, among others.

As a winner of a Presser award, he studied with the Master Drummers of the Ewe tribe in Ghana, West Africa. Matthew holds an engineering degree from the University of Cincinnati and a Master of Music degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and he is the recipient of the first Doctoral degree ever awarded in percussion performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Music at Saint Olaf College, and the principal percussionist of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and the Glimmerglass Opera Festival. Matthew proudly endorses Vic Firth sticks and mallets, and Zildjian cymbals.

Piano

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Pianist Hsiao-Ling Lin joined the keyboard department faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011. Praised for her versatility and sensitive style, Lin enjoys an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. Her performances have been broadcasted live over the TV and radio stations, and she has performed with musicians including members of TakácsString Quartet, Stefan Jackiw, Carol Wincenc, Christoph Hartmann, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Peter Steiner, among others. Lin has held staff pianist positions at Vivace International Music Festival, Meadowmount School for Strings, the InternationalFestival-Institute at Round Top, the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Northwestern University, the International Horn Competition of America and the International Double Reed Society. Outside of the University, she is rehearsal pianist for Colorado Symphony Chorus and regularly performs with the Colorado Symphony.

Lin received her Doctor of Music Degree in Piano Performance and Collaborative Arts at Northwestern University, additionally, she holds Degrees from the New England Conservatory and DePaul University. Her teachers and mentors include Victor Rosenbaum, Eteri Andjaparidze, James Giles, Elizabeth Buccheri, Anne Epperson, and Jonathan Feldman.

Piano

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Pianist Tomoko Kashiwagi finds immense joy in playing the diverse repertoire she encounters as a performer and as an educator.  

She is equally at ease performing with instruments and vocalists, with a diverse repertoire ranging from Baroque to modern, non-traditional styles and newly commissioned pieces. She has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Panama, Brazil and Canada including such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Guildhall School in London, among others.  

Kashiwagi is currently the Associate Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano and holder of the Emily J. McAllister Endowed Chair at the University of Arkansas.  Embracing the ethos of lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity, Kashiwagi is dedicated to fostering musical excellence and community engagement.

Percussion

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Garrett's richness of sound identifies his sincereness and intellectual curiosity in his performance.  His passion for developing the genre of percussion music has inspired many composers and musicians through creative collaboration and workshops. Garrett is an active chamber musician, soloist, and educator among some of the most innovative and entrepreneurial of the time.  He has been at the beginning of multiple successful chamber groups, including one he currently runs, Arx Music Association or “arx duo”, a 501(c)3 non profit focused on the creation of new music and engagement with the public. 

As a collaborative percussionist, his passion for developing the genre of percussion music has inspired many composers and musicians through creative collaboration and workshops. Garrett has been a member of arx duo, Sandbox Percussion, Ensemble ACJW, and has performed with groups such as eighth blackbird, American Modern Opera Company, the Dover String Quartet, among others. He has also worked with many composers including Steven Mackey, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Juri Seo, Michael Gilbertson, and many more to bring new works to life. 

He has performed in many concert halls around the world including performing the Carnegie Hall premiere of Steven Mackey’s “Micro-Concerto”, and performed concertos with Symphony Tacoma, Boise Philharmonic, Missoula Symphony, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra and more premiering multiple new concerti.  In addition he’s brought projects to premiere venues in Japan, Africa, and the UK including the Royal Albert Concert Hall. Through his work, he has brought to life over 100 new works for solo and chamber percussion, and continues his work in collaboration with a variety of institutions. L

Garrett is currently the Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Kansas, and has held guest faculty positions at Peabody Conservatory, Michigan State University, and Cleveland State University, temporary professorship positions at Michigan State University and Central Missouri University, and taught and performed in numerous summer programs including at the Curtis Institute of Music, Artosphere Music Festival, Lake George Music Festival, and more. He also served as a teaching artist for schools and community centers throughout the Five Boroughs of New York City as part of his two year fellowship with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect.

Garrett studied with Robert van Sice at  the Yale School of Music and Peabody Conservatory, and with Gwen Dease at Michigan State University. He is sponsored by Vic Firth, Pearl Percussion, Adams Instruments, and Zildjian Cymbals, and Evans Drumheads.