experience

The focus of my private studio is flute instruction for students of all levels in classical and jazz genres; contemporary piano, saxophone, and electric bass for beginners and intermediate players; and music theory, sight reading, and ear training for all instrumentalists and vocalists.

I have served as an adjudicator for Massachusetts Music Educators' Association Central District Music Festival's flute auditions for the past several years, and have also worked as a coach to several dozen students (instrumentalists and vocalists alike) in their preparations for Massachusetts and New Hampshire All-State and Jazz All-State festivals.

From 2000 to 2008, I was a music teacher, and later Director of Music, at High Mowing School, a private boarding/day high school with a student body of 120 in Wilton, New Hampshire.  At High Mowing, I taught a music theory course which includes both traditional and contemporary approaches (i.e., traditional analysis and chord symbols). I also taught an intensive three-week block in Western music history, covering 400 AD to the present day. I directed High Mowing's jazz bands, chamber ensembles, and SATB a capella chorus, and facilitated the performances of school's various ensembles at the Berklee College of Music High School Jazz Festival and the Peterborough Children & the Arts Festival, and multiple performances for local elders in the community.

At High Mowing, I facilitated the participation of the school's most advanced student instrumentalists and vocalists in the New Hampshire All-State Music Festival and the New Hampshire All-State Jazz Festival. During the 2007-2008 school year, High Mowing sent more students to these festivals, per capita, than any other school in the state.  My other duties at High Mowing included music directing, vocal coaching, and pit orchestra direction for the school’s Spring Musical (Spoon River Anthology, West Side Story, Patience, Bye Bye Birdie).  In 2006, I began documenting the musical achievements of my students at High Mowing, as well as those of HMS's musical alumni, through a blog, High Mowing Music. The website became a resource not only for current students and their families, but for alumni, board members, and friends of High Mowing School to look in on the ongoing musical accomplishments of its students.

From 1999 to 2004, I was Director of Bands at Pine Hill School in Wilton, New Hampshire, where I was responsible for programming and directing a middle school band of between 20 and 35 members, as well as a fifth grade beginner band. I prepared for and directed the ensembles in two concerts yearly. I founded and directed a small chamber ensemble for particularly motivated wind and string students, grades six through eight.

I was the Founding Director of the Two Rivers Music Studios in Peterborough, New Hampshire from 1997 to 2003. Two Rivers, a community music school with an enrollment of up to 150 students and a roster of 12 faculty members, is still in operation today. Instruction was available for the majority of orchestral instruments, as well as voice, piano, and guitar. As Director, I was responsible for all the administrative tasks for the Studios.

From 1990 through 1997, I taught flute from my studio in Newton, Massachusetts, where I provided instruction in flute to dozens of students, ranging in age from age 8 to retirees, across classical and jazz genres. I also taught music theory, sight-reading, and ear-training. Through the Studios, I served as Masterclass Coordinator, in 2000 and 2001, for two week-long summer flute masterclasses by internationally know avant-garde flutist Robert Dick. I was responsible for all organization, planning, publicity, hosting, and day-to-day facilitation of the masterclasses (through Two Rivers Music Studios). Attendees were from the USA, the UK, Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and Korea.

From 1991 through 2001, I was the Owner/Director of Elysia Chamber Players, a music agency which featured classical and jazz styles performed by small ensembles for special events. I also performed extensively for the agency at its private and corporate event bookings throughout New England.

I worked as a Music Columnist in 1986 and 1987 for Boston's STUFF Magazine, an arts and entertainment monthly magazine with a circulation of 30,000. I wrote a pop, rock, and jazz criticism and album review column and provided editing and proofreading services to the magazine as a whole.  

I continue to write about music and, via Bonsai Wordsmith, enjoy working with musicians and artists to establish or improve their web presence.


other achievements

 

professional memberships

International Association for Jazz Education
 New Hampshire Music Educators Association
 Greater Boston Flute Association
 National Flute Association