Members of the Faculty

Alan Abel (percussion) is the former associate principal percussionist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, retiring in 1997 after 38 years. Mr. Abel has compiled two books of orchestral studies for timpani and percussion and has designed and produced symphonic triangles and bass drum stands that are used in orchestras all over the world. He has served on the board of directors of the Percussive Arts Society and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998.

Stephen Arthur Allen (euphonium) received his Ph.D. in musicology from Oxford University and is currently music professor at Rider University. He has served as principal euphonium with leading British brass bands, and in 2004 he founded the Princeton Brass Band and in 2008 brought the first North American Brass Band Association trophy back to New Jersey. Additionally, Dr. Allen is a world authority in the operas and music of Benjamin Britten. He is widely published and has articles on the Beatles, Radiohead, and Burton's Batman (1989) in the works.

Alan Baer (tuba) joined the New York Philharmonic on June 21, 2004, as principal tuba. He was formerly principal tuba with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. His other performing credits include recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, performances with the Peninsula Music Festival of Wisconsin, New Orleans Symphony, Los Angeles Concert Orchestra, Ojai Festival Orchestra (California), Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a featured soloist, touring several countries in Europe including Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and France. Mr. Baer began his undergraduate work at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Gary Bird. He completed his bachelor of music degree with Ronald Bishop at the Cleveland Institute of Music and did graduate work at the University of Southern California, Cleveland Institute of Music, and California State University (Long Beach), where he studied with Tommy Johnson.

William Berz (music education and instrumental conducting) has degrees from Michigan State University. His research interests include nonverbal communication, instructional technology, and music cognition. He is active as a clarinetist and conductor.

Antonius Bittmann (music history and organ) holds degrees from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany, and the Eastman School of Music. As a scholar, he specializes in 19th- and 20th-century repertoires, particularly the works of Max Reger. He has earned degrees in and performed extensively on both harpsichord and organ.

Jonathan Blumenfeld (oboe) has been a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra oboe section since 1986. Previous to this he was a member of the Concerto Soloists and Savannah Symphony. He is a graduate of Haverford College and the Curtis Institute, where he was a student of John de Lancie. His recordings include New Music for Oboe: Ingrid Arauco and Curt Cacioppo; Manena Conteras: Claves; Howard Hanson: Pastorale; and Rimsky-Korsakov: Variations on a Theme of Glinka.

Darryl J. Bott (music education) is currently in his seventh year as the associate director of the Wind Studies Program at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, duties include conducting the Symphony Band and teaching courses in music education including graduate and undergraduate instrumental conducting. In 2011 he was appointed director of Jazz Ensemble Too. Since 2005, Professor Bott has established such prominent programs as:a regional Concert Band Festival and the Mason Gross Artist in Residence series featuring such notable guest artists as Frank Battisti, Eugene Corporon, H. Robert Reynolds, Edward Lisk, Mallory Thompson, and Dennis Fisher. Bott also serves as the conductor of the Symphonic Winds for the arts camp held at Mason Gross every summer. Professor Bott also served as the interim director of bands in 2010-11 conducting both the Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band while serving as the chair of the Director of Bands search committe The Wind Studies Program at Rutgers represents an area of great depth in enrollment and quality. Under the direction of Professor Bott, the 80-member Symphony Band continually performs significant literature at the highest artistic level. Recent accolades include a reading session at the Eastern Division College Band Directors National Association Conference (2010) and performances at the New Jersey Music Educators Convention (2011, 2012). A 30-year teaching veteran of New Jersey public schools, Professor Bott served the last 17 of those years as director of bands at Roxbury High School and district lead teacher for performing arts before accepting the position at Rutgers in 2005. Bands under his direction received consistent superior ratings at local and out-of-state competitions. The Honors Wind Symphony was selected to represent New Jersey Region I for the closing concert of the State Concert Band Festival every year since the festival's inception and performed at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. His concert and jazz programs over the years have also performed with several outstanding artists including Clark Terry, Urbie Green, Lionel Hampton, Thad Jones, Fred Mills, Eddie Daniels, The Boston Brass, Steve Fidick, The Meridian Arts Ensemble, Bill Watrous, and Chris Vadala. During Professor Bott's tenure, Roxbury High School also commissioned two major symphonies for wind band including Andrew Boysen Jr.'s Symphony #3, JFK, and the British composer Robert Farnon's Wind Symphony: The Gaels. The program at Roxbury continues to flourish as evidenced by being selected to perform at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago in December 2008. Professor Bott has received several teaching awards during his career in public education including the New Jersey Governor's Teaching Award, the Morris County Teacher's Recognition Award, and the Roxbury High School nominee for the Princeton University Teaching Award. He is a highly regarded clinician for honor bands and school ensembles and has conducted the Interlochen Arts Academy Band, Ohio District 13 Band, New York Area All-State, the New Jersey Region I & II Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles, the North Jersey Area Symphonic Band, many state county bands, and the Region I Jazz Ensemble on two occasions. He also has been an active member of New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) for years managing and hosting All-State and Region I ensembles and serving as the band division chair for Region I on two separate occasions. He also served as the first chair of the NJMEA Concert Band Festival and Gala Concert. He received his master's in wind conducting from Rutgers University as a student of William Berz.

Ralph Bowen (saxophone and jazz theory) has degrees from the Mason Gross School of the Arts. He has concertized internationally and worked with David Baker and Eugene Rousseau. He has recorded with Blue Note Records and other major labels.

Karina Bruk (adviser, graduate studies, director of chamber music, and piano-related studies) holds degrees from Manhattan School of Music (BM, MM) and the Mason Gross School of the Arts, (DMA). She has performed solo, chamber music, and lecture recitals both in United States (Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, and New Jersey Performing Arts Center among others) and abroad, as well as presented master classes and workshops on performing and auditioning at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and throughout the local area. Currently she concertizes with pianist Paul Hoffmann as the Bruk-Hoffmann Piano Duo. She has articles published in DSCH Journal and the Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century Encyclopedia; her doctoral treatise entitled "The 20th-century Well-Tempered Clavier: 24 Preludes and Fugues of Dmitry Shostakovich" was presented at the fourth International Conference of Arts and Humanities in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bruk has been a recipient of numerous awards; among them the Genia Robinor Award for Teaching Excellence, presented by the Piano Teachers Society of America. Prior to her appointment as a graduate adviser (June 2011), she held a chair of piano department position at the Newark School of the Arts (2003-2011) where she is now an artist-in-residence. She is a judicator for the annual Young Artist Talent Search Jeffrey Carollo Scholarship Auditions at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. In addition, Bruk is the music director for the musical theater camp at the South Orange/Maplewood Summer Program. Her professional organization affiliations include World Piano Teachers Association, Piano Teachers Society of America, and the Music Educators Association of New Jersey.

Eduardo Chama (voice) has received resounding recognition for his work on both the operatic and concert stages of the world. He made his New York City Opera debut as Leporello in Don Giovanni during the 1996-97 season. About his Don Pasquale, the Seattle Times declares, "Eduardo Chama was born to sing the title role. The Argentine bass-baritone...does heroic work on every level." The Calgary Herald agrees, stating after performances of Le Nozze di Figaro, "Argentine bass-baritone Eduardo Chama sang the title role of Figaro in an easy, stylish way, his voice strong and deep enough for the bass notes." Mr. Chama received the Richard F. Gold Debut Artist award at the New York City Opera in 1997.

Choong-Jin (CJ) Chang (viola) is native of Seoul, Korea. Chang joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as associate principal viola in November 1994 and became principal viola in April 2006. He made his performance debut as a 12-year-old violinist with the Seoul Philharmonic as winner of the grand prize in Korea's Yook Young National Competition. In 1981, at the age of 13, he moved to the United States to attend the Juilliard School. He subsequently studied in Philadelphia at the Esther Boyer College of Music of Temple University and finally at the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he received degrees in both violin and viola. His primary teachers were Jascha Brodsky and retired Philadelphia Orchestra principal viola Joseph de Pasquale. Alongside his extensive performing activities, Mr. Chang is a respected teacher on both violin and viola. Among his former pupils are current members of the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as several winners of major competitions.

Shannon M. Chase (music education) is assistant clinical professor of music education and director of the University Choir in the Mason Gross School of the Arts. Prior to her appointment in Mason Gross, she held appointments as assistant professor of choral music and associate director of choral activities at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and assistant professor of music and choral director at Bowdoin and Colby Colleges, two of the highest-ranked liberal arts colleges in the United States. A pioneer of contemporary choral music in Maine, Chase is cofounder and artistic director of the Vox Nova Chamber Choir, an elite 32-voice chamber choral ensemble specializing in 20th century and contemporary a cappella choral music. Chase received a Ph.D. in choral music education from Florida State University, a master of music in choral conducting from the University of Maine, and a bachelor of music in music education from the University of Southern Maine. A mezzo-soprano, Chase studied voice with Ellen Chickering, Nancy Ellen Ogle, and Janice Harsanyi. Choral conductor and educator, her experience spans youth, collegiate, and community ensembles. She has developed new and innovative programs and partnerships in choral music and served as administrator of programs in choral music and music education. Dr. Chase serves on the academic and performance faculties of Rutgers University, is director of the University Choir, and supervisor of field experience, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education and choral music. Dr. Chase maintains an active professional schedule. She serves as honor choir conductor, choral clinician and adjudicator and is a frequent presenter of workshops, interest sessions, and choral literature reading sessions at the state, regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO), and the Music Educators National Conference (MENC). Recently, Chase presented The Three R's of Rehearsal Pacing at the National Convention of ACDA in Miami, Florida and was invited to serve on the national panel for teaching undergraduate choral conducting at the First Annual National Conference of the NCCO, an organization of which she is a charter member. Chase conducts research in the areas of choral techniques and teacher training and has served on several state boards of MENC and ACDA in chaired appointments such as Multicultural Repertoire and Standards Chair and Collegiate MENC Statewide Chair.

Gerald Chenoweth (composition and theory) has degrees in composition and conducting from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Iowa. His works have been performed extensively in this country, Europe, and Asia. The catalog of his compositions includes works for chorus, orchestra, various chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and dance. He has conducted contemporary music ensembles at Rutgers University and the University of Iowa. His compositions have been recorded for Composers Recording Inc., the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, and Access labels. His works are available from American Composers Alliance, New York.

Richard Chrisman (director of graduate studies and theory and composition) has degrees from the University of California (Riverside) and Yale University. He has written numerous articles and papers on the analysis of 20th-century music and is a composer of electronically synthesized film music for public television documentaries.

Lenuta Ciulei (violin) tours extensively and has appeared on radio and television in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. She earned her master's degree at the Music Academy in Bucharest, Romania.

Timothy Cobb (double bass) is principal bass of the Metropolitan Opera (Met) Orchestra and double bass faculty chair at the Juilliard School. Mr. Cobb frequently performs with quartets such as the Emerson, Guarneri, Belcea, Leipzig, and St. Lawrence, as well as artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, Yefim Bronfman, James Levine, and Christian Zacharias, among many others. Mr. Cobb's festival appearances include most of the major summer venues. He can be heard on all Met recordings from 1986 as well as the 2003 Grammy-nominated L'Histoire du Soldat with the Harmonie Wind Ensemble of New York on Koch records. He is a former member of the Chicago Symphony, and serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the State University of New York (Purchase College), as well as those of the Juilliard School and Rutgers.

Paul Cohen (saxophone) is one of America's most sought-after saxophonists for orchestral and chamber concerts and solo recitals. He has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Richmond Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Charleston Symphony, and Philharmonia Virtuosi. His many solo orchestra performances include works by Debussy, Creston, Ibert, Glazunov, Martin, Loeffler, Husa, Dahl, Still, Villa-Lobos, Tomasi, and Cowell. He has also performed with a broad range of orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, New Jersey Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, Group for Contemporary Music, Greenwich Symphony, Charleston Symphony, New York Solisti, and the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded three albums with the Cleveland Symphonic Winds under the direction of Frederick Fennell and a CD of the music of Villa-Lobos with the Quintet of the Americas, as well as recordings with the Saxophone Sinfonia, Philharmonia Virtuosi, New York Solisti, Paul Winter Consort, North-South Consonance, and the New Sousa Band. His most recent recordings include Quiet City, which includes premiere recordings of unknown works by American composers, as well as Breathing Lessons, a CD of new works for saxophone quartet. Earlier recordings include the unknown concerto of the 19th-century American Caryl Florio, and his solo CD, Vintage Saxophones Revisited, featuring the premiere recording of Cowell's Hymn and Fuguing Tune #18. A specialist on the soprano saxophone, he is the founder and leader of the New Hudson Quartet, which has recently released two CDs of American music, Quartet at the Crossroads, and Breathing Lessons. Dr. Cohen holds M.M and D.M.A. degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. His teachers have included Galan Kral, Joe Allard, and Sigurd Rascher. He has published more than 100 articles on the history and literature of the saxophone in music journals such as the Saxophone Journal, Instrumentalist, CBDNA Notes, and the Saxophone Symposium, and since 1985 a feature column, "Vintage Saxophones Revisited", for the Saxophone Journal. Dr. Cohen has rediscovered and performed lost saxophone literature, including solo works for saxophone and orchestra by Loeffler, Florio, and Dahl, as well as rare chamber works by Grainger, Ornstein, Sousa, Cowell, and Siegmeister. As arranger he has written The Renaissance Book (Galaxy Music); Four Piano Blues and Our Town (Copland) for saxophone quartet (Boosey and Hawkes); and saxophone choir adaptations of Variations on America by Charles Ives and the Schuman setting of Billing's When Jesus Wept. (Presser). Dr. Cohen frequently presents lectures on the saxophone, illustrating his talks with rare instruments, manuscripts, and archival material from his extensive private collection.

Stanley Cowell (jazz piano) performs professionally, as a solo pianist and in ensemble formations from duo to orchestra, in a variety of venues, from jazz club to concert hall. He has degrees from Oberlin and the University of Michigan, and also has studied at the Mozarteum Akademie in Salzburg, Austria. His extensive list of recordings as both a composer and pianist includes performances with such artists as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, and the Heath Brothers.

Kenny Davis (jazz bass) is a native of Chicago, Illinois. Davis's career began with listening to great R&B artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Brothers Johnson, and the Temptations, just to name a few. First being self-taught, he then studied music theory with David Holder Sr. He then went on to Northeastern Illinois University, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in music education. Upon entering Northeastern University, he discovered jazz music and he quickly became part of the Chicago jazz scene, playing with Von Freedman, Ari Brown, and Fred Anderson. Later, he went on to study classical bass with Warren Benfield of the Chicago Symphony and had a number of lessons with Jeffrey Bradetich. Some of his jazz influences are Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, and Ron Carter. In addition, he also was influenced by electric bass musicians Jaco Pastorius and Verdin White. He moved to New York in 1986, where he played with Out of the Blue, and then quickly adapted to the New York scene. While there, he also made a living by doing sessions and jingles. In New York, he began appearing with such artists as Freddie Hubbard, Cassandra Wilson, Abbey Lincoln, Diane Reeves and Art Farmer, while studying music with Ron Carter. One of the highlights of his career was being a music arranger for a song on the Grammy Award winning CD by artist Cassandra Wilson, Blue Light Till Dawn. Throughout the '90s, Davis toured with such notable jazz artists as Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves, and Art Farmer. In 1999, Kenny Davis got the call from Kevin Eubanks, then band leader/music director of the Tonight Show band. Davis was the bassist of the Tonight Show band from September 1999 through March 2002. In June 2002, Davis moved back to New York and he is again touring, recording, and teaching. In May 2006 he received his Masters in Music (MA) from Rutgers University. Kenny was the bass teacher at the University of Connecticut from 2003 through 2009.  In 2009 Davis released his first CD as a leader, Kenny Davis, on Daken Records.

Christopher Doll (theory and composition) specializes in recent popular and art music, especially with regard to tonality and intertextuality. He earned degrees at Columbia University (Ph.D. with Distinction), the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (M.M.), and Case Western Reserve University (B.A.), and undertook additional graduate studies at Stony Brook University. In 2008, he was a fellow at the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music at the Eastman School of Music, where he also delivered a paper on "Louie Louie" that won him the annual Miles Levin Musical Essay Award. His other awards include an endowed fellowship from Columbia University and the Society for New Music's Brian M. Israel Prize for his piano piece "Borrowed Time." He has published articles and reviews in various scholarly journals, and has delivered papers at institutions such as Oxford, Eastman, Northwestern, the Amsterdam Conservatory, the Institute for Popular Music (Liverpool), the Experience Music Project (Seattle), and four of the Ivies.

Robert W. Earley (trumpet) joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1992. He was associate principal trumpet of the Montreal Symphony from 1982 to 1991, where he also performed as soloist. Mr. Earley has been principal trumpet of the Opera Company of Boston and has also played with the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Boston Symphony. He has recorded a disc of works by Gabrieli with the Canadian Brass. Mr. Earley is currently an instructor of trumpet at Temple University and Rowan University. He has also served on the trumpet faculty at McGill University in Montreal and has been a guest professor of trumpet at both the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. He has led master classes throughout the United States, Canada, and South America. His former students are members of various orchestras in the United States and Canada. Mr. Earley received a bachelor of music degree in education from the Conservatory of Music at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1977, and went on to earn a master of music degree with honors in performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1979. His teachers include James Darling, Armando Ghitalla, and William Vacchiano. Mr. Earley resides in Madison, New Jersey.

Daniel Epstein (piano) made his orchestral debut with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1973. A graduate of the Juilliard School, where he studied with Adele Marcus, he was presented in his Carnegie Hall debut recital by the Concert Artists Guild. Winner of many awards and prizes including the Kosciusczko Chopin Award, the National Arts Club Prize, and the Prix Alex de Vries in Paris; Mr. Epstein has appeared as a guest soloist with major symphony orchestras and has given recitals in major cities throughout the world, complemented by master classes and intensive seminars for pianists. As the pianist and founding member of the famed Raphael Trio since 1975, Mr. Epstein has performed virtually the entire piano trio repertoire. He has also collaborated with many renowned string quartets, including the Ying, American, Chiara, New Zealand, and Talich, as well as with many members of the Juilliard School, Guarneri, and many other distinguished chamber musicians and soloists. Epstein teaches piano at the Manhattan School of Music and has served on the Mason Gross piano and chamber music faculty since 2007.

Raymond Erickson (music history), harpsichordist, pianist, and music historian, is one of the most experienced teachers of historical performance practice in the nation, a subject he teaches as a part-time lecturer at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. An author/editor of four books (most recently The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach [Amadeus Press, 2009]) and a participant in several recordings, he has also concertized widely as both harpsichordist and pianist both here and abroad. He taught for over 35 years at Queens College (where he was the founding director of the Aaron Copland School of Music and dean of arts and humanities) and the CUNY Graduate Center (where he has continued to teach and advise dissertations since retiring in 2008). His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and the Andrew B. Mellon Foundation. His honors include honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the Endowed Chair of Music at the University of Alabama, listing in Who's Who among America's Teachers, and decoration with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is a frequent preconcert lecturer for several New York musical organizations and writes program notes for Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

Bart Feller (flute) studied at the Curtis Institute with Julius Baker and John Krell. He has been principal flutist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and, since 1989, with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Charles Fussell (theory and composition) was an important figure in the musical life of Boston for over 20 years. Beginning in the mid-1980s, he served on the composition faculty of Boston University, was artistic director of the contemporary music festival New Music Harvest, and was cofounder of the New England Composers Orchestra. His music has been and is still performed frequently by Boston ensembles, in particular Collage New Music, the Cantata Singers, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Fussell attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Thomas Canning and Bernard Rogers, later with Boris Blacher at the Berlin Hochschule. While in Germany he attended the Bayreuth Masterclasses of Friedelind Wagner. In addition to a Fulbright Scholarship he has received a citation and award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters plus Ford and Copland Foundation Grants and numerous commissions. Major works include six symphonies and three operas. Symphony No. 3, Landscapes, based on four American poets, and Symphony No. 6, High Bridge, is based on five poems from Hart Carane's late 1920's epic, The Bridge. Of the three operas, two are chamber operas; Cymbeline (after Shakespeare), and The Astronaut's Tale, with a libretto by Jack Larson. Julian, based on a short story of Flaubert, is a full evening's liturgical drama. Recent recordings include Specimen Days and Being Music, two commissions for the Walt Whitman 1992 Centennial available on Koch records. Symphony No. 5, The Astronaut's Tale, and Right River (a concertino for cello and string orchestra) are available on Albany records. High Bridge, Prelude for Orchestra and Wilde, and Symphony No.4 for Baritone Solo and Orchestra, have been released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Fussell currently resides in Woodside, New York, teaches composition at Rutgers University, and is president of the Virgil Thomson Foundation.

Patrick Gardner (director of choral activities) has degrees in voice and conducting from California State University (Hayward) and the University of Texas. He has taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and Wagner College. He is director of the Riverside Choral Society in New York, and his choirs have given many world premieres. He is also active as a guest conductor, lecturer, and adjudicator.

Pamela Gilmore (opera workshop and opera director) has taught on the faculties of the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute, Mannes College of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, the Bel Canto Foundation of Northwestern University, and the Intermezzo Festival. She has served as director of opera at Rutgers for 10 seasons, producing The Merry Wives of Windsor, Die Zauberfloete, Roméo et Juliette, La Traviata, Dido and Aeneas, Street Scene, Die Lustige Witwe, Athalia, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, The Fairy Queen, Suor Angelica, Il Campanello, Susannah, Flora, and the United States premiere of Le Pescatrici by Haydn. The performance, in collaboration with Musica Raritana, a period instrument orchestra lead by professor Andrew Kirkman, was featured on the New Jersey National Public Radio affiliates. Gilmore is head coach of the Spoleto Vocal Arts Symposium, a charter member of Singing and the Brain Workshops, and has been affiliated with the Metropolitan, Utah, Bronx, Portland, and New Rochelle opera companies. She has collaborated with John Alexander, Martina Arroya, James de Blasis, Tito Capobianco, Nico Castel, Joan Dornemann, Enza Ferrara, Mignon Dunn, Hakan Hagegard, Benny Goodman, Sherril Milnes, Anna Moffo, Louis Quilico, Renata Scotto, Diana Soviero, Eleanor Steber, Giorgio Tozzi, and Alberto Zedda. She has maintained an active studio in Manhattan since 1984, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Mount Holyoke College, and holds a master's degree in vocal accompaniment from the Catholic University.

Barbara González-Palmer (collaborative piano and vocal coaching), pianist, enjoys an international performing career, appearing in concert throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Holding degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the Juilliard School, she has performed recitals with numerous artists including Barry Tuckwell, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Richard Zeller, and Michael Tree, and has been master class accompanist for such artists as Frederica von Stade, Dorothy Delay, Jean Pierre Rampal, Simon Estes, James Galway, and Martina Arroyo. Recent seasons included performances in Spain, England, France, Germany, Austria, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, China, Korea, New York, and Washington, D.C. From 1992 to 2002, she spent her summers in Austria, performing and teaching at the American Institute of Musical Studies. She has also served on the faculties of Northwestern University, the University of Oregon, and the Music Academy of the West. In 2010, she joined the faculty of Lied Austria International as pianist/coach. Her recordings include the release in February 2011 of a CD on the Centaur label. González-Palmer is an associate professor of piano and director of the graduate collaborative piano program at Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Floyd Grave (music history) trained at the Eastman School of Music (B.Mus., 1966) and New York University (Ph.D., 1973). A specialist in 18th- and early 19th-century music theory, criticism, and analysis, he has written extensively on the music of Haydn and Mozart. With M.G. Grave, he has coauthored several books, including In Praise of Harmony: The Teachings of Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler (Nebraska, 1987), Franz Joseph Haydn: A Guide to Research (Garland, 1990), and The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn (Oxford, 2006). A contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, he has written numerous articles and reviews for major American and European scholarly journals. From 2000 to 2011, he served as coeditor of the Journal of Musicology.

Nancy Gustafson (voice) has appeared in numerous productions at major venues in the United States including the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. European venues include Milan's La Scala, London's Covent Garden, the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera. Among others, she has performed with Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and Joan Sutherland. Throughout her career Gustafson has had the privilege to collaborate with some of the most important conductors of our day such as Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Simon Rattlle, Riccardo Muti, Sir Colin Davis, Christian Thielemann, Christoph von Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Marcello Viotti, Mstislav Rostropovich, and many more. Her recordings include Das Rheingold with Cleveland Orchestra (Decca), Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and La bohème (both for Teldec), Lehár's Der Tsarevitch and The Land of Smiles for Telarc, and live recordings of Herodiade (opposite Plácido Domingo) and Guillaume Tell with the Vienna State Opera Gustafson received her bachelors degree and an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and her master's in music from Northwestern University. Gustafson is the general manager of the Castleton Festival and is artist in residence at Northwestern University.

Rhonda Hackworth (music education) received a Ph.D. in music education/education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and also holds an M.M. degree in vocal performance. Before joining the Rutgers faculty, Hackworth taught at Syracuse University and University of Misouri (Kansas City). Her primary research interest is vocal health for music teachers, and she is published in Journal of Research in Music Education, International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, UPDATE: Applications of Research in Music Education, and Missouri Journal of Research in Music Education. Hackworth regularly presents research at international, national, and state conferences and is often a guest choral conductor and alto soloist in various performance venues.

Rufus Hallmark (music history) was educated at Davidson College, Boston University, and Princeton University, and has taught at Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, College of the Holy Cross, and Queens College (City University of New York), where he served as director of the Aaron Copland School of Music. He has published articles on the songs of Schumann and Schubert, and is the editor of and a contributor to German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century. He is also a singer and has sung Tamino and Pedrillo, the evangelist in the St. John Passion, Dichterliebe, Winterreise, and Britten's Serenade.

Conrad Herwig (jazz trombone) was voted number one for jazz trombone in the 1998, 1999, and 2002 Downbeat International Jazz Critic's Poll. He has been a featured member in the Joe Lovano Nonet, Tom Harrell's Septet and Big Band, and the Joe Henderson Sextet, and has performed and recorded with Eddie Palmier's La Perfecta II and Afro-Caribbean-Jazz Octet, Paquito D'Rivera's Havana-New York Connection, and the Mingus Big Band. His recent solo recordings include "Obligation," "Que Viva Coltrane," and "Heart of Darkness" (Chriss Cross Records); and two of his 17 albums as a leader, "Another Kind of Blue: The Latin Side of Miles Davis" (Half Note Records) and the "Latin Side of John Coltrane," received Grammy Award nominations. Herwig is a recipient of performance and teaching grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Kaoru Hinata (flute) received her master of music and artist diploma from Yale University, studying under Ransom Wilson. She has held positions with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Wallingford Symphony, as well as performing with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, New Jersey Symphony orchestra, New Haven Symphony, DaCapo Opera Orchestra, Berkshire Opera, and Camerata New York. As a soloist, Hinata was the winner of the Lawrence Beauregard Competition in Canada in 1994 and placed second in the Myrna Brown Competition in Texas in 1995.

Paul Hoffmann (piano), pianist and conductor, a master of Austro-German and French repertoire, as well as 20th-century literature, made his recital debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1973 while on a Fulbright grant in Austria, and has since concertized extensively in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Famous pianist Rudolf Serkin said of Hoffmann's playing, "He is a true artist." Also a champion of modern repertoire, he is founder and director of HELIX! New Music Ensemble of Rutgers University, which is in its 22nd season of concerts. In addition to his solo concerts, he currently concertizes in two professional duos, one with Tom Goldstein, percussionist, in the Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo, and one with Karina Bruk, pianist, in the Bruk/Hoffmann Piano Duo. Hoffmann has studied with some of the world's greatest pedagogues - Leon Fleisher, Cecile Genhart, Deter Weber, Kurt Neumuller, and Brooks Smith. His own piano students have won numerous awards in various local, national, and international piano competitions and he is highly sought for his ability to teach the traditional and more modern repertoire equally well. Hoffmann's recent master classes were given at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and in Taipei and Gaoshung, Taiwan. Hoffmann has made over 20 recordings of solo piano and chamber music for Innova, Capstone, Orion, CRI, Northeastern, Composers Guild of New Jersey, Contemporary Record Society, O.O. Discs, Spectrum, and Vienna Modern Masters labels and has made numerous radio broadcasts in the United States as well as for Voice of America, Radio Cologne, Radio Frankfurt, and Radio France. He has served on the jury of many piano competitions including the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, and was the first U.S. judge to be invited to the prestigious Concours International de Musique Contemporaine pour Piano in 1983 and 1986. Hoffmann is currently professor of music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, where he teaches piano and chamber music and directs the contemporary music ensemble, HELIX! New Music Ensemble, which he founded in 1990.

Patricia Howland (theory) has degrees from the University of Maryland (B.S.), Brooklyn College (M.M. composition), and the City University of New York (Ph.D. music theory). Her research interests include post-tonal music, 19th-century chromaticism, and Schenkerian theory, with an emphasis on musical form. She has previously taught at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and Hunter College.

Maureen Hurd Hause (clarinet) is an active solo, chambe,r and orchestral musician. She has performed with the New York City Opera Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Merkin Hall; at International Clarinet Association ClarinetFests in Japan, Canada, Los Angeles, and New Orleans; and in concerts in Korea, France, England, Mexico, and throughout the United States, including in festivals such as the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Bar Harbor (Maine) Music Festival. She can be heard on two CDs: Spelunk, premiere recordings of works by Evan Hause, William Bolcom, Morton Gould, and others (MSR Classics), and Strange Humors, which includes her recording of Michael Daugherty's "Brooklyn Bridge" with the Rutgers Wind Ensemble (Naxos). Hause earned all of her graduate degrees including doctor of musical arts from the Yale School of Music where she studied with David Shifrin and Charles Neidich and worked with materials in the Benny Goodman Papers of the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library. Her prizewinning Goodman research and performance project has also taken her to the Library of Congress, the Morgan Library, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. She earned a bachelor of music degree at Iowa State University as a student of Joseph Messenger. Hause is chair of woodwinds and associate professor of clarinet at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, and she frequently performs recitals, master classes, lectures, and clinics at clarinet festivals, universities, and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. She is a Conn-Selmer Artist, playing Selmer Paris Signature and Recital clarinets, and a Rico artist, playing Rico Reserve reeds.

Nathan Hughes (oboe) is principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera (Met) Orchestra. He previously served as principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony and has performed as guest principal oboe of the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, as well as the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and Baltimore. A prolific chamber musician, Hughes has performed with the Met Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, as well as with the Philadelphia and Seattle Chamber Music Societies. He has also made appearances at the Aspen, Bridgehampton, Lucerne, Marlboro, Salzburg, Santa Fe, Sarasota, Spoleto, and Tanglewood festivals. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hughes holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Juilliard School and currently is on the faculty of the Juilliard School and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. His teachers have included John Mack, Elaine Douvas, and John de Lancie.

Kynan Johns (orchestral conducting), regarded as one of the leading conductors of his generation combines his position as director of orchestras at Rutgers University with being director assistente at the Palau de les Arts, 'Reina Sofia', Valencia, Spain, to Maestros Maazel and Mehta. A native of Australia, Maestro Johns has conducted leading orchestras throughout the world including among many others the Israel Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Chinese National Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Symphony and the Sydney and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. In the field of Opera he has recently conducted at La Scala, Maazel's 1984 and Don Giovanni, Madame Butterfly, and Don Carlos in Valencia, working with Domingo, Frittoli, Wyn-Rogers, and Koerl. Maestro Johns has been the recipient of prizes in many international conducting competitions, including the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting competition and the Maazel/Vilar Conducting competition. The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, under Maestro Johns, released their first commercial CD of Flagello's Saxophone Quartet Concerto under the Naxoslabel in 2006.

Douglas Johnson (music history) has degrees from Hamilton College and the University of California (Berkeley). He works on topics in 18th- and 19th-century music and has published widely on Beethoven, with special concentration on the composer's sketchbooks. He coauthored the Beethoven Sketchbooks with Alan Tyson and Robert Winter.

Vic Juris (jazz guitar) has appeared on almost 40 compact discs. He has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Phil Woods, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, Eddie Jefferson, and Nancy Wilson.

Taina Kataja (voice) earned several diplomas with distinction from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and the Hochshule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, where she studied with Kmsgr. Hans Hotter. She has been featured in major festivals throughout Europe and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras and ensembles such as the Washington Bach Consort, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Clemencic Consort of Vienna, and the Musica Antiqua Vienna, among others. She has recorded for Finnvox, Telefunken-Decca, and Mirror Music of Austria. Kataja is also a trained vocologist. Her areas of special interest and expertise are voice pedagogy, vocal health for singers, oratorio repertoire, German lied, and Scandinavian, particularly Finnish, art song repertoire.

Mikhail Kopelman (violin) has played with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and was concertmaster of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He was first violin of the Borodin String Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet as well as the Kopelman Quartet. He has performed with many notable artists and has made over 30 recordings. He joined the Mason Gross string faculty in September 2011.

David Krauss (trumpet) was appointed principal trumpet of the Metropolitan Opera (Met) Orchestra in 2001. A native of New York, he earned both bachelor and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School as a student of William Vacchiano and Chris Gekker. He studied further with James Pandolfi and Wynton Marsalis. Prior to joining the Met he performed with a variety of ensembles in and around New York City including the Orchestra of St. Lukes, Orpheus, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, New England Bach Festival Orchestra, and on several Broadway shows. He has filled in as guest principal trumpet with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. As a chamber musician he has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Bridgehampton Music Festival, Saito Kinen Festival, and as part of the Met Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall with James Levine.

Min Kwon (piano) is a Steinway Artist and an associate professor of piano at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. In demand around the world as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, she made her American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 16, in Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3. Since then her professional engagements have taken her to 62 countries and to venues in all 50 states in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the United Nations in New York, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and other major concert halls in Seoul, Vienna, Prague, Singapore, and Norway, and festivals of Aspen, Ravinia, Cape and Islands, Caramoor (USA), Colmar (France), Salzburg and Altenburg (Austria), Kuhmo (Finland), Interlaken (Switzerland), and Freiburg (Germany). As a concerto soloist, she has performed over 20 concertos, among them, Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 at the Aspen Music Festival and Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, the Asian premiere of Paul Schonfield's Four Parables for Piano and Orchestra, and Rchmaninoff's Rhapsodie on a Theme of Paganini in South American tour with the Mexico State Orchestra, to name a few. Conductors with whom she has collaborated include James Conlon, Alan Gilbert, and Stanislaw Skrocazewski. Recent season highlights include recitals in New York, London, and Sydney, as well as chamber appearances in Curacao, Estonia, Italy, Malaysia, Austria, and Serbia. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (B.M.), the Juilliard School (M.M. and D.M.A.) and the Mozarteum in Salzburg (post-doctoral), Kwon has recorded for RCA/Red Seal BMG and MSR Classics (the latter receiving a Grammy Award for the best producer of the year ((David Frost, 2009). She is regularly invited to teach and conduct master classes at major conservatories worldwide, in Austria, England, Finland, Italy, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and New York (the Juilliard School and Vladimir Feltsman's PianoFest). Kwon is also the founder and director of the Center for Musical Excellence, a nonprofit organization helping the careers of international young pianists, and codirector of Vienna International ConcertoFest.

Victor Lewis (jazz drums) was encouraged as a teenager by such artists as Buster Williams and Billy Hart to make the move to New York, where in 1974 he quickly ascended to prominence. He was the first call drummer for masters like Joe Farrell, Dexter Gordon, and Hubert Laws, and started longtime associations with Woody Shaw, Carla Bley, David Sanborn, Kenny Barron, Bobby Watson, and Stan Getz. One of the leading drummers of our time, he also has a second reputation as a composer and bandleader.

Douglas Lundeen (horn) has degrees from Plymouth State College, the University of South Florida, and Cincinnati Conservatory. A first-prize winner in the American Horn Competition, he is one of the leading period-instrument performers in North America. He has performed and recorded with such renowned conductors as Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, Frans Brüggen, and Nicholas McGegan.

Joe Magnarelli (jazz trumpet) graduated from the State University of New York at Fredonia, He has been a Criss Cross jazz and Resevoir Records recording artist, with eight CDs out as a bandleader. Magnarelli worked with the great Ray Barretto and his "new sextet," as well as Lionel Hampton, Brother Jack McDuff, Toshiko Akioshi, Harry Connick Jr., John Hendricks. Magnarelli has recorded over 100 CDs as a sideman for independent and major labels, has been written up in all the major jazz publications, and placed in Downbeat magazine's critics' poll in 2009.

Robinson McClellan (online music theory) is a composer, scholar, and teacher. His music has been heard at the Oregon Bach Festival, Windsor Castle, the Monteverdi Choir Festival (Hungary), the Vatican, and other venues. Commissions have come from the Albany Symphony, the Museum of Biblical Art (New York City), the Toronto Choral Artists, and others, and ensembles such as the Fort Worth and Knox-Galesburg Symphonies have played his music. He has received awards and residencies from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. His choral music is published in the National Collegiate Horal Organization Choral Series and in Music by Heart, an Episcopal hymnal. McClellan has spent the past several years immersed in pibroch (piobaireachd), a rarely heard Gaelic bagpiping tradition. His compositions often reference pibroch, and his writing about it appears in a 2009 scholarly anthology from Ashgate. He has also worked with alternate tunings in new music for Greek Byzantine chorus and strings. He is founder and director of El Salto, a unique forum for contemporary music heard in a context of broad-minded religious/humanist inquiry, and he is composer in residence of ActorCor, a New York City-based choir dedicated to bridging religious divides. He teaches music theory for Rutgers Arts Online and is also on the faculty at Hunter, Manhattan, Wagner, and St. Francis colleges, and the Lucy Moses School (New York City); between them he teaches music history, theory, and composition. He earned his doctorate in composition (D.M.A.) at the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

Richard Metzger (online learning) has a B.F.A. from The Pennsylvania State University (string performance), an M.A. from Marywood University (musicology), and a Ph.D. from Rutgers (musicology). His publications include two critical editions, Chansons of the Sixteenth Century for Classical Guitar: Franco-Flemish and Parisian Chansons Printed by Attaingnant and French Clavecin Music for Guitar. Editions of the Willoughby and Marsh lute manuscripts, major manuscripts of the late English Renaissance, are forthcoming. As a classical musician, he performed on solo guitar and lute, including tours as the recipient of grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Metzger now devotes his efforts to improvisational jazz on electric guitar. He also composed and performed the music for the PBS documentary film The Once and Future City and a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Giles Block of the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Matthew Muckey (trumpet) joined the New York Philharmonic in June 2006. He graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in music, studying with Charles Geyer and Barbara Butler. A native of Sacramento, California, he has appeared as soloist with the Omaha Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, California Wind Orchestra, Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, and on NPR's program, From the Top. He has also played with the Boston Pops Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Chicago Civic Orchestra. Muckey was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center during the summers of 2003 to 2005, and was the recipient of the Roger Voisin Award in 2004 and 2005.

Judith Nicosia (voice) is associate professor in the Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she teaches voice, voice pedagogy, and vocal literature classes. Professor Nicosia has been an invited clinician at local, regional, and national levels for National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and the American Choral Directors Association, and has been a choral and solo adjudicator for numerous festivals in Canada and the United States. She is happy to be serving as a member of the executive board for the New York Singing Teachers' Association (NYSTA), and delighted to present the soprano and mezzo-soprano portions of Developmental Repertoire for Singers as part of NYSTA's professional development program, the only program of its kind in the United States. Professor Nicosia was honored to have been invited to be a master teacher at the 2003 NATS intern teaching program the State University of New York at Fredonia. A specialist in contemporary music, soprano Nicosia has performed works by Olivier Messiaen, Ned Rorem, Laurie Altman, and Haskell Small with the composers at the piano, and recorded for the Orion, DR, C.R.I., Albany, and Centaur labels. She has been a guest artist with the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Performer's Committee for 20th-Century Music, the Composers Guild of New Jersey, the New York New Music Ensemble, Princeton Pro Musica, Princeton University Orchestra, and the Alliance for American Song. Nicosia has also been a soloist with the Opera Orchestra of New York, Opera Company of Philadelphia, and Mississippi Opera, as well as the Montreal, Quebec, Hartford, Nashville, and Colonial symphonies, among others. Winner of the 1981 Montreal International Voice Competition, Nicosia has received numerous awards including: first prize for woman's voice and second prize for the performance of Darius Milhaud songs at the 1978 Paris International Voice Competition, the 1981 NYSTA Debut Recital Award, a career award from the National Institute for Music Theatre, two Sullivan Foundation grants, and three consecutive fellowships to Tanglewood.

Jessica Phillips (clarinet) is currently acting principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (Met). She was appointed second and E-flat clarinet in 2001. She graduated cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University, and Manhattan School of Music. As a member of the Met Orchestra, she has toured regularly throughout Asia and Europe. During the 2003-04 seasons at the Met, Phillips also performed as acting principal with the orchestra. Throughout her freelance career she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Luke's Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Santa Fe Opera, American Symphony Orchestra, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, Music Festival of the Hamptons, and the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Phillips has performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, including performances with the Met Chamber Ensemble, with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and at the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival. She has performed in recitals and performed master classes at the Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, the Lisbon International Clarinet Meeting in Portugal, at the International Woodwind Festival, and at the International Clarinet Association's ClarFest in Japan and Canada. She currently serves on the faculties of the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Columbia University and the Juilliard School specializing in E-flat clarinet. She is a Backun and Rico Artist.

Todd Phillips (violin) enjoys a varied career which harkens back to the traditions of previous generations of musicians who were in equal demand as soloist, chamber musician, orchestra leader/conductor, and teacher. He is a member of both the Orion String Quartet and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and, in addition to Mason Gross, is a faculty member at the Mannes College The New School for Music. He made his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of 13 and has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan since then including the Brandenburg Ensemble, the Jacksonville Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Honolulu Symphony, Sejong Soloists and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander Schneider. He can be heard as soloist and chamber music artist on the Deutsche Grammophone, Sony Classical, RCA Red Seal, Koch International, Delos, Arabesque, Bridge Records, Albany, Finlandia, New York Philomusica Records, and Marlboro Recording Society labels. He has been invited to lead/conduct ensembles around the world including the New World Symphony, Camerata Nordica of Sweden, Tapiola Sinfonietta of Finland, and the Risor Festival Orchestra of Norway.

Michael Powell (trombone) has been a member of the celebrated American Brass Quintet since 1983. He performs and records regularly as principal trombonist of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Little Orchestra Society, the Zankel Band of Carnegie Hall, Speculum Musicae, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. Powell has appeared as soloist with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kansas City Philharmonic, and at the Aspen and New Hampshire music festivals. He also performs on Broadway; records for radio, television, and cinema; and appears on over 60 recordings as trombonist. Powell frequently appears with such diverse ensembles as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music Today, Musical Elements, the Classical Band, and P.D.Q. Bach. He has taught master classes in trombone and chamber music throughout the world. He has premiered and recorded solo works by Eric Ewazen, Robert Martin, and Steven Sacco. Powell has been a member of the music faculty at the Mason Gross School of the Arts since 1995. He is also faculty member of the Juilliard School, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Philippe Quint (violin) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Quint left the former Soviet Union in 1991 and is now an American citizen who harbors a strong commitment to the music of his new country, frequently performing works by William Schuman, Lukas Foss, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, John Corigliano, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Lera Auerbach. His debut recording of William Schuman's Violin Concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and José Serebrier was nominated for two Grammy Awards, including one for best soloist with orchestra, and was also editor's choice of both Gramophone and Strad magazines. Other acclaimed recordings include his recording of Bernstein's Serenade and of Ned Rorem's Violin Concerto (Naxos 8.559278) with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under José Serebrier. He studied at Moscow's Special Music School for the Gifted with Andrei Korsakov and later in the United States earned both bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy Delay.

Nancy Yunhwa Rao (theory) has degrees from National Taiwan Normal University and the University of Michigan, where she worked on the music of Schoenberg, Crawford, Babbitt, and Carter. She has delivered papers at many music theory conferences and has written numerous publications on 20th-century music, specializing in American music, Chinese composers and opera, post-tonal composition, and women in music.

Barbara Retzko (choral conducting) directs the award-winning Ridge Chorale, Concert Choir, and A Cappella Choir Honors at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She has served as choral director at the International School of Düsseldorf in Germany and has served as guest conductor for two International Honor Choirs in Switzerland Stateside, she was guest conductor at the Independent School Choral Festival in North Carolina, New Jersey Region II Chorus (mixed and women's) and New Jersey All-State Chorus (mixed and women's). She received the 1998 Governor's Teacher Award for Teacher of the Year, the first Excellence in the Arts Award from Somerset County, and was named Master Music Teacher by New Jersey Music Educators Association in 2008. She frequently travels with the American Music Abroad European RED tour.

Matthew Riedel (composition and music technology) received his M.A. from the University of California (Riverside) and his Ph.D. from Rutgers, where he was a student of Charles Wuorinen. He runs the electronic music lab and the Interactive Music Learning Center online training system. His compositions include No Gas, Brasspiece, Californicate, Additive, Ambiance, Passing Tones, and Kiss the Shattered Glass.

Tim Ries (jazz saxophone) has collaborated with such jazz artists as Phil Woods, Tom Harrell, Al Foster, John Patitucci, Dave Liebman, Danilo Perez, Maynard Ferguson, Red Garland, Badal Roy, Maria Schneider, and Donald Byrd. A Verve release with the Joe Henderson Big Band won a Grammy Award. Having just returned from a second world tour with the Rolling Stones playing saxophone, keyboard, and organ, his other recording and performance credits include work with such diverse talents as Donald Fagen, Paul Simon, Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovett, Stevie Wonder, Incognito, Blood Sweat & Tears, Bob Belden and David Lee Roth. Having already released five original jazz compact discs, Ries now will channel his energy into creating interpretations of rock and roll standards. The music of Jagger and Richards, Ries's recent employers, serves as the inspiration for his most recent recording project, soon to be completed. Ries has written over 100 compositions in both the jazz and classical idioms. This fusion of styles is evident in his work with Prism, a saxophone quartet that presents a diverse repertoire in both acoustic and electronic environments. Prism performed William Bolcom's Concerto Grosso with 13 orchestras, including Detroit, Dallas, and Cleveland. Tim also performed the American premiere of Takashi Yoshimatsu's Cyberbird Concerto with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. A graduate of the University of North Texas and the University of Michigan, Tim has served on the faculties of The New School, City College of New York, and the Mannes College of Music. Ries is currently teaching saxophone and jazz combo at Rutgers and New Jersey City University. He frequently travels to other universities, jazz festivals, and clinics as a teacher of saxophone, composition, and improvisation.

Markus Rhoten (timpani) is principal timpanist for the New York Philharmonic. Born in Hanover, Germany, he attended the College of Arts in Berlin, then continued his studies as an apprentice with the National Opera Orchestra Mannheim. Subsequently, he was awarded a stipend for the Academy of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Munich, and in 2002 became principal timpanist of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. He has also worked with conductors Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst, Thomas Daussgard, Paavo Järvi, and Mstislav Rostropovich, among others. Prior to this appointment, he was the principal timpanist of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, led by Eliahu Inbal.

John Rojak (trombone) has a degree from the Juilliard School. He joined the American Brass Quintet in 1991, touring internationally, recording, and teaching, with residencies at the Juilliard School and Aspen Music Festival. He is an original member of the orchestra for Broadway's Les Misérables and the New York Pops, as well as bass trombonist for the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus, Little Orchestra Society, and Solisti New York. He has recorded with the New York Chamber Symphony, St. Luke's, Orpheus, and Solisti New York.

Angela Anderson Smith (bassoon) has been a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1997. Her previous orchestra memberships include the San Jose Symphony, where she served as second bassoon, and the San Antonio Symphony, where she was assistant principal/second bassoon. Anderson frequently performs in the Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music Series, and is a member of the Network for New Music and the Conwell Woodwind Quintet, an ensemble made up of Temple University faculty members. Anderson has won prizes at such competitions as the Carmel and Coleman chamber music competitions, and she has participated in the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, the Music Academy of the West Summer Festival, and the Midsummer Mozart Festival, where she was second bassoon in the festival orchestra for two seasons. Currently a faculty member of the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University, Anderson has previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Santa Clara, and Southwest Texas State University. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor of music in 1988 and received a master of music from the University of Southern California in 1991. Her teachers have included Artemus Edwards, Norman Herzberg, Dennis Michel, and Matthew Karr.

Timothy G. Smith (marching band and pep band) joined the faculty at the Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2000 as the director of athletic bands. In addition to his duties with the Rutgers University Marching Band, he directs the Rutgers Pep Band, is the conductor of the Rutgers Concert Band, a guest conductor with the Symphony Band, and assists in directing the outreach efforts for the music department. Professor Smith brings 35 years of experience in drum corps, marching band, and marching percussion to the banks of the Raritan. A tireless recruiter, Smith has increased the size of the band from 135 members in 2000 to its current membership of 200. As director of the Marching Scarlet Knights, Smith has infused new energy into the band by adding the up-tempo, pregame show with the Rutgers run-on. He has also worked with the Rutgers Athletic Administration to bring the band into the game. Under his direction the Rutgers University Marching Band is now heard constantly during football games. Through his efforts, the Rutgers University Drumline received major endorsements from Dynasty Percussion, Vic Firth, and Zildian. Smith is also responsible for increasing the bands' visibility in the New York, New Jersey area by gaining appearances at major events. The Marching Scarlet Knights have appeared on The Apprentice with Donald Trump and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show; played for the Heisman Trophy Awards Dinner, the Fox Network's fall shows announcement special, award presentations for The National Football League, parades in New York City and New Jersey, and performed during halftime of several Giants and Jets games. Smith led the band to Washington, D.C. to perform during a Congressional Ceremony honoring the Rutgers football program. The band has also appeared in several bowl games across the country and in Canada. Under his tutelage the Rutgers Marching Band has become one of the most recognized collegiate ensembles in the Northeast, playing for audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Smith is a graduate of the Mason Gross School of the Arts where he researched and wrote on such topics as music learning theory, interjudge reliability in band competition, and two-way ensemble communication. He has worked in conducting symposia with notable band conductors Jerry Junkin (University of Texas), Allan McMurray (University of Colorado), and Kevin Sedatole (Michigan State University). Smith adjudicates several marching and concert band festivals annually and is a regular on the sidelines during marching band festivals in the tristate area. He is a member of the Big East Band Directors Association and the College Band Directors National Conference.

Jonathan Spitz (cello) has established himself as one of the leading cellists in the New York area with his performances as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral principal. A graduate of the Curtis Institute, Spitz has studied with David Soyer, Felix Galimir, Karen Tuttle, Mischa Schneider, Gerald Beal, and Robert Gardner. He has recorded for DG, Sony Classics, Telarc, Nonesuch, Delos, CRI, XLNT, and New World. He has been principal cellist of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 1991 and has performed extensively throughout the Americas and Europe. He is also a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and principal cellist of the American Ballet Theatre and the Bard Festival Orchestra.

Weston Sprott (trombone) was appointed to the position of second trombone of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (Met) in the spring of 2005. He began his musical training in his hometown of Spring, Texas. Sprott attended Indiana University before completing his bachelor of music degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His primary teachers include Michael Warny (Houston Grand Opera and Ballet Orchestras), Carl Lenthe (former principal trombone, Bavarian State Opera and Bamberg Symphony), and Nitzan Haroz, (principal trombone Philadelphia Orchestra). While a student at Curtis, Sprott held the positions of principal trombone in the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra (Philadelphia) and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. He was the founding member of the Texas Trombone Octet, a group that won the Emory Remington competition and was featured in concert at the International Trombone Festival in Helsinki, Finland. Sprott has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, Hot Springs Music Festival, the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, and the Sphinx Symphony (Detroit). He has also performed with the St. Barts Music Festival and the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society. Mr. Sprott has worked under the baton of many of the world's great conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn, and numerous others. Sprott was featured in the documentary film A Wayfarer's Journey: Listening to Mahler with actor Richard Dreyfuss and actress Kathleen Chalfant. He was also a performer in the film Rittenhouse Square under the direction of Robert Downey, a documentary that played in major film festivals throughout the United States to critical acclaim. In September 2007, Sprott made his Carnegie Hall solo debut performing Lars Erik-Larsson's Concertino in Weill Recital Hall at the invitation of the Bulgarian Consulate. Other engagements have led to performances with gospel and jazz artists such as Branford Marsalis, Take 6, and Donnie McClurkin. Performances and interviews with Sprott have been seen and heard on PBS' Great Performances, NPR's Performance Today, and Sirius Satellite Radio. In demand as a soloist and master class clinician, Sprott has been a featured guest artist at several of America's leading conservatories and universities. He is currently on the faculties of Rutgers University, Mannes College of Music, Purchase College Conservatory of Music and Juilliard's Music, Advancement Program. Sprott is an artist/clinician for Antoine Courtois Paris. He performs exclusively on Courtois trombones, and most regularly plays the Legend AC 420R.

George B. Stauffer (music history) is dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts and a professor of music history at Rutgers. He is known internationally as a scholar, writer, and performer who focuses on the music of J.S. Bach and the culture and music of the baroque era. He has contributed pieces to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Collier's Encyclopedia, Early Music, Bach-Jahrbuch, and numerous other publications. He is a former president of the American Bach Society. Before coming to Rutgers, Stauffer taught at City University of New York (Hunter College) where he was chair of the music department and the program in dance. He also has been on the faculties of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Yeshiva University. Stauffer was educated at Dartmouth College, Bryn Mawr College, and Columbia University. He has held IREX, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and ACLS fellowships.

Joseph Tompkins (percussion) has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Metropolitan (Met) Opera Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and many others. He has played in 18 Broadway productions, recorded a number of major film soundtracks, and is the staff percussionist at St. Ignatius Loyola church. His works for percussion have been performed worldwide, and he has appeared as a clinician at Juilliard, the Manhattan School, PASIC, and many other venues. Currently he is the chair of the percussion department at Mason Gross.

Mark Trautman (church music) teaches church music skills and coaches chamber music at Mason Gross. He is the director of music at St. Paul's Church in Englewood, New Jersey, where he plays the church's Austin and E.M. Skinner organs, conducts a semiprofessional choir, and oversees a large concert series. He is in demand as an organist, accompanist, and orchestral and choral conductor and has performed throughout the United States, as well as venues in Germany and the United Kingdom. He has served as an adjudicator for events sponsored by the American Choral Directors Association, the American Guild of Organists, and the New Jersey Folk Festival.

Denise Tryon (French horn) joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in October 2009 as fourth horn. Previously the fourth horn of the Detroit Symphony, she has also held positions with the Baltimore, Columbus, and New World symphonies and has participated in the Colorado Music Festival and the Pacific Music Festival. Tryon graduated high school from the famed Interlochen Arts Academy, and received her bachelor of music degree, with distinction in performance, from the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston. While at NEC, she formed the Taiyo Wind Quintet, which won grand prize in the Shoreline Alliance Chamber Competition, first prize in the Coleman Chamber Competition, and second prize in the Carmel Chamber Music Awards. Taiyo was only the second chamber group to be admitted into the prestigious Artist Diploma program at the New England Conservatory, as well as being awarded the Presidential Scholarship. While a member of Taiyo, Tryon coached with John Harbison, Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, and Elliott Carter. An active and accomplished educator, Tryon started Audition Mode, a yearly horn seminar with her former colleague, Karl Pituch. She has taught at Towson University, and Wayne State University, and she currently is on the faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

Frederick Urrey (tenor) is an artist praised for his artistry, musicianship, and compelling performance in oratorio, opera, solo recital, and chamber music in major venues throughout the United States and Canada, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured as soloist with the National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, London Classical Players, Les Violons du Roy of Québec, Shinsei Symphony of Tokyo, and with major choral ensembles such as the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston, Musica Sacra of New York, the Washington Bach Consort, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the Bach Choir of London. His extensive discography includes repertoire ranging from music of the troubadours, English lute songs, songs of Stephen Foster, chamber music of Rossini, Handel operas and oratorios, to the works of J.S. Bach, as well as songs, operas, and chamber music by contemporary composers. Urrey holds a doctor of musical arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory, a diploma in lied and oratorio with distinction from the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, where he was a pupil of Kmsg. Hans Hotter, and B.M. and M.M. degrees from Louisiana State University.

Scott Whitener (vice chair), professor emeritus of music in the Mason Gross School of the Arts, is a graduate of the Juilliard School), and the University of Michigan and received his doctorate at Rutgers. At Juilliard, he was first trumpet of the Juilliard Orchestra under the distinguished French conductor Jean Morel, who influenced his conducting. He began his professional career with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra where he played under Pablo Casals, among others, and later played at the American debut at Carnegie Hall of the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio of Munich under Raphael Kubelik. Whitener's book, A Complete Guide to Brass: Instruments and Technique (Schirmer Thomson), now in its third edition, is used at over 100 universities and is considered the definitive work in the field. He was invited in June 2006 to present a lecture on playing the trumpet in the high register at the International Trumpet Guild Symposium. Professor Whitener participated in the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble program in Horncastle, England. It was this experience that inspired him to found the Rutgers Brass in 1993. He also studied the interpretation of 16th- and 17th-century music at Stanford University. Whitener taught conducting for 24 years. Among his former students are Paavo Järvi, principal conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and regular guest conductor of leading orchestras throughout the world, and Gail Lee, a guest conductor of orchestras in the Czech Republic and the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. She was for four years associate conductor of the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. Professor Whitener was formerly chair of brass and continues to serve as vice chair of the Department of Music and consultant to the chair and dean on a half-time basis.