IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Theatre at Iowa State University
Amanda Petefish-Schrag is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Iowa State University. Her professional credits include work as a playwright, puppeteer, director, actor, and mom. Her playwriting work has been produced at festivals and theaters in London, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Iowa City, and has been published by Playscripts, Inc., and Smith and Kraus. Her current puppetry research and performance work explores the use of discarded materials as a means of preserving puppeteers' historical social-ethical function. Amanda is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the International Union of Marionette Artists, the Puppeteers of America, and is a past recipient of the Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Grant, and the Missouri Governor's Award for Excellence in Higher Education.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Oboe
Amy is the Associate Teaching Professor of oboe and English horn at Iowa State University, where she also teaches Introduction to Music Listening to more than 500 undergraduate students each semester. She recently published a digital textbook and complete curriculum called Between the Notes: the Music of Your Life for use in high school and college-level music appreciation courses. Amy also maintains a very active freelance career throughout Iowa and is currently the principal oboist of the Ottumwa Symphony and has performed as Acting Principal and English horn with the Des Moines, Dubuque, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Central Iowa, and Oskaloosa Symphonies as well as with the Des Moines Metro Opera. Before returning to Iowa to raise her four daughters, she actively performed with many ensembles in New England, including the New Haven Symphony, Wallingford Symphony, Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard, Lexington Symphony, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, North Shore Philharmonic, Melrose Symphony, Dudley House Orchestra at Harvard and the Harvard Summer Pops Band as well as the Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, Festival Orchestra, and Symphonic Band. She earned her Master of Music at the renowned Yale School of Music, where she was a student of the beloved Ronald Roseman.
Job Titles:
- Administrative and Ensembles Assistant
- Staff
Job Titles:
- Director of Orchestral Activities, Associate Professor of Music, Violin
Job Titles:
- Chairman, Department of Music & Theatre, Staff, Theatre
- Chairman, Department of Music and Theatre
Brad Dell (he/him/his) is Chair of the Department of Music and Theatre and a Full Professor at ISU, where he teaches classes in directing and performing arts. He is the National Chair of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) and the immediate past Chair of KCACTF Region 5. He is the recipient of the Broadway World Des Moines Art Educator of the Decade Award, the 2019 Kennedy Center Gold Medallion, the 2017 Outstanding Teaching Award from the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the 2017 Faculty and Staff Inspiration Award from the ISU Alumni Association, the 2017 Catch Des Moines Champion Award from the Des Moines Convention and Visitor's Bureau, and the 2012 "Local Treasure" award from the Ames, IA Community Arts Council. Brad is also the former Artistic Director of Apple Hill Playhouse in Delmont, PA, Repertory Theater of Iowa, and Iowa Stage Theater Company. He has directly approximately 100 plays and musicals at theatres and universities around the country. Some of his recent directing highlights include Street Scene, King Lear, Twelfth Night, Godspell, Macbeth, Oklahoma!, Death of a Salesman, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Our Town, The Children's Hour, Romeo and Juliet, Company, Cabaret, The Secret Garden, Les Miserables, Next to Normal, Fiddler on the Roof, and Rent. Brad holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Western Illinois University.
Job Titles:
- Technical Director, Resident Scenic Designer
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Theatre at Iowa State University
Cason Murphy (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Iowa State University where he has taught classes in acting, musical theatre, and introduction to performing arts since 2018. He is the recipient of the 2021 LAS Cassling Family Faculty Award for Early Achievement in Teaching, the 2021 ISU Early Achievement in Teaching Award, the 2022 Arts Educator Award from the Ames Community Arts Council, and the 2023 ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching. He holds his M.F.A. in Theatre Directing from Baylor University and his B.A. in Theatre Arts from UCLA.
Job Titles:
- Engineer Technology Consultant
- Member of the Audio Engineering Society
- Recording Engineer, IT Support
Chad Jacobsen is an in-demand recording engineer technology consultant. He's worked in studios around the world and has helped design studio facilities for Iowa State University, Drake University, SR Audio and many more. His recordings can be found on Centaur and Innova record labels and his work with Simon Estes was featured in the World Cup 2010.
Mr. Jacobsen is a long time member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES.
Job Titles:
- Artist
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Applied Voice and Opera Studio
Chad Sonka is establishing himself as an artist with a diverse array of skills in the world of voice. In a recent notable engagement, he directed and sang the role of Alidoro the world premiere of A Royal Feast by Michael Ching, a sequel to Rossini's La Cenerentola, with the Savannah VOICE Festival. Previous performing credits: Tosca (Scarpia - cover) with Central City Opera; Gianni Schicchi (Marco) with Savannah Music Festival; Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote) with Cedar Rapids Opera; The Mother of Us All (Virgil T.), The Rape of Lucretia (Junius), Elijah (Elijah) with Manhattan School of Music; and Amahl and the Night Visitors (King Melchior) with Nevada Opera. Equally versed in concert works, he has performed Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs, as well as Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem as his Carnegie Hall debut. He was the first-place winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions - Iowa District in 2017.
Chad's accolades extend beyond his own singing as a director, teacher, and administrator. Since 2017, Chad has served on Iowa State University's faculty, teaching voice and opera in his home state. Recently, he was named the Shakeshaft Master Teacher for 2022-2023 for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
He currently serves as President of the Iowa Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) where his students consistently place at the Regional and National levels. He is also the Executive Director of the Sherrill Milnes VOICE Programs, which mentor young singers as they begin their careers.
His stage directing credits include: Weill's Street Scene, Viardot's Cendrillon, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (virtual), and Ching's Speed Dating Tonight! at Iowa State University; Ragland's Charlie and the Wolf (outreach) with Cedar Rapids Opera; and Portman's The Little Prince, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, Menotti's The Medium, and Ching's A Royal Feast (premiere) with the Sherrill Milnes VOICE Programs.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Bands, Director - Cyclone Marching Band, Tuba and Euphonium, Associate Teaching Professor
- Head for the Phantom Regiment
- Member of CBDNA
Christian Carichner serves as the Associate Director of Bands, Director of the Cyclone Marching Band, and an Associate Teaching Professor at Iowa State University. He oversees all aspects of the Athletic Band program including the 350-member Iowa State University Cyclone Football ‘Varsity' Marching Band, Men's and Women's Basketball bands, Volleyball Band, Wrestling Band, and State Storm. In addition to his athletic band duties, Christian also conducts the Symphonic Band, teaches the Marching Band Methods course, and instructs the applied Tuba and Euphonium studios. Previously, Christian served as Assistant Director of Bands at ISU in addition to instructing the low brass studios, teaching low brass methods, and directing both the Concert and Campus bands.
Christian has served as Brass Caption Head for the Phantom Regiment and The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps, as well as a lead brass instructor for the Aimachi Marching Band from Nagoya, Japan. Currently, he is in demand as a guest clinician, judge and show designer/arranger.
Christian is a member of CBDNA, Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Kappa Phi, and the International Tuba Euphonium Association. He is an honorary member of both Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma. Christian is also the first marching brass artist for Pearl/Adams where he consults on the design of their marching brass instruments and is also an Adams Custom Brass artist.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Music Education at Iowa State University
- Education
Christina Svec is the Assistant Professor of Music Education at Iowa State University specializing in elementary general music and secondary choral methods. Prior to receiving a PhD in Music Education from the University of North Texas, she taught elementary music and directed church choirs in Texas. She has also taught early childhood music in both Texas and Michigan. Dr. Svec's research interests include research methodology, research pedagogy, and singing voice development. She has presented at conferences locally, nationally, and internationally. Her publications can be found in Update: Applications of Research in Music Education and Psychology of Music.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor, Emeritus
David Stuart is professor of trombone, principal trombonist of the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, and trombonist with the Des Moines Symphony Brass Quintet and Des Moines Metro Opera. At Iowa State, he taught low brass, introduction to music listening, and the history of rock ‘n' roll. He was recognized for his innovative use of technology in a large-lecture format in 2001, when he was named a Master Teacher for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His music listening course is based on Music in Our World, a text that he co-authored with Gary White and Ellen Aviva. The book and course refer extensively to music from non-Western cultures and a wide variety of popular and classical music. Dr. Stuart is co-author of From Bakersfield to Beal Street, A Regional History of American Rock ‘n' Roll, and co-editor of Regional Cultures in American Rock ‘n' Roll: An Anthology. He is also the author of Beginning on the Slide Trombone (Yamaha Music Corporation).
Dr. Stuart studied trombone Don Kneeburg and John D. Hill as well as with Jeff Reynolds of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and at the Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria with Johann Bauer and Josef Rohm of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Trombone Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa. He has served as Visiting Professor of Music at National Taiwan Normal University in the Republic of China, and researched Scottish folk and popular music in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland.
Job Titles:
- Morrill Professor of Voice - Music and Theatre, Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Costume Shop Supervisor
- ISU Theatre Costume Shop Supervisor
Doris Nash is a 1991 graduate of Iowa State with a degree in clothing and textiles; Doris has been the ISU Theatre costume shop supervisor since 1989. She has designed costumes for several productions, including A Christmas Carol, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Kiss Me, Kate, Treasure Island, Little Women, and Orpheus in the Underworld. Her summer employment has been with theaters such as the Santa Fe Opera, Emporia State University Summer Theatre, and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Doris is an Iowa native and sings with Good Company and Ames Choral Society. She also has a BM in vocal performance from Coe College. In 2007, she bought a house, and shares it with a very spoiled cat! In 2008 she realized a lifelong dream and appeared on Jeopardy!, winning one game.
Dr. Charissa Menefee is a playwright, poet, director, and performer. She has been a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Playwriting at the Sewanee Writers' Conference and a finalist for the Julie Harris Playwright Award. Her plays have been honored by the Utah Shakespeare Festival's New American Playwrights Project, Pandora Festival of New Plays, American College Theatre Festival, Arizona Theatre Conference, Christian H. Moe Awards, and City of Charleston Literary Arts Awards. PRETTY LUCKY is included in 105 FIVE-MINUTE PLAYS FOR STUDY AND PERFORMANCE (Smith & Kraus). Recent productions include OUR ANTIGONE, adapted from Sophocles, premiered at Story Theatre Company (Iowa); YOUR SOUP, SIR, part of Paula Vogel's UBU ROI Bake-Off at the Playwrights Center (Minnesota); SARAH'S POEM, premiered in Rover Dramawerks' 365 Women a Year Festival (Texas); CHECK YOUR TICKET, included in the What She Said Festival at The Underground Theatre (Minnesota); and LYDIA'S PLAN, named Best Play in the Theatre Lawrence Short Play Festival (Kansas). HOW LONG IS FIFTEEN MINUTES? was supported by a research grant from Iowa State University's Center for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities and recently featured in Tennessee Women's Theatre Project's Women's Work Festival; the anchoring monologue is in production as a short film, directed by the author.
Dr. Menefee has been involved with two hundred plays, give or take, as writer, director, producer, dramaturg, actor, designer, and technician. Favorite directing projects include OEDIPUS THE KING, A LIE OF THE MIND, THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, and TOWARDS ZERO, as well as children's theatre productions of ANDROCLES AND THE LION, THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, THE GREAT ALPHABET ADVENTURE, and EARTHLINGS! Her work as an actor includes musicals, improvisational comedy, and roles in AGNES OF GOD, TO GILLIAN ON HER 37 TH BIRTHDAY, BELLS ARE RINGING, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE GUYS, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, and THE ELEPHANT MAN. Dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights, she regularly serves as artistic director and producer for The One Day Plays, and she was co-founder and co-producer, with playwright Micki Shelton, of Tomorrow's Theatre Tonight, a new play reading and development series that ran for nearly a decade in Arizona. During the past year, she has co-produced, with director Vivian M. Cook, three theatre actions on campus, including Iowa State's contribution to the international Climate Change Theatre Action.
Her chapbook, WHEN I STOPPED COUNTING, is available from Finishing Line Press, and her poetry can also be found or is forthcoming in ADANNA, POETRY SOUTH, TERRENE, POETS READING THE NEWS, THE PADDOCK REVIEW, TWYCKENHAM NOTES, AMYGDALA, THE INDIAN RIVER REVIEW, FOOTNOTES, DRAGON POET REVIEW, Telepoem Booths, and collections such as THE HIPPOCRATES PRIZE FOR POETRY & MEDICINE ANTHOLOGY, SURPRISED BY JOY, and THE POEMING PIGEON: IN THE NEWS. Her collection, I AM TRYING TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU REMEMBERED ME, was in the finals for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award and the semi-finals for The Washington Prize, and her poem, "Get the Story," was a finalist for the Charter Oak Historical Award. Dr. Menefee is on the faculties of the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment and the MA Program in Literature, and she is a 2018 Writer-in-Residence at the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts.
Education:
Ph.D., Theatre and Speech Communication, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
M.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, West Texas State University
B.A., English and Theatre, West Texas State University
Job Titles:
- Composition & Theory
- Professor of Music, Composition and Music Technology
Christopher Hopkins' scholarship integrates electroacoustic music composition, computer modeling for creative processes in composition, dialectics among historical musical styles, and performance of Renaissance and Baroque music for the viola da gamba. His recent supporting research includes algorithmic musical logic based on historical and interdisciplinary models, and analysis of chord-color symmetry. His current work (2022-2023) is Galilei Dialogues, a project editing compositions of Vincenzo Galilei (1520-1591) and composing a modern composition for viols inspired by Galilei, and Music genGraph, a project applying graph theory to music composition.
Hopkins holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Cornell University, where his principal mentors were Karel Husa (composition) and John Hsu (performance), and a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Donald Erb and Eugene O'Brien. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Nebraska, during which time he was a cellist with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra and Nebraska Chamber Orchestra. He is a recipient of an Aaron Copland Residency Award, and has been artist in residence with fellowships from the Albers Foundation, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and MacDowell.
His compositions have been performed at major music festivals in Athens, Basel, Grenoble, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Melbourne, New York City, Tanglewood, Toronto, Washington DC (Library of Congress, Smithsonian), Vienna, and Zürich, in many national and international conferences devoted to experimental contemporary music, and from concert stages in England, Holland, and Switzerland. Media broadcasts including his work have been heard over the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Östereichischer Rundfunk, Radio Canada, WNYC, and Public Radio International. Recordings of his compositions are available from Innova and Music from SEAMUS.
For Iowa State, Dr. Hopkins has been Director of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, and developed a Minor in Music Technology, an Integrated Electronic Arts Cluster for Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies, and new courses in composition and creative computation in music. He was for several years on the faculty of the graduate program in Human-Computer Interaction. He frequently offers courses in the Honors Program and Frontiers of the Discipline courses for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is curator for the Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music and hosted the 2007 national conference of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States, subsequently serving for six years on the board of directors as Director of Conferences. Prior to joining the faculty of Iowa State University in 2004, Dr. Hopkins taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and Syracuse University, offering courses in composition, electroacoustic music, form and style analysis, and interdisciplinary courses in digital arts media.
Job Titles:
- Group USA and a Vandoren Performing Artist
- Professor of Music, Clarinet, Performance, and Pedagogy
Gregory Oakes is an exciting and energetic clarinetist and a passionate champion of the music of our time. From his Carnegie Hall debut with members of Ensemble Intercontemporain and Pierre Boulez to his performances as a member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Oakes has been praised by critics for his "outstanding performance" (New York Times) and "jazzy flourishes" (Denver Post). American Record Guide says "Oakes is the rare player who has both excellent classical training and a mastery of the otherworldly procedures demanded by non-traditional repertoire," and Fanfare Magazine lauds the "formidable technical armamentarium at his command."
A flexible and versatile musician, Mr. Oakes has performed with notable musicians in prestigious venues around the world. He has been a concerto soloist with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Denver Brass, performed with Grammy® Award-winner Terence Blanchard at the Telluride Jazz Festival, and appeared at the Chicago Arts Club. His recordings have been released on Bridge, Centaur, CRI, Gothic, Karnatic Lab Records, and Naxos and broadcast on National Public Radio. His recent CD, Aesthetic Apparatus: Clarinet Chamber Music of Helmut Lachenmann, appears on the New Focus Recordings label.
As a soloist, Mr. Oakes has performed at multiple International Clarinet Association ClarinetFests, the University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, the New Music Gathering, the International Computer Music Conference, the Crested Butte Chamber Music Festival, Boulder's Modern Music Festival (M 2 F), and the Pendulum New Music Series. An international artist, Mr. Oakes has performed frequently in the Netherlands at Amsterdam's venerable new music hall De IJsbreker, Gaudeamus Music Week, Concerten Tot en Met, the Karnatic Lab concert series, De Badcuyp, STEIM, and Utrecht's Theatre Kikker. He has been a featured soloist at the prestigious MaerzMusik festival in Berlin. He has also toured Brazil-performing in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and Campinas-and conducted masterclasses at notable Brazilian universities UnB, UNIRIO, and UNICAMP. He was in residence as a guest artist at the MUPA Festival of Contemporary Music in Bangsaen, Thailand. In the summer, Mr. Oakes is on the faculty of The Cortona Sessions festival for new music in Tuscany, Italy.
Mr. Oakes has been a member of several orchestras including the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Ballet, Central City Opera, and the Colorado Music Festival. He is currently the principal clarinet of the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra. He is also an active chamber musician. As a founding member of the new music and creative arts ensemble Non Sequitur, he has been in residence at Princeton University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the Aspen Music Festival. Oakes has also performed as a member of the woodwind quintet Category 5 and the award-winning clarinet quartet Ensemble Syzygy.
Mr. Oakes holds a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University, a master's degree from DePaul University, and a doctorate from the University of Colorado. His teachers include Bil Jackson, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, and John Bruce Yeh. He has been honored as an Aspen Music Festival Fellow, a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar Finalist. Mr. Oakes has presented masterclasses at numerous institutions including the University of Michigan, University of California Berkeley, Peabody Conservatory, the Amsterdam Conservatory, and the Aspen Music Festival. He has previously taught at the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, MS) and Bemidji State University (Bemidji, MN). Mr. Oakes is on the faculty of Iowa State University (Ames, IA).
Gregory Oakes is a Buffet Group USA and a Vandoren Performing Artist.
Job Titles:
- Leader
- Coordinator of Class Piano
- Teaching Professor of Music, Class Piano and Pedagogy
Dr. Janci Bronson is the Coordinator of Class Piano and Piano Pedagogy at Iowa State University. She teaches the music major class piano courses (MUS 127, 128, 227, 228); Functional Piano Skills for Keyboard Majors (MUS 327A); and Piano Pedagogy (MUS 415B). In 2021 and 2022, she won two ISU Miller Open Education Mini-Grants to create "Instructional Videos for Class Piano Courses." In 2018, she was a recipient of ISU's Outstanding Teaching by a Lecturer award.
Her education includes a Ph.D. in Music Education, an emphasis in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, where she studied with Drs. Jane Magrath and Barbara Fast. She holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. A Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, in Piano Performance was earned from Kansas State University.
Dr. Bronson is an active leader within the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). She is currently the Iowa Music Teachers Association (IMTA) Immediate past state President. Previously, she served as the IMTA state President, and state Technology chair, where she wrote biannual articles published in the Iowa Music Teacher magazine. She chaired the 2017 IMTA state conference planning committee, hosted at ISU.
Dr. Bronson was chosen as the 2016-2017 IMTA State Certified Teacher of the Year and received the 2017 IMTA State Distinguished Service award. Previously, Dr. Bronson served as the University of Oklahoma MTNA chapter President when they won the MTNA-Benjamin Whitten National Collegiate Chapter of the Year award. As an undergraduate, she served as the Kansas State University MTNA collegiate chapter President.
She frequently serves as an invited adjudicator, master class teacher, and guest clinician. Dr. Bronson has been invited to present for other universities, state MTNA conferences, state Pedagogy Workshops, and local music teacher groups
Additionally, Dr. Bronson maintains a successful private piano studio for beginners through advanced students. Her students win district and state performance competitions and have been accepted into prestigious undergraduate and graduate piano programs. In the summer of 2019, she solitarily designed and taught Children's Intro to Piano classes for the Ames, IA, and surrounding communities.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Cello at Iowa State University
- Professor of Music, Cello
George Work, professor of cello at Iowa State University, holds his bachelor's and master's degrees of music and a performer's certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where he also served as teaching assistant to Robert Sylvester. His principal teachers include Robert Sylvester, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Gabor Rejto and Carol Work.
In 1981, he joined the Ames Piano Quartet, in residence at Iowa State University. In the course of its career, the Quartet released fourteen critically acclaimed CD recordings, one on the Musical Heritage label, five on Albany Records, and the others on Dorian/Sono Luminus Recordings. The Ames Quartet appeared regularly in concert throughout the United States and Canada. International appearances included Salzburg, Austria, Paris and Marseilles, France, Taipei, Tainan, Kashiong and Taichung, Taiwan, Merida, Mexico, Havana, Cuba and Kaliningrad, Russia. The group was also featured on NPR's "Performance Today," WQXR's "The Listening Room," and appeared on a special edition of "St. Paul Sunday" commemorating the 50th anniversary of WOI radio. This latter led to an invitation to tape a second "St. Paul Sunday," which aired nationally for the first time in November 1999. In 2012, following the retirement of two long-time members, the Quartet was renamed the Amara Piano Quartet. It continues to concertize throughout the US under the new name, and has recently released its first commercial CD on the Fleur de Son label.
George Work has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras in the Midwest, as well as in Taiwan, R.O.C. and Kaliningrad, Russia. His recording of the Ibert Concerto for Cello and Winds was released in 2012 to critical acclaim. A faculty member at the a Brevard Music Center in North Carolina from 1998-2002, George Work was also chosen to be an artist faculty member at the first-ever Schlern International Music Festival, held in Voels am Schlern, Italy, in the summer of 2003. In addition to concertizing with the Ames Piano Quartet, George Work is also a member of the Belin String Quartet and the Des Moines Symphony. In 2016, he became the first-ever recipient of the Jean Bacon Louis Faculty Fellowship.
Job Titles:
- Box Office Supervisor
- Director
- Costume Shop Supervisor
Job Titles:
- Associate Teaching Professor of Music, Emeritus, Voice
Job Titles:
- Louise Moen Hamilton Endowed Chair
- Louise Moen Hamilton Professor of Music, Director of Choral Activities
James Rodde is the Louise Moen Hamilton Endowed Chair in Music and Director of Choral Activities at Iowa State University. He conducts the Iowa State Singers, the 140-voice Iowa Statesmen, and teaches choral conducting and literature. Since his appointment at ISU in 2000, the choral program has grown to now include roughly 400 undergraduate choristers.
Janet Alcorn earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Music degree in Voice and Voice Therapy from Boston University. She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Studio and the New York City Opera and sang major roles with the opera companies of Cleveland, Dallas, Philadelphia, Frankfurt and Manilla. She appeared as soloist with many symphony orchestras including Philadelphia, Cleveland and Cincinnati. She was on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music for many years, and retired from Iowa State University as Associate Professor Of Voice and Director of the Opera Studio with Emerita status. While in Iowa, she was district director of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions. She was on the faculty of the Hartt School of the University of Hartford from 2000 to 2003 and of Birmingham Southern College from 2003 until 2007.
Now retired from singing, her primary interests are vocal health and rehabilitation and musicians' health. She is on the faculty of the McClosky Institute of Voice, where she trains other teachers in vocal health techniques. She has also studied extensively in somatics, body mapping and the Alexander Technique. She is a certified Andover Educator, teaching courses and giving workshops such as "What Every Singer (Musician) needs to know about the Body".
Job Titles:
- Composition & Theory, Music, Emeritus
- Professor, Emeritus
Jeffrey L. Prater teaches in the Department of Music at Iowa State University, where he is professor of music, chair of the music theory division, and past director of the ISU Chamber Singers. He holds the Ph.D. degree in music composition from The University of Iowa, Master of Music from Michigan State University, and his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University. He has written over seventy works in various genres, and has pieces published by G. Schirmer, E.C. Schirmer, Bourne, ALRY Publications, and Pro-Motion Music, and Cornucopia Press. Among his principal teachers are: William Bergsma, Richard Hervig, H. Owen Reed, and Gary C. White. In addition to his position at Iowa State University where he has served on the faculty for nearly thirty years, Prater has taught at The University of Washington, University of Northern Michigan, University of Wisconsin Center - Marinette and Michigan State University. In 2002 he was named a Master Teacher by the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and in 2003 ISU named him a Distinguished Scholar in the Arts and Humanities.
Prater's musical compositions are performed in Iowa, throughout the U.S. and internationally. As both composer and conductor, he participated in two important international music festivals held in the Germany in 1995 and 2000. In 2003 he was nominated by the Koenigsberg Foundation in Duisberg, Germany for the Grawemeyer Prize in Music Composition (one of the most prestigious international competitions for new musical works) for his oratorio Veni Creator Spiritus. In August 2005, the Kaliningrad (Russia) Symphony Orchestra performed an entire concert of his recent orchestral compositions as a part of a summer-long festival commemorating the 750th year since the founding of the city of Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad. In support of this concert, Prater received an F.W. Miller Foundation Grant that helped defray the costs of bringing professional American soloists to Russia for the performance.
Along with his work as a composer, Prater has also taken a strong interest in the pedagogy of music theory (especially in the areas of history of music theory and analysis for performers). He regularly visits and spent one year living and working in the Federal Republic of Germany. He has translated two book-length musicological treatises by living authors from German into English: The Study of Harmony: an historical perspective by Diether de la Motte (W.C. Brown, 1991) and J.S. Bach's The Art of Fugue: the work and its interpretation by renowned German musicologist, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Iowa State University Press, 1993). During Fall Semester 2005, Prater served as a U.S. State Department Fulbright Scholar at Emmanuel Kant Russian State University in Kaliningrad, where he lectured on topics concerning musical culture in the United States.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director of Choral Activities / Assistant Teaching Professor of Voice
Job Titles:
- Teaching Professor, Opera / Vocal Coach, Accompanist
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Music, Percussion
Job Titles:
- Professor of Music, Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Teaching, Horn
Job Titles:
- Teaching Professor of Music, Music Theory
Job Titles:
- Teaching Professor of Theatre
Job Titles:
- Academic Advisor, Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Bassoon
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Facility Manager
- Technical Director
Job Titles:
- Director
- Costume Shop Supervisor
Job Titles:
- Theatre Administrative Assistant
Job Titles:
- Louise Moen Hamilton Professor of Music, Director of Choral Activities
- Professor of Music Director of Choral Activities
James Rodde is the Louise Moen Hamilton Endowed Chair in Music and Director of Choral Activities at Iowa State University. He conducts the Iowa State Singers, the 140-voice Iowa Statesmen, and teaches choral conducting and literature. Since his appointment at ISU in 2000, the choral program has grown to now include roughly 400 undergraduate choristers.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Music, Piano
Job Titles:
- Teaching Professor of Music, Saxophone
Job Titles:
- Director of Bands, University Professor
Job Titles:
- Charles and Mary Sukup Endowed Artist in Organ, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director of Bands, Assistant Teaching Professor
Javan Shields serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor as well as the Assistant Director of Bands at Iowa State University. He conducts the Concert Band and Campus Band. He also assists in aspects of the Athletic Band program including the Iowa State University Cyclone Football ‘Varsity' Marching Band, and Men's and Women's Basketball Bands. He serves as the instructor of State Storm which is the athletic band for soccer and wrestling matches.
Mr. Shields has served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the University Bands at The University of Akron while pursuing a Master of Music degree in Wind Conducting. As a wind conducting student, he had numerous opportunities to guest conduct the Symphonic, Concert, and University Bands. Within the athletic band program, Mr. Shields had the opportunity to compose and teach drill for The University of Akron Marching Band. He served as the director for the women's Blue and Gold Brass Basketball Bands and the assistant conductor for the Blue and Gold Brass Basketball Bands for Men's games. At The University of Akron, Mr. Shields was a student of Galen S. Karriker and Andrew D. Feyes.
Before his graduate degree, Mr. Shields served as Assistant Director of Bands at Carrollton High School (OH) and was also the primary middle school choral director. He created a brass choir ensemble, which received superior ratings at the Ohio Music Education Association Solo and Ensemble Adjudicated Events, and his choirs also received superior ratings in adjudicated events.
Mr. Shields holds professional memberships in the National Band Association, College Band Directors National Association, National Associations for Music, and the Ohio Music Education Association. He has also received honorary membership from Kappa Kappa Psi (16'), and Tau Beta Sigma (17').
Mr. Shields earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Indiana Wesleyan University in Voice and Trumpet. As a performer and teacher, he has traveled to Italy and New Zealand to teach music to children of all ages.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Trombone
Job Titles:
- Director
- Costume Shop Supervisor
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Theatre, Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Lecturer, Music Education
Job Titles:
- Professor of Flute, Associate Chair for Department of Music and Theatre
Job Titles:
- Director
- Costume Shop Supervisor
Job Titles:
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Theatre
Job Titles:
- Resident Lighting Designer and Production Manager
Job Titles:
- University Professor of Music, Emeritus