Melanie Acosta is a Board-Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Arts degree in Music Therapy from New York University. Clinically, Melanie has provided Music Therapy in a variety of different settings including work with individuals with various neurodevelopmental and communication disorders, adults and children undergoing neurorehabilitation and individuals from infants to adults in medical settings. Melanie holds several Music Therapy certifications including a specialization in Neurologic...
Born in Korea, Jean Ahn finished her B.A. and M.M. at Seoul National University and Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. Her creative output includes works ranging from solo instruments to full orchestra, as well as choral, dance and electroacoustic music.
She received First Prize at the Renée Fisher Competition and the Sejong Korean Music Competition as well as awards from the Korean National Music Composers Association, the De Lorenzo Prize in Music Composition, and the Isadora Duncan Award for Saltdoll. She was a Finalist for the League of American Orchestra Women Composers...
Jeanne Bamberger has an established record as one of the seminal figures in the fields of music cognition and child development. In addition to being an emeritus from MIT, she has also taught as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. She received her BA in Music and Philosophy from the University of Minnesota in 1948, and went on to receive an MA in Musicology from Berkeley in 1951. Also an avid performer of solo piano and chamber music, she studied privately with world-renowned pianist and pedagogue Artur Schnabel and internationally known...
Brian Bond received his PhD in ethnomusicology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. His current ethnographic monograph project Singing Islam: Sindhi Sufi Music, Affect, and Interreligious Relations in the India-Pakistan Borderlands builds on a year and a half of research with performers of Sindhi-language Sufi music in Kachchh, Gujarat between 2014-2018, including vocal study in the kāfī and shāh jo rāg genres. In 2022, he conducted additional research in Sindh, Pakistan, where he also received the Shah Latif Award from the Government of Sindh’s Culture Department. Brian is...
Following a distinguished international singing career during which she was acclaimed for her radiant, crystalline voice and superb musicianship across a broad repertoire, Christine Brandes takes to the podium as conductor and garners praise for performances in the opera house and on the symphony stage.
A 2021-22 fellow of the Dallas Opera Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Christine Brandes has led productions of Gluck’s Orfeo et Eurydice andHandel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto with West Edge Opera. With Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville,...
Lecturer: Musicianship, Teacher Special Program: Oboe
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Juliana is an oboist, chamber and orchestra musician, and improviser. She has performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Colombia, and the Ópera al Parque Festival in Colombia. Since moving to the US, she has performed with La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, Meridian Symphony Orchestra, Redlands Symphony, and Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra. Juliana has participated in Contemporary music festivals and ensembles including the Academia Cervantina in Guanajuato, Mexico, and Vértice Ensemble in Mexico City. In 2020, she...
Beginning in 1992, when his group New Klezmer Trio “kicked open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music” (SF Chronicle), clarinetist Ben Goldberg has established himself as “one of the most vibrant, flexible, and inventive clarinetists in jazz and improvised music” (Downbeat). NPR calls Ben “an artist who seems to find beautiful melodies at the end of every path,” and The New York Times has noted his music for “a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising.” After twice being named Rising Star Clarinetist in the Downbeat Critics...
