MMEA-WD
2015 Festival
January 17, 2015 - 3:00 p.m.
(snow date...1/18)
The Festival Chorus
Dr. Felicia Barber
Director of Choral Activities at Westfield State University
The Festival Concert Band
Matthew M. Marsit
Director of Bands
Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts at Dartmouth College
An active conductor and clarinetist, Matthew M. Marsit has led ensembles and performed as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician throughout the United States. Currently on the artistic staff of the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts at Dartmouth College as Director of Bands, Matthew has previously held conducting positions with Cornell University, Drexel University, the Chestnut Hill Orchestra, the Bucks County Youth Ensembles and the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary.
Matthew has served as a guest conductor, clinician and consultant for a great number of schools, institutions and festivals throughout the eastern United States, and has produced a recording project for the United States Military Academy West Point Band. In December of 2011, Matthew was named artistic director of the Charles River Wind Ensemble, based in Watertown, Massachusetts.
An advocate for the use of music as a vehicle for service, Matthew has led ensembles on service missions in Costa Rica and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collecting instruments for donation to schools, performing charity benefit concerts and offering workshops to benefits arts programs in struggling schools. His current work at Dartmouth allows for outreach projects in the rural schools of New Hampshire and Vermont, working to stimulate interest in school performing arts programs.
A native of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Matthew moved first to Philadelphia to complete his studies in music at Temple University, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2003, where he studied clarinet with Anthony Gigliotti and Ronald Reuben and conducting with Luis Biava and Arthur Chodoroff. Additionally, Matthew has studied conducting with some of the world’s most prominent instructors including Mark Davis Scatterday of the Eastman School of the Music, Timothy Reynish of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK and Gianluigi Gelmeetti at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. In 2012, Matthew completed a graduate degree in Orchestral Conducting with Bruce Hangen at The Boston Conservatory.
Dr. Barber conducts the University Chorus, Chorale, and teaches courses in conducting and choral methods. A passionate educator, Dr. Barber taught choral music and music theory for eight years in Franklin, TN. The choral program recorded an album entitled, Visions in Sound in 2007, and were featured on 3 tours across the United States, including a festival performance at Carnegie Hall.
Dr. Barber has also served as an AP Music Theory Reader for College Board, since 2006. Her research interests included teaching strategies in the choral classroom, community partnerships, as well as the performance practice of African American Spirituals. Dr. Barber's research has lead to presentations at regional and state conferences across the southeast, as well as a recent presentation at the Phenomenon of Singing, an International Conference held in Newfoundland.
Dr. Barber holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance from Oral Roberts University, an M.M. in Music Education from Mansfield University, and a Ph.D. in Choral Music Education and Choral Conducting from The Florida State University.
Ng Tian Hui conducts the Orchestra, and teaches courses in conducting, musicianship, and performance practice at Mount Holyoke. An enthusiastic advocate of new music, he has conducted premieres of music by Colin Britt, Curt Cacioppo, Zhangyi Chen, Reena Esmail, and Americ Goh. Known for his inter-disciplinary work, Ng most recently brought together scholars in the classics and composers from three continents in a performance entitled Recalling Ariadne, which explored the story of Ariadne through the music of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Ariana, new commissions reflecting the principal protagonists in the story and its reception through history.
Ng holds a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, with Marguerite Brooks, Simon Carrington, Jeffrey Douma, and Masaaki Suzuki. He received the Bachelor of Music from the University of Birmingham, UK, where he studied composition with Vic Hoyland and orchestral conducting with Andrew Constantine.
Ng is known for his versatility as a composer and has written music for animation, dance, film, and theatre, and for the classical mediums of choir and orchestra. His works have been heard in diverse settings such as the Sundance Film Festival, Animation World Magazine, and Apsara Asia Dance. As a baritone, he has performed to critical acclaim as a soloist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonic Chamber Choir of Singapore.
Prior to his appointment at Mount Holyoke College, Ng was the Interim Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College, where he conducted the Chamber Singers and Chorale, and taught courses in conducting and art song.
The Festival Jazz Band
Tom Boates
Department Chair
Guilford High School
Music Department
The Festival Orchestra
Ng Tian Hui
Director of Orchestral Activities and Lecturer in Music at Mount Holyoke College
Meet the Festival Conductors
Tom's duties also include directing the Jazz Ensemble, the Symphony Orchestra, the Adams Middle School Jazz Band and teaching AP music theory, guitar and jazz improvisation. Over the years, his jazz groups in CT and MA have earned such distinctions as Essentially Ellington Festival finalist (2003), Berklee High School Festival finalist four times as well 12 time Western Massachusetts IAJE Champion from 1981 to 1984 followed by numerous IAJE Gold Medals.
While leading the South Hadley, MA Bands, his Jazz Ensemble was the official band of the NCAA Division II Basketball Championships, held in Springfield MA from 1983 to 1994. Under his direction, the Guilford High School Symphony Orchestra has earned three Gold Medals at the MICCA Band and Orchestra Festival in MA and in 2011 performed as an Honors Ensemble in the NAfME All-Eastern Division Conference held in Baltimore Maryland. In 2008, this group commissioned and premiered “Visions of Dance” by Elliott Del Borgo. He has been a guest clinician, adjudicator, conductor and soloist as well with both jazz and concert bands throughout New England.
Tom has performed jazz and traditional Dixieland jazz internationally for over 35 years. He is currently a member of the Wolverine Jazz Band of Boston, MA, the Williams Reunion Jazz Band of Williamstown, MA as well as a busy freelance trombonist with numerous groups throughout New England, He has recorded numerous CDs with the former Hot Cat Jazz Band, the Hot Jam Jazz Band and his current groups.