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Dean Drummond
Associate Professor of Music
Theory - Composition
Partch Institute, Director
Curator, Partch Instrumentarium
973-655-6984
drummondd@mail.montclair.edu
Dean Drummond - Newband Website

Dean Drummond attended the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts. He studied trumpet with Don Ellis and John Clyman, composition with Leonard Stein, and worked as musician for and assistant to the composer Harry Partch. He performed in the premieres of Partch's Daphne of the Dunes, And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma, and Delusion of the Fury, and on both Partch Columbia Masterworks recordings made during the late 60's. He has performed and recorded extensively with Newband, which he co-founded with flutist Stefani Starin in 1977, and served as director of the Harry Partch Instrumentarium and taught theory and composition with an emphasis on microtonal music. His music has been recorded on Innova, Mode, and Music and Arts, and performed throughout the world including at Avery Fisher, Alice Tully and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Library of Congress, and the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. Drummond has produced and music-directed Harry Partch's The Wayward, Daphne of the Dunes, Oedipus, and his own The Last Laugh, a live film score for the silent film by F.W. Murnau. He has produced and performed on recordings of music by Harry Partch and John Cage and premiered new works by Cage, John Zorn, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lasse Thoresen, Mathew Rosenblum, Elizabeth Brown.  

David Singer
Professor of Music
Clarinet
Woodwinds Coordinator
Chamber Music
973-655-7217
singerd@mail.montclair.edu

Born and raised in Los Angeles, David Singer is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelpha and the Vienna Hochschule fur Musik. He has been a member of the MSU faculty since 1989. Co-Principal Clarinet of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1978, David Singer has performed as soloist with Orpheus throughout the U.S., Europe, Israel, and India including a performance at Carnegie Hall in 2003 celebrating the orchestra’s 30th anniversary season. He also performed the Copland Concerto at the Bath Festival in England, which was broadcast live by the BBC.  In the 2004-05 season, David Singer premiered the Concerto for Clarinet which was written for him by Guggenheim-Award-winning composer and MSU colleague Robert Aldridge. Singer has been featured on Deutsche Grammophon, Columbia, Nonesuch, and “Music From Marlboro” recordings, many of which have won awards, including a Grammy in 2001. As a member of the Aulos Wind Quintet, he commissioned and recorded John Harbison’s Quintet For Winds, which has become a standard of the quintet repertory. In addition, Singer participated in the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s quartet Fortune in Germany, with the composer as pianist.

Melody Alesi-Pazian
Adjunct Faculty
Music in Film
973-655-7212

Melody Alesi is a performing artist, teacher, writer, director and producer for theater and opera. Her background in music and literature has led to a strong interest in film and film music. She trained as a classical soprano and has performed with the Hong Kong Opera (Marguerite in Faust), Sofia National Orchestra in Bulgaria (Violetta in La Traviata), L'Opera Martinique (Donna Anna in Don Giovanni), and as a solo artist at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Ms. Alesi is the recipient of many awards including the Licia Albanese/Puccini Foundation Scholarship and the Enrico Caruso International vocal competition. She has worked under the baton of conductors such as Will Crutchfield for Bel Canto at Caramoor (Luisa Miller) and Anton Coppola in Sacco and Vanzetti (Luigia Vanzetti). She is currently working on a libretto for a new opera and is the author of numerous short stories and memoirs. She holds a Masters degree from the College of Staten Island in English Education and is completing her Masters in English and Dramatic Literature.

Daniel Beliavsky
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212
deb228@nyu.edu

Daniel Beliavsky performed Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra during the opening concerts of the 1993-1994 subscription season. Since then, Daniel has often appeared as a soloist with orchestra and in recital in both the United States and Europe. He has played twice in Russia in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and has recorded a compact-disc with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, he has recorded three compact-discs on the sonatabop.com label. His discography includes the world-premiere recording of Lukas Foss' complete piano works, Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition, and numerous works by Scarlatti, Bach, Schubert, and Chopin. Daniel is a Steinway Artist and Personality, and lives in New York City, where he is an active composer, theorist, and performer. In addition to his teaching at Montclair State University, he is on the faculty of NYU, Yeshiva University and Queensborough Community College.

Robert Butts
Adjunct Professor
Introduction to Music
973-655-7212
boblute@aol.com

Robert Butts is the conductor of the Little Opera of New Jersey (Westfield) and the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey. He has served as conductor with the Skylands Youth Symphony and the Highland Park Recorder Society and Chamber Orchestra. His work with the Highland Pak Recorder Society earned him the 1996 DeMarsh Award from the American Recorder Society. With the Baroque Orchestra of Boonton he presents an annual Vivaldi Festival featuring chamber and orchestral works by Vivaldi and his Venetian contemporaries. He led concerts at the 1999 and 2001 Boston Early Music Festival. He has conducted the Philharmonica de Stat Botosani orchestra in Romania and performances of Verdi's Il Trovatore and Rigoletto with Opera Constatna. He was guest conductor for the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg, Russia. His compositions have been published and he has won awards at the Leo Traynor competitions. He has contributed reviews and articles to Opera News, Classical New Jersey, American Music, Continuo, American Recorder, and Lute Society Quarterly. He served as pre-concert lecturer for the New Jersey Symphony Amadeus Festival at NJPAC and Princeton's Richardson Auditorium. He lectures regularly throughout the metropolitan area. He studied conducting at Juilliard School and received musicological training from MSU and the University of Iowa.

Joe Coco
Adjunct Professor
General Education
Rap and Rock
973-655-7212
cocojoseph@hotmail.com
Joe Coco - Website

Steve Colson
Adjunct Professor
Music and World Cultures
973-655-7212
colsonpiano@hotmail.com

Adegoke Steve Colson, pianist and composer, has performed internationally as a bandleader of ensembles from trios to orchestras. Born in New Jersey, he graduated from Northwestern University School of Music. In 1972 Steve joined Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a cooperative influencing music internationally in the 20th and 21st Century; he has performed with or featured in his own groups a host of luminaries and innovators. Appearances have taken him throughout the U.S., Western Europe, The Caribbean, Turkey, Israel, and Africa; he has headlined the largest Jazz festivals in the world (North Sea Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Red Sea Festival). Steve has awards from State Arts Councils (IL, NJ, NY, PA), the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Foundation, and Arts International. NJ Chamber Music Society commissioned “…as in a Cultural Reminiscence…” – an orchestral collaboration with word masters Amiri Baraka (The Dutchman, Blues People, Last Poet Laureate of NJ) and Richard Wesley (Talented Tenth, Uptown Saturday Night) that has met only standing ovations in the USA and France.  Steve is on American, European and Japanese record labels: Columbia/Sony, Evidence, and Black Saint. He is ASCAP-affiliated, and his latest CD collaboration with his wife, vocalist/lyricist Iqua Colson, is Hope For Love on their own Silver Sphinx label.

Diane Farrell
Adjunct Professor
Intro to Music
973-655-7212

Tatyana Kebuladze
Adjunct Faculty
Secondary Piano
Accompanist
973-655-7212
NUSYA@netzero.net

Tatyana Kebuladze, is a native of Ukraine, where she graduated from the Gliere State Music College, the alma mater of virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz. As a pianist for four years with the New Jersey Children's Choir, Ms. Kebuladze has accompanied the choir in concerts in New York and on their Canadian tour. She was also a guest artist with the New Jersey Chamber Music Society. Ms. Kebuladze graduated with honors from Montclair State University, where she received various awards, including the School of the Arts Talent Award with full tuition scholarship. Tatyana holds a Master in Music degree from Rutgers University. In addition to her work at MSU, she is an adjunct faculty member at Westminster Choir College.

Reggie Lucas
Adjunct Professor
Rap and Rock
973-655-7212

Caroline Parody
Adjunct Faculty
Secondary Voice
973-655-7212
parodyc@mail.montclair.edu

Caroline Parody received her master's degree in piano from Montclair State University, and her bachelors degree from William Paterson University. Roles include Elsa in Lohengrin with Operesque Classical Concerts, and Greta Fiorentino in Kurt Weill's opera Street Scene. She has been a featured performer at Al Di La's Opera Nights (Montclair, NJ) and and has performed in Too Many Sopranos with the La Bella Voce opera ensemble. She participated in a scenes program at Dicapo Opera Theatre in NYC, as Agathe in Der Freischütz. In MSU's Opera Workshop, she played Elisetta in Il segreto matrimonio, and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition to her work at MSU, Ms. Parody serves as vocal coach and accompanist for the Newark Boys Chorus School. She is also an accompanist for several groups, including Zion Lutheran Church in Saddle River (organ), MSU, the Concord Singers, and the Oratorio Society of New Jersey. She studies voice with Thaddeus Motyka, and coaches with Louis Menendez.

Mark Polishook
Adjunct Professor
Music Technology
polishookm@mail.montclair.edu
Mark Polishook - Website

New media artist, composer and jazz pianist Mark Polishook has a D.M.A. in Composition from the Hartt School of Music, an M.M. in Jazz from the Manhattan School of Music, and an M.A. in Composition from the University of Pittsburgh. He has been an artist-in-residence in the Computer Science Department at Aarhus University in Denmark, a visiting composer at the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology at UC-Santa Barbara, a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in the Electro-acoustic Music Studio at the Cracow Academy of Music, and a Resident Artist in the Television/New Media Department at the Banff Centre for the Arts. His electronic chamber opera, Seed of Sarah, was developed into an independent film by Emmy award-winning director Andrea Weiss and has been seen across Europe, the United States, and New Zealand. Mr. Polishook has lectured on computer programming and composing at the International Academy of Media Art and Science in Okagi City, Japan, the Interactive Institute in Piteå, Sweden, the Cracow Academy of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. A semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition and a finalist in the Great American Jazz Piano Competition, Mr. Polishook has performed with many well-known improvisers.

Joseph Smith 
Adjunct Faculty
General Education
Introduction to Music
(973) 655-7212
JSpgrs@aol.com

Joseph Smith is known for presenting lesser-known works through performances, recordings, publications, and broadcasts. His work has been featured on NPR's Performance Today. He writes the column, "Rare Finds," for Piano Today. These have been published as a collection, Piano Discoveries by Ekay Music. He ahs also written for other piano magazines, including the British Piano. Smith has brought many works to public attention through recordings including Familiar Melodies and Piano Waltzes from Beethoven to Poulenc (Brioso). He is editor of such diverse anthologies as Four Early 20th Century Piano Suites by Black Composers, Country Gardens and Other Piano Works by Percy Grainger, American Piano Classics, and Tangos, Milongas, and Other Latin-American Dances for Solo Piano. His anthology of romantic music, Romancing the Piano, has just appeared in the Steinway library of piano music. Mr. Smith has been engaged as lecturer by music schools, universities, and other organizations nationally. He was twice invited to address the International NY Competition for Outstanding Amateur Pianists. Smith has an entry in the new edition of David Dubal's The Art of the Piano, and is cited in Maurice Hinson's The Literature of the Piano.

Joseph Turrin
Adjunct Professor
Music in Film
973-655-7212
jturrin@josephturrin.com
Joseph Turrin - Website

Joseph Turrin is active as a composer, orchestrator, conductor, pianist, and teacher. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Academy Orchestra. Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Baltimore Symphony, Gewandhausorchester (Leipzig, Germany), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Turrin has appeared as a conductor with the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, and New Jersey Symphonies; he has performed as a pianist on many recordings and as orchestral pianist for the New Jersey Symphony. His compositions for film and theater include scores for Alan Alda's film A New Life, Little Darlings, Weeds (with Nick Nolte), Tough Guys Don't Dance (Directed by Norman Mailer), Verna-USO Girl (with Sissy Spacek and William Hurt and nominated for 3 Emmy Awards), Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Kingdom of Shadows (narrated by Rod Steiger), Broken Blossoms (1919 silent film classic directed by D.W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish) and for the restoration of the silent film classic Sadie Thompson. Other silent film classics that he has scored include, Diary of a Lost Girl, Intolerance and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His work in musical theater includes performances on Broadway with Michael Feinstein as well as the score for Frankie, with a libretto by Broadway legend George Abbott.

Jessica Valiente 
Adjunct Professor
World Music
jessicavalientenyc@hotmail.com

Flutist/percussionist/composer Jessica Valiente earned a BA in music from Barnard College in conjunction with Manhattan School of Music, an MA in music performance from Queens College and is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the CUNY Graduate Center. She studied Afro-Cuban percussion in Santo Domingo and New York City. She performs with many classical, jazz, experimental and Latin groups. Her performances include work with Nuyorican salsa conjunto of timbalero/band leader Orlando Marin, Teatro Pregones, the Harbor Wind Quintet, and an all-female straight-ahead jazz group, Nosotras, Non Sequitur (flute, violin, cello) and her own Latin jazz and salsa band, Los Mas Valientes. In May of 1999 Los Mas Valientes released their self-titled debut CD (Laughing Buddha) and later releases, Gira Caribena and Titere Fue. Ms. Valiente has taught music at Brooklyn College, John Jay College, University of Bridgeport and New School University and is currently on the music faculty of Mercy College.