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Ting Ho
Professor of Music
Theory-Composition
Coordinator
973-655-7221
hoti@mail.montclair.edu

Ting Ho, a New Jersey Distinguished Artist (1988), has received composing grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the American Music Center and Meet-the-Composer. He is the recipient of the Louis Lane Prize, and his works have been performed at Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall in New York City, and in concerts and new music festivals in the United States and Europe. Born in Chungking, China, he composed a two piano work that was featured in a Voice of America broadcast to the Orient. In 1991, Prof. Ho's composition Wild Geese Alighting was the required Chinese performance piece for children eight years old or younger at the Sixth Annual International Young Artist Piano Competition Featuring Chinese Music held in Washington, DC. Prof. Ho received his Ph.D. in music composition from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester (NY). He is a new music specialist, adjudicator and consultant for numerous community and educational arts organizations and schools.

Robert Aldridge
Cali School Director
Associate Professor of Music
Theory-Composition
973-655-7028
aldridger@mail.montclair.edu
Robert Aldridge - Website

Robert Aldridge's works for orchestra, opera, music-theater, dance, string quartet, solo and chamber ensembles have been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He has received numerous fellowships and awards for his music from the Guggenheim Foundation (2002), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2000), National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Artist's Foundation, Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund, the Oregon Arts Commission and the Portland Arts Council. His tone poem, Leda and the Swan, a commission from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Nashville Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, was premiered in January, 2003 at the New Jersey Performing Center for the Arts (NJPAC). He was a founder of the Composers in Red Sneakers, a composer consortium which achieved international recognition in the 1980's. Recordings of his music are available on BMG, GM, Foghorn, SoundVision, Open Loop and Northeastern labels. He received a Doctorate in Composition from the Yale School of Music, a Master's Degree in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Dean Drummond
Cali School Deputy Director
Associate Professor of Music— Theory-Composition
Partch Institute, Director; Partch Instrumentarium, Curator
973-655-6984
drummondd@mail.montclair.edu
deandrummond.com

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, Delusion of the Fury, 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.  

Ruth Rendleman
Professor of Music
Piano - Theory - Music History
973-655-7208
rendlemanr@mail.montclair.edu

Ruth Rendleman was educated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Manhattan School of Music, and Columbia University. She is a specialist in the performance of eighteenth-century music. She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research and studies at the University of Maryland and has served on the faculty of the Aston Magna Performance Institute. She has performed as a solo artist and in chamber recitals throughout the New York metropolitan area. Her tours abroad have included performances in Korea, China (where she was artist-in-residence at the Shanghai Conservatory), and Australia. In the New York Times, Joseph Horowitz wrote that: "The performance showed force and fluency, consistently communicative. Her work had a firmness of design and continuity of emotion." Her interest in contemporary music led her to commission her colleague, Ting Ho, to write a piano sonata for her. She has received two major commissions from the N.J. State Arts Council for new piano works. Prof. Rendleman founded Montclair State's Preparatory Center for the Arts and Stokes Forest Music Camp. She has served as the music coordinator of the New Jersey School of the Arts and served on the board of the College Music Society. She also served as chair of the Committee on the Status of Women for the College Music Society.

Patrick Burns
Adjunct Professor
Theory/Composition
973-655-7212
burnsp@mail.montclair.edu
patrickburnsmusic.com
www.myspace.com/pjbmusic

Patrick Burns (b. 1969) teaches courses in orchestration, counterpoint, and music composition at the Cali School, and also teaches instrumental music in the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools. His compositions for symphonic band are performed by bands of every level throughout the country. The United States Army Band, “Pershing’s Own”, has performed his music in Washington, D.C. and at Carnegie Hall. His music has also been performed at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. He  has been featured as guest conductor and clinician with public school, community, university and honor bands in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and has recorded and, as director of Imperial Brass, has concertized with world-renowned brass artists Philip Smith, Warren Vache, Roger Webster and Chris Jaudes. Patrick’s music has appeared on Bandworld magazine’s Top 100 list of band compositions twice and is published by G. Schirmer, Daehn Publications, FJH Music Company, Wingert-Jones Music and TRN Music Publisher. The Instrumentalist and School Music News have also printed favorable reviews of Mr. Burns’ band music and The Classical New Jersey Society Journal has praised his chamber music. His music can be heard at his websites.

Marla Meissner
Adjunct Faculty
Theory - Composition
Preparatory Center for the Arts - Acting Director
973-655-4443
meissnerm@mail.montclair.edu

Marla Meissner has been awarded degrees from Ithaca College (B. Mus), Montclair State University (M. A.), and New York University (Ph. D). Her training includes electronic music composition studies with Peter Rothbart; acoustic music composition with Ting Ho and Ruth Schonthal; Saxophone studies with David Henderson, Steven Mauk, and Daniel Trimboli; Music theory and analysis studies with Lawrence Ferrara, John Gilbert, and Marc Holland. She recently completed an extensive study of the music of the Delaware or Lenape Indian. Her compositional output includes an eclectic variety of electronic, electroacoustic, and traditional compositions for various types of instrumental ensembles as well as film soundtracks, theater music, and rock and jazz compositions. Her music has been performed in various venues including Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall and New York City's Angelika Film Center. Her first CD, Selections from the Kaleidoscope, was released in 1999. She is also an active music administrator serving as the Acting Director and Coordinator of Music Theory for the Preparatory Center for the Arts of Montclair State University.

Eric Olsen
Adjunct Professor
Accompanist
Keyboard Harmony
973-655-7212
erolsen@yahoo.com
Eric Olsen website

Eric Olsen (M.M., Jazz Studies, Indiana University, M.M., Piano Performance, Indiana University, B.M. in Piano Performance with an Organ Minor, Syracuse University) is distinguished as both a classical and jazz pianist, organist, composer, and conductor.  Mr. Olsen is Music Director and Organist at Union Congregational Church in Montclair, where he has conducted numerous major works with chamber orchestras, featuring musicians from the New Jersey Symphony.  He has composed classical works for chorus, piano, and organ, and jazz works for various ensembles.  He has performed as a classical and jazz pianist at Carnegie Hall, Birdland, the Knitting Factory, and overseas in France, Germany, New Zealand, and India.  Mr. Olsen has recorded six classical albums and four jazz albums, and has worked with many outstanding jazz and classical artists, including Eliot Zigmund, George Garzone, Glenn Davis, Ed Cherry, David N. Baker, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Kevin Maynor.  His latest recording is Dyad, a duo album with saxophonist Lou Caimano. Paquito D’Rivera, Grammy winning saxophonist and composer, says of Dyad: “Caimano and Olsen go back and forth through the too often forbidden borders between Classical and Jazz, with the ease of a couple of North-Mexican coyotes crossing the Rio Grande.”  Mr. Olsen has been a featured soloist with the Livingston Symphony, the Central Jersey Symphony, and the Orchard Park Symphony. He has been a featured jazz performer at the AT&T, Berk’s, and Asbury Park Jazz Festivals.