Band - Glen Schneider

Glen Schneider teaches at Metea Valley High School which is located in the Indian Prairie School District #204, serving students from Naperville and Aurora, Illinois. He is currently in his eleventh year of teaching where his curricular assignments include teaching Wind Symphony, Technique Classes, Concert Band, Concert Winds, and Percussion Class. He directs the MV Marching Mustangs, Jazz Ensemble, Percussion Ensembles, and Pep Band. Mr. Schneider earned his Bachelor of Science in Music Education Degree from Duquesne University (2001), Pittsburgh, PA, and his Master’s Degree in Music Education from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago. Mr. Schneider’s previous teaching positions include Neuqua Valley and Metea Valley, Oswego Community School District, Traughber Junior High School, Thompson Junior High School, and Oswego High School. From 2001-2002 he worked as a K-3 General Music Teacher in the Fox Chapel Area School District in Fox Chapel, PA, while also teaching at Trinity High School in Washington, PA as the Percussion Coordinator. He has served as the Illinois Music Educators Association District IX Band Representative and as Band Chairperson for the Fox Valley Music Festival.

Mr. Schneider is an active conductor and clinician, having directed the Junior High District 1 IMEA Jazz Ensemble Festival in 2006, the Western Sun Conference 9th & 10th Grade Honor Band in 2010, and the IMEA District IX High School Jazz Ensemble in 2011. He was selected for the National Band Association’s 2008 International Conducting Symposium, and is a panel member of the Music Achievement Council (NAMM). He has presented clinic sessions at the VanderCook Day of Percussion and the Illinois Collegiate Music Educators Association Conference. His professional memberships include the Illinois Music Educators Association, Music Educators National Conference, the National Band Association, the Vic Firth Education Team, and the Percussive Arts Society. Mr. Schneider lives in Oswego with his wife Ashlee and their three children Corinne, Caleb, and Calvin.

Chorus - Cecil Shoemaker

Mr. Cecil Shoemaker, a native of Lafayette, Indiana, is a music teacher and choir director at Tecumseh Junior High School and class piano instructor at Jefferson High School in the Lafayette School Corporation and has taught music in the public schools since 1981. Receiving his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Indiana University in 1980 and his Master of Science in Education from Purdue University in 1986, he was awarded the Golden Apple Award by the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce in 1997, and he is one of eight Indiana music educators approved for the distinction of National Certified Music Educator by the Music Educators National Conference.

Mr. Shoemaker co-founded the Greater Lafayette Children's Choir in 1992, which merged with the Bach Chorale Organization in July of 1999 to become the Bach Chorale Children's Choir, a training and performing choir in Lafayette, which he directed until 2008. Mr. Shoemaker has prepared children and youth for many community opera and theatre productions.

Mr. Shoemaker has been actively involved in the "Circle the State with Song" Children's Choral Festivals sponsored by the Indiana Music Educators Association since their inception in 1989, serving as area coordinator, elementary festival choir conductor and preparing students for selection to the Honor Choirs.
 

General Music - Brian Uerling

Brian Uerling has been a public school music educator since 1983, teaching in Nebraska, Missouri and New Mexico rural and urban schools. His assignments have included all areas of K-12 general, choral and instrumental music instruction. He is currently the general, choral and instrumental music instructor at Ranchvale Elementary School, one of 12 elementary schools in the Clovis, New Mexico Municipal School System. He teaches K-6 general music, as well as 6th grade band and choir. His school is several miles outside the city limits and serves children from Cannon Air Force Base in addition to rural students from local farms and ranches. He has been a church musician and private music instructor since 1976.

In addition to his duties at Ranchvale, he directs the Clovis “Ambassador Choir”—an ensemble of eighty 5th and 6th grade students auditioned from all 12 elementary schools. They were the “General Music Honor Choir” at the January 2011 New Mexico Music Educator’s Conference and Festival held in Albuquerque, selected by blind audition from submissions throughout the state. Brian was the “Music Educator of the Year” for New Mexico in 2006. His undergraduate work was done at Hastings College (Hastings, Nebraska) and he received a Master of Music Education degree from Eastern New Mexico University (Portales, New Mexico) in 2000. He has been a member of Music Educators National Conference since 1983, and has been a district president and state officer for the New Mexico division.
 

Guitar - Juan Garcia

I was born in Astoria, Queens in New York City to Spanish-Colombian parents. From an early age I was exposed to a wide variety of music such as Latin, Motown/pop, rock-n-roll and classical. Although I first studied graphic art at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in Manhattan after winning an arts scholarship, I eventually decided to focus my efforts in music.

My formal musical training was at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in Flushing, New York. I received my B.A. in Music with NYS certification K-12, completing both vocal and instrumental sequences.

I was one of 25 national recipients of a Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund award which funded my M.S. in Music Education. Website: juangarciamusic.com

I have taught K through University levels in the following subjects: College-level Music Theory, Elementary General Music, Chorus, Recorders, Middle School Guitar, Concert Band, High School/Middle School & Elementary String Orchestras.

I presently teach Elementary String Orchestra in the Great Neck School District.
 

Jazz - Scott Rybolt
 

Orchestra - Sandra Dackow

Sandra Dackow is currently the Music Director of the Hershey Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania. An Aspen Conducting Fellow in 2001, she was awarded the Silver medal in the 2001 Vakhtang Jordania/New Millennium International Conducting Competition in Kharkov, Ukraine. She is former Music Director of the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey. Recent guest conducting experiences include appearances with the Helena Symphony, Montana, the All-Queensland Honors Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, the Kharkov Philharmonic in Ukraine, the Rapides Symphony, Alexandria, Louisiana, and the Moriah College Orchestra in Australia.

Dr. Dackow has served as visiting faculty member during summer sessions of the Eastman School of Music, Temple University, Montclair State College, NJ, Wichita State University, the University of Alaska – Fairbanks. Most recently, she served on the faculty of Brandeis University as director of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble.

A native of East Paterson, New Jersey, Dr. Dackow served as Supervisor of Music for the Ridgewood, NJ public schools, and former chair of the string department and orchestra director at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

An award-winning ASCAP arranger, Dr. Dackow has generated over seventy published works for orchestras and is an author of the Orchestra Expressions curriculum. She has shared her expertise on professional issues in many ways over her 35 years as an active, contributing member of the National Association for Music Education. Dr. Dackow was named a Lowell Mason Fellow at NAfME in 2008.