Scholarship Adjudicators
Kaitlin Bove
Dr. Kaitlin Bove serves as Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California where she directs the Symphonic Band and Viking Ensemble in addition to instructing coursework in American multicultural music. She is artistic director and conductor of the BDWinds, the youth wind ensemble branch of the Blue Devils Performing Arts organization, and the Oakland Municipal Band which offers summer concerts in Oakland’s Lake Merritt Park. Prior to these appointments, she was the Director of Instrumental Music at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington where she was awarded “Outstanding Faculty of the Year” in 2020. Kaitlin holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Wind Conducting from University of Kentucky where she was a student of Cody Birdwell, a teaching assistant, and premiered her wind transcription of Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices in 2019.
Dr. Bove is from Lafayette, California and earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Education from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California where she studied with Eric Hammer. Prior to her doctoral work, she taught instrumental music at the secondary level in Payson, Utah. In this setting, she instructed courses in band, orchestra, marching band, jazz ensemble, AP music theory, guitar, folk music, musical theater, and mariachi.
Kaitlin is founder of the And We Were Heard initiative which matches underrepresented composers of wind band literature with volunteer ensembles in order to generate quality recordings of the music of diverse compositional voices. In the vein of this philosophy, Dr. Bove maintains a high commitment to commissioning and performing works by both living and historically marginalized composers. She is also co-founder of Girls Who Conduct, a mentorship program that supports gender parity on the conducting podium, and is the organization’s High School-Collegiate Virtual Mentorship Program Coordinator.
Dr. Bove currently serves as the DEIA chair with California Band Directors Association where she coordinates the annual Social Impact Consortium which generates new, culturally-relevant literature for wind band, premiered yearly by California All State ensembles. She is a member of National Band Association, College Band Directors National Association, Women Band Director International, and the scholarship committee for Lift Up Our Voices. Kaitlin supports local music programs and educators with frequent clinics and organizing professional development opportunities in addition to directing honor bands and adjudicating festivals across the United States. She is also an active arranger and transcriber with works for band and flexible instrumentation available through Murphy Music Press.
Kaitlin’s professional interests include working with diverse student and community populations, cross-curricular collaborative experiences, and relevancy and shifting priorities in the 21st century music classroom. In her free time, Kaitlin enjoys playing banjo, hiking, podcast bingeing, and spending time with her Pug-Tzu, Knut.
Carol Brittin Chambers
Carol Brittin Chambers is currently the composer and owner of Aspenwood Music, LLC aspenwoodmusic.com. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, where she is also on the music faculty at Texas Lutheran University.
Chambers is commissioned each year to compose and arrange works for concert band, marching band, orchestra, and various other ensembles. Her concert works have been selected to the J.W. Pepper Editor’s Choice List and the Bandworld Top 100 and have been performed at state educator conferences across the country, including the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. She was most recently named the winner of the 2019 WBDI (Women Band Directors International) Composition Competition. She has arranged and orchestrated marching shows for numerous high school and college bands across the country, as well as The Crossmen Drum Corps.
Before coming to TLU, Chambers taught middle school and high school band and private lessons for many years in the North East Independent School District, San Antonio, TX. She has also consistently performed with groups such as the Mid-Texas and San Antonio Symphonies.
Chambers received a Master of Music in Trumpet Performance from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Music Education from Texas Tech University. She studied under Vincent Cichowicz, John Paynter, Arnold Jacobs, James Sudduth, and Will Strieder.
Rodney Dorsey
Rodney Dorsey is Professor of Music at the Florida State University College of Music where he conducts the FSU Wind Orchestra and guides the graduate wind conducting program.
Dorsey comes to FSU from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he conducted the IU Wind Ensemble and taught graduate conducting courses. Prior to his tenure at the Jacobs School, Dorsey served on the faculties of the University of Oregon, University of Michigan, DePaul University and Northwestern University. He also gained extensive experience teaching in the public schools of Florida and Georgia.
Dorsey studied conducting with Mallory Thompson, John P. Paynter, and James Croft. He was a clarinet student of Fred Ormand and Frank Kowalsky.
During his conducting career, Dorsey has led performances at several prominent events including the American Bandmasters Association Convention, College Band Directors National Conference North/Northwest Regional Conference, and the Bands of America National Festival. He is active as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in the United States. International engagements include Hungary, Canada, and Bulgaria.
Dorsey’s commitment to community has been demonstrated by his participation on the board of directors for Music for All and the Midwest Clinic. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Clinic. Other professional memberships include the College Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, Florida Bandmasters Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma (honorary), Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Dorsey is also an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. Most recently Dorsey was named a Yamaha Master Educator.
Jennifer Jolley
Composer Jennifer Jolley's diverse catalog includes choral, orchestral, wind ensemble, chamber, and electronic works. She has been commissioned by ensembles and institutions across the United States, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, University of Texas at Austin, Bowling Green State University, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, The Canales Project, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, among others. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and has written articles for the e-zine NewMusicBox.
In recent years, Jennifer has been increasingly drawn toward subjects that are political and even provocative. Her 2015 collaboration with librettist Kendall A, Prisoner of Conscience, sets to music statements made by the Russian punk-rock band Pussy Riot as they stood trial in Moscow for “hooliganism” and “religious hatred.” Quince Ensemble has performed the piece widely and has released a recording on their album Motherland with New Focus Recordings.Jennifer's 2017 piece The Eyes of the World Are Upon You, commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin Wind Ensemble, reflects on the first-ever campus shooting in America, which took place at UT-Austin in 1966.
Jennifer's blog—on which she has catalogued more than 100 rejection letters from competitions, festivals, and prizes—is widely read and admired by professional musicians. She is particularly passionate about this project as a composition teacher, and enjoys removing the taboo around “failure” for her students. In addition to her professorship at Texas Tech, she is a member of the composition faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp.
Jennifer deeply values the relationship that is created between composers and the communities with whom they collaborate. She has been composer-in-residence at Brevard College, University of Toledo, and the Vermont Symphony, and was in-residence at the Central Michigan University School of Music and the Alba Music Festival in Italy in 2018. She will be the Composer-in-Residence of the Women Composers Festival of Hartford in 2019.
Jennifer Jolley took 2nd Place for the 2017–18 American Prize in Composition (Band/Wind Ensemble Division) and was a finalist for the the Symphony Number One Call for Scores. She holds degrees from the University of Southern California and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where her principal teachers included Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, Michael Fiday, Joel Hoffman, and Douglas Knehans.
Yukiko Nishimura
Yukiko Nishimura, Composer/Pianist, was born in Japan. She graduated from Tokyo National University of Arts in 1990. In 1991, she began private study with Dr. Alfred Reed at the University of Miami and in 1993 she continued her studies with Dr. Richard Danielpour at Manhattan School of Music. Among her honors, are the nomination for the 8th Hollywood Music in Media Awards, the special mention at the 15th and 26th International Competition for Original Composition for band in Corciano, Italy and the 6th Aoyama Award. Since 1996, she has given concerts consisting entirely of her own music in Japan. She gave a solo piano recital at the New York Public Library, Donnell Library Center in 2003. In 2005, her commissioned work for the first silent film in the United States “Edison’s 1910 Frankenstein” for string quartet was premiered in Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania by the Covington String Quartet. The music for the silent film “The Water Magician” directed by Kenji Mizoguchi in 1933 was premiered in 2007. In 2010, a theatrical work “Fantasy of Kenji” based on the stories by Kenji Miyazawa was premiered. In 2014, she collaborated with Noh play, which is Japanese traditional theater work, as a composer and a pianist.
In 2017, her piano work was performed by America’s famous pianist Sara Davis Buechner at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. The work received reviews in the New York Times, New York Concert Reviews, and more. Her work was nominated in the category of Contemporary Classical for “The 9th Hollywood Music in Media Award 2018”.
Ms. Nishimura has received numerous commissions and has composed for piano, marimba, percussion, chamber music, band music, music for string instruments and orchestra. She has also been active as a pianist and an arranger. She has studied composition with Atsutada Otaka, Dr. Alfred Reed, Dr. Richard Danielpour, and Giampaolo Bracali. She studied piano with Ivan Davis and Dr. Sara Davis Buechner.
David Samuel
David Samuel is a native of Pensacola, Florida. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education at Troy University. After graduation, David continued his education at Troy where he obtained his Master’s Degree in the Science of Education. David has composed and arranged music for concert bands, jazz bands, and marching bands around the southeast and is a multi-award winning writer for his music on JW Pepper. In addition to his composing and arranging, David enjoys performing live as a jazz pianist. David is currently the Director of Bands at Foley High School in Foley, Alabama.