Scholarship Adjudicators

Kaitlin Bove

Kaitlin Bove

Kaitlin Bove is Director of Instrumental Ensembles and Assistant Professor of Music at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington where she directs the concert band and jazz ensemble, in addition to instructing courses in music theory and music electives. She 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. She held the position of Director of Bands at Payson High School and Director of Bands and Orchestras at Mt. Nebo Junior High School in Payson, Utah between 2008-2016. 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. Information about this program can be found at andwewereheard.org. In the vein of this philosophy, Dr. Bove maintains a high commitment to commissioning and performing works by both living and underrepresented composers.

Carol Brittin Chambers

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

Rodney Dorsey is professor of music and chair of the Band Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music; a position he has held since the fall of 2018. Dorsey is the conductor of the internationally recognized Indiana Wind Ensemble and guides all aspects of the graduate wind conducting program. Past positions have included Director of Bands at the University of Oregon, Associate Director of Bands at the University of Michigan, Associate Professor of Music at DePaul University, and Director of Athletic Bands at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. Dorsey also taught public school for eight years in Florida and Georgia.

Ensembles under Dorsey’s direction have performed at state and national events including the College Band Directors National Conference North/Northwest Regional Conference and the Music for All National Festival. He is an active guest conductor having led intercollegiate, all-state, and regional honors bands around the country. International engagements include Hungary, Canada and Bulgaria.

An active advocate for the composition of new wind repertoire, Dorsey has been involved in a number of commissioning projects that include the following composers; Andrea Reinkemeyer, Steven Mackey, D. J. Sparr, Anthony Barfield, Stacy Garrop, Andrew Rindfleisch, and John Mackey.

Dorsey has also presented clinic sessions at national and state conferences that include; the College Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, College Music Society, and the Midwest Clinic. He has also presented at numerous state music conferences around the country.

Dorsey holds a number of professional memberships that include the College Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, Indiana Bandmasters Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma (honorary), Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated.

His commitment to the music community has been demonstrated by his participation on boards of directors for the Midwest Clinic and Music for All. He is also an elected member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. His lifelong commitment to teaching saw him recognized as a Yamaha Master Educator.  

A native of Gainesville, FL. Rodney Dorsey is a graduate of Florida State University and Northwestern University in Evanston. He studied conducting with Dr. James Croft, John Paynter and Mallory Thompson and clarinet with Fred Ormand and Frank Kowalsky.

Jennifer Jolley

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

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

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.

Daniel J. Schmidt

Daniel J. Schmidt

Dr. Daniel J. Schmidt, retired full professor and director of bands at Northern Arizona University, is currently a strings specialist for the School Board of Hillsborough County in Tampa, FL. Prior to his appointment at NAU, he was director of bands and professor of saxophone and double reeds at Mars Hill College in North Carolina. College ensembles under his direction received international reputations, touring Europe, performing at various conventions including the CBDNA Regional Conventions in 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2016, as well as at a variety of state MENC conventions in North Carolina and Arizona, made several promotional recordings with Dr. Schmidt for Warner Bros. Music and Carl Fischer Music..

Dr. Schmidt received the BME from Florida State University and was appointed director of bands at Hudson High School in Pasco County, Florida, in 1987. He is the first person to receive the MM in Wind Conducting from the University of North Texas (1993) and is also the first person to receive the DMA in Wind Conducting from the University of Kentucky (2000). Dr. Schmidt was the recipient of a Fulbright Award to Australia in 1993, but refused this opportunity to become the associate director of bands at Syracuse University. He has served as clinician and adjudicator throughout the country. Publishing projects have included serving as the coordinating editor for the series of band scores entitled Percy Grainger: The Critical Edition. He is the author of My First Klose, My First Wagner, My First Universal Method, My First Barrett-Niemann, and My First Weissenborn, five intermediate lesson workbooks for woodwinds, and is the co-author of Protocol: A Guide to the Collegiate Audition Process for trumpet, clarinet, trombone, saxophone, and flute—all published through Carl Fischer Music. He is the contractor and conductor of the Trade Winds, professional string and wind ensembles that have made promotional recordings of new music for Carl Fischer Music, Play-In-Time Music, and Wingert-Jones Publishing since 2001, and is proud to annouce its new relationship with Excelcia Music Publishing as of this year. Dr. Schmidt is also a performing artist for the Yamaha Corporation and is a Past-President of the Western Region for the College Band Directors National Association.