Being an instructor at Wright State University has been the best of many musical worlds for me. It is a position that I stumbled into for I truly never saw myself as teaching college. But here I am doing many of the things I am passionate about; teaching and performing on the bassoon, conducting and building a concert band, overseeing the instrumental student teaching program, and making an impact on music education majors.
At Wright State University I perform in the faculty woodwind quintet and the university chamber orchestra as well as doing a solo recital each year. I am principal bassoonist in the Lebanon Symphony and am on several sub lists in the greater Cincinnati and Dayton areas. My master’s degree is in bassoon performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music and my major teachers include Bill Davis, John Hunt, Loren Glickman and Carl Niche. Bill Davis was the biggest influence in my appreciation and excitment about contemporary music and in pointing me in the direction of Eastman. Loren Glickman instilled in me a real passion for playing the bassoon. The first summer I attended the Popkin/Glickman bassoon camp in Wildacres, NC I was just blown away by Loren's playing, it really opened me up to who I am today as a performer.
My bachelor’s degree is in music education from the University of Georgia and I had the fortune to student teach at Lassiter High School under Alfred Watkins and Sue Samuels, two of the best. After grad school I taught for over 12 years in public school, directing bands at the middle and high school levels and building award winning instrumental programs in upstate New York and Raleigh, North Carolina. When my wife's job at Proctor & Gamble moved us to Ohio I took time off from the classroom to be a stay-at-home dad. During that time I worked on the Mason high school marching band staff, began teaching private bassoon lessons, and moved into my current position as the assistant marching band director at Lebanon high school. Everyone keeps thinking that I will outgrow marching band someday, I hope they are wrong. I have also been a woodwind adjudicator for OMEA and serve as a band and orchestra adjudicator for Showcase Music Festivals.
Outside of all of that I manage to make time for my family and to read a book or two. I am a huge Stephen King fan, having read almost everything published by the master of the macabre, never going as far as to say I am King's number one fan, that would just be farmhouse-in-the-middle-of-the-woods creepy. It would be amazing to meet King someday, though there is a distinct possibility that I would be speechless. Other authors I enjoy include the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series, James Patterson, Tobias Wolf, and Pat Conroy.