Melinda O'Neal

Professor

D.M., M.M., Indiana University
B.M.E., Florida State University

Conductor Melinda O’Neal has been praised for her “lucid and musical understanding of the score” and “moving and satisfying interpretations” by Hugh Macdonald, Berlioz scholar and music critic. She is artistic director & conductor emeritus of Handel Choir of Baltimore (2004-2013) and professor of music at Dartmouth College where she teaches conducting, theory and history courses.

With Handel Choir of Baltimore, an oratorio ensemble performing baroque, classical and early romantic music with period instruments and music to the present, O’Neal collaborated with Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Bach Sinfonia, American Opera Theatre and Peabody Early Music. Her performances of works with chorus and period instruments included Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Die Schöpfung, Theresienmesse and Paukenmesse, Handel’s Messiah, Jephtha, Semele and Ode to the Birthday of Queen Anne, Bach cantatas, and Purcell symphony anthems. The Baltimore Sun noted, "Melinda O'Neal has steadily and rapidly honed this ensemble into quite a potent chorus… It was a thoughtfully constructed, entertaining program delivered with an informed sense of historic style.”

O’Neal led Handel Society of Dartmouth College (1979-2004) and Dartmouth Chamber Singers (1979-1996), taught at Indiana University and University of Georgia, founded and conducted Boston Vocal Artists’ Sonique, and has been guest conductor of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Hanover Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Chorale, and Vermont and New Hampshire Symphony Orchestras.

Her research focuses on music of Hector Berlioz and historical performance practices. She is currently writing Experiencing Berlioz: A Listener's Companion to be published by Scarecrow Press in 2015, and is designing a new course, Brahms, Berlioz and the Romantic Imagination, for Fall 2013. O’Neal serves on the research and publications committee of American Choral Directors Association.

Steve Swayne

ProfessorMusic Department Chair

Ph.D., M.A. University of California, Berkeley

M. Div., Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA

B.A., Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA

Steve Swayne teaches courses in art music from 1700 to the present, opera, American musical theater, Russian music, and American music. His scholarly articles have appeared in, among other places, The Sondheim Review, the Musical Quarterly, the Journal for the Royal Musical Association, American Music, and the Indiana Theory Review, and he currently serves as a senior editor of the forthcoming New Grove Dictionary of American Music II. He has contributed to commentaries on Sondheim developed by the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., and the Chicago Lyric Opera. He has written two books - How Sondheim Found His Sound (University of Michigan Press, 2005) and Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life (Oxford University Press, 2011) - and is at work on two more: one, on the life and music of musical theater composer William Finn; and another, on the intersections of music, neuroscience, and ethics.  He is an accomplished concert pianist, with four nationally distributed recordings currently in release and a performance with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas to his credit. In addition to his work at Dartmouth, he has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at UC Berkeley. He is an accomplished concert pianist, with a performance with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas to his credit. In addition to his work at Dartmouth, he has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at UC Berkeley.

Michael Casey

James Wright Professor of Music
Professor of Computer Science
Ph.D. MIT Media Laboratory
A.M. Dartmouth College

Michael Casey is the James Wright Professor of Music, Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and former Chair of the Department of Music (2009-2013) at Dartmouth College. Active in the Digital Music community both as an inventor and musician he directs the Bregman Music Audio Resaerch Studio where he conducts research and practice in music, information, and neuroscience.