Kui Dong

P

Professor
D.M.A., Stanford University
B.A., M.A., Central Conservatory, Beijing, China

Kui Dong was born in Beijing, China and in 1991 she moved to California, where she obtained a doctoral degree in composition from Stanford University. Since 2003 she has been associate professor of Music at Dartmouth College. Kui's compositions span diverse genres and styles and include ballet, chamber works, chorus, electro-acoustic/computer music, film scores, and multi-media art. Many of her compositions have incorporated traditional Chinese musical ideas into contemporary settings. Her works have been recognized by international competition prizes and fellowships, and have been performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Central Ballet of
China, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, The Symphony Orchestra of the Musical Theatre-Studio, the New York New Music Ensemble, Alea III New Music Ensemble, Music from China, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay New Music Ensemble, San Francisco Chamber Music Singers, Core Ensemble, Longy New Music Ensemble, the Beijing Dance Institute, Composer's Inc., pianist Sarah Cahill and others and have been presented in festivals and concerts in the US, France, Finland, China, Argentina, Canada, and Germany.

Janet Polk

Senior Lecturer, Bassoon
M.A., University of New Hampshire

Janet Polk is principal bassoonist with Portland (ME) Symphony and Vermont Symphony.  As a soloist, she has performed with the orchestras of Portland, Vermont, Indian Hill, Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire and with the Furman University Concert Band. Chamber music is a vital part of her musical life and with the trio, Sospiri, has recorded a CD entitled Trios of the 20^th and 21^st Century.  In addition to her performing career, Janet is on the faculties of Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire.

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. 

Sally Pinkas

Professor
Ph.D., Brandeis University
M.M., Indiana University
Artist Diploma, New England Conservatory

Since her London debut, Israeli-born pianist Sally Pinkas has concertized widely in the USA, Europe, Russia, China and Africa, as soloist and as a member of the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo (with husband Evan Hirsch). She has participated in summer festivals at Marlboro, Tanglewood, Aspen, Kfar Blum (Israel), Rocca di Mezzo (Italy) and Pontlevoy (France), and has appeared as soloist with the Boston Pops, Aspen Philharmonia, Jupiter Symphony, and the Dobrich Chamber Orchestra (Bulgaria).

Her extensive discography includes Debussy’s Twelve Etudes and Estampes (Centaur), Rochberg’s Piano works (Naxos), Bread and Roses: Piano works by Christian Wolff (Mode), and Fauré’s Thirteen Nocturnes (Musica Omnia), named one of 2002's best CDs by The Boston Globe. A Schumann solo disc, as well as Fauré’s two Piano Quartets (with the Adaskin Trio) were recently released on MSR Classics to critical acclaim. Pinkas holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Ph.D. in Composition and Theory from Brandeis University. Her principal teachers were Russell Sherman, George Sebok, Luise Vosgerchian and Genia Bar-Niv (piano), Sergiu Natra (composition), and Robert Koff (chamber music). She serves as Pianist-in-residence and Professor of Music at Dartmouth College (NH).

Theodore Levin

Arthur R. Virgin Professor of Music

Ph.D., M.F.A., Princeton University

B.A., Amherst College

Theodore Levin is a specialist on music, expressive culture, and traditional spirituality in Central Asia and Siberia. His two books, The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York) and Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Music, and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond, which won ASCAPís 2007 BÈla Bartok Award for Excellence in Ethnomusicology. As an advocate for music and musicians from other cultures, Levin has produced recordings, curated concerts and festivals, and contributed to international arts initiatives. During an extended leave from Dartmouth, he served as the first executive director of the Silk Road Project, founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and currently serves as Senior Project Consultant to the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia, and as a chair of the Arts and Culture sub-board of the Soros Foundationsí Open Society Institute. He is currently working on a book on culture and development in Asia, and completing a 10-volume CD-DVD series, ìMusic of Central Asiaî, released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. At Dartmouth he teaches courses on ethnomusicology and world music, sacred music in East and West, and, in 2008, began teaching an interdisciplinary course on the Silk Road.