Letter from the Department
Welcome to this concert presentation by the Music Program in the Department of Performing Arts. We are delighted to have the wonderful support of great families and friends. A very special welcome goes out to our visitors from the community who may not have any affiliation to our students, and simply come to hear spectacular musical performances by these talented student musicians. We hope everyone in our audience is pleased with the musical selections; and proud of the achievement of the students involved.
The students you will hear at this performance are not music majors. They do this for their love of music and dedicate their time and energy to cultivating their passion for this art form. They are as dedicated to their studies and career pursuits as they are to this intrinsic passion they have within them. The program is fortunate to have a bounty of students with this yearning. We would not exist without them!
The Music Program and Department of Performing Arts is dedicated to providing robust opportunities in the performing arts while students are at Drexel. Our goal is to provide a positive and supportive environment for our students. It is our hope that students and audiences alike feel they are represented in the selections being performed. The human connection is most important to us all.
Thank you for attending this performance. Being here is the greatest show of support for the students, the Music Program, and the Department of Performing Arts. Thanks to the dedicated leadership of the faculty ensemble directors and staff, we are pleased to present you with the following program.
Sincerely,
Luke Abruzzo, Music Program Director Miriam Giguere, PhD, Department Head, Performing Arts
Ensemble Director’s Message
Thank you for joining us tonight. This concert began with the theme of childhood, but as we worked through the repertoire, we discovered a much deeper thread—one that celebrates joy and wonder, yes, but also calls us to awareness, memory, and action. Music like A Toonful Tune and Children’s March remind us of the beauty and imagination of youth. Others, like As the World Watched and Watchman, Tell Us of the Night, confront tragedies we wish didn’t exist but must not ignore. I’m proud of this ensemble not just for their musicianship, but for their willingness to engage with this music honestly and courageously. We hope this program moves you—to smile, to reflect, and to remember what childhood means, and what it deserves.
— Dr. Domenic Pisano Director, Drexel University Concert Band
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Luke Abruzzo, Music Program Director; Miriam Giguere, Performing Arts Department Head; Jason Schupbach, Dean of Westphal College of Media Arts and Design; the administrative team, Ellie Ebby, Hannah Burke, Lauren Tracy; and our graduate assistant Cecelia Hill for your work, guidance, and support of our students in the Drexel University Concert Band.This does not happen without you!
Thank you to the Drexel community at large for your support and encouragement of this group of young musicians.
Drexel Performing Arts would like to thank Senior Vice President for Student Success, Dr. Subir Sahu, for his continued support of Performing Arts at Drexel.
About the Ensemble
The Drexel University Concert Band connects students from across the university through shared experience and performance. The students who make up this ensemble are non-music-performance majors who come from backgrounds in architecture, biology, engineering, computer science, fashion design, behavioral and health sciences, music industry, and more. These students rehearse twice a week, Monday and Wednesday, and perform great works from the concert band repertoire. Concerts are held at the end of fall, winter, and spring terms and are free and open to the public. Admission to the ensemble is by audition only.
About the Concert
This evening’s program, Echoes in the Toy Box, is a reflection on childhood in all its complexity—its innocence and imagination, but also its vulnerability. Each piece explores a different aspect of the world as experienced by children: from playful cartoon energy to quiet lullabies of comfort, from wide-eyed marches over distant hills to works that confront the darkest realities children sometimes face.
As the World Watched and Watchman, Tell Us of the Night, stand as powerful reminders that the spaces meant to protect our youth—schools, homes, and churches—are not always safe. Together, these pieces ask us to honor the joy of childhood while acknowledging the responsibility we all share to protect it.
Music Director &
Ensemble Members
Dr. Domenic Pisano
Music Director & Conductor
Piccolo
Lindsay Hager
Flute
Hannah Bashore
Dane Gentles
Arina Glozman
Shawn Marcucci
Victoria Sanchez-Galarza
Oboe
Abigail Holmberg
Clarinet
Fisher Anderson
Kennedy Casey
Eleanor Davis
Nelson Fiedelson
Katherine Wolfe
Bass Clarinet/Alto Clairnet
Thomas Cope
Contrabass Clarinet
Amanda Douglas
Program Note
Drexel University Concert Band Members are listed in alphabetical order to denote each member’s importance to the ensemble.
Ensemble Members
Alto Saxophone
Allison Dern
Carys Raber
Stephanie Rinehart
Cole Yacono
Tenor Saxophone
Ana Clara Ramirez
Elena Gonzales
Baritone Saxophone
Nate Judd
Trumpet
Theo Abrams
Brandon Stern
Mason Vetter
French Horn
Fiona Andrew
Yseult Barbedette
Kent Masten
Evan Thalheimer
Trombone
Andrew Cox
Jonathan Meitzler
Euphonium
Hannah Buckleman
Benjamin Liber
Max Millenbach
Program Note
Drexel University Concert Band Members are listed in alphabetical order to denote each member’s importance to the ensemble.
Ensemble Members
Tuba
Connor Byrnes
Matt Velardi
Syd Worthington
Percussion
Jason Adams
Nicholas Craft
Alex Craig
Sam Gatti
Alexander Lopez
Rafi Sanchez Jr.
Ezra Smith-Pohl
Sim Wafula
Piano
Dane Gentles
Program Note
Drexel University Concert Band Members are listed in alphabetical order to denote each member’s importance to the ensemble.
About the Composers
David Maslanka
David Maslanka (30 August 1943, New Bedford, Mass. –6 August 2017, Missoula, Mont.) was an American composer
Dr. Maslanka attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood, and spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He also did graduate work in composition at Michigan State University with H. Owen Reed
David Maslanka served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough College of the City University of New York. He was a member of ASCAP.
Over the past four decades, David Maslanka has become one of America’s most original and celebrated musical voices. He has published dozens of works for wind ensemble, orchestra, choir, percussion ensembles, chamber ensembles, solo instrument, and solo voice However, he is especially well-known for his wind ensemble works Of his nine symphonies, seven are written for wind ensemble, and an additional forty-one works include among them the profound “short symphony” Give Us This Day, and the amusing Rollo Takes a Walk Year after year, Maslanka’s music is programmed by professional, collegiate, and secondary school wind ensembles around the world.
When Maslanka wrote A Child’s Garden of Dreams, he was living in New York City and teaching music composition at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University. He was rapidly becoming interested in psychology, psychotherapy, and meditation, and was particularly captivated by the writings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Maslanka began to incorporate self-hypnosis and lucid dreaming into his meditative exercises, which heavily influenced his musical thought. He began to notice specific symbols in his “mental landscape” that he translated into music. Today, Maslanka’s unique compositional technique is known for its emphasis on meditation, psychoanalysis, self-discovery, and the accession of one ’ s own subconscious energies. His search for spiritual and metaphysical discovery ultimately spurred him to leave New York City in 1990, and move to Missoula, Montana, where he lived and worked until his death.
About the Composers
David Maslanka
Maslanka's works for winds and percussion have become especially well known. They include among others, A Child's Garden of Dreams for Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Concerto for Piano, Winds, and Percussion, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th symphonies, Mass for soloists, chorus, boys chorus, wind orchestra and organ, and the two wind quintets. Percussion works include Variations of 'Lost Love' and My Lady White for solo marimba, and three ensemble works: Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble, Crown of Thorns, and Montana Music: Chorale Variations. In addition, he has written a wide variety of chamber, orchestral, and choral pieces.
About the Composers
Mark Camphouse
Mark Camphouse (b. 3 May 1954, Oak Park, Ill.) is an American composer, conductor and trumpeter.
A product of the rich cultural life of Chicago, composerconductor Mark Camphouse holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from Northwestern University where he studied conducting with John P. Paynter, composition with Alan Stout, and trumpet with the late Vincent Cichowicz. A scholarship from the prestigious
Civic Orchestra of Chicago (training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony) enabled Camphouse to study trumpet privately for two years with legendary Chicago Symphony Principal Trumpet Emeritus Adolph Herseth.
Camphouse began composing at an early age, with the Colorado Philharmonic premiering his First Symphony when he was 17. His 25 published works for wind band have received widespread critical acclaim and are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. His compositions have been performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Orchestra Hall-Chicago, Royal Albert Hall-London, and conferences of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, College Band Directors National Association, Music Educators National Conference, American Bandmasters Association, and Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Principal commissions include those by the John P. Paynter Foundation, William D. Revelli Foundation, Bands of America, Inc., The United States Army Band, The United States Marine Band, Northshore Concert Band, and some of America’s finest college, high school, and community bands.
Mr. Camphouse has served as a guest conductor, lecturer and clinician in 42 states, Canada and Europe. He was elected to membership in the American Bandmasters Association in 1999 and has served as coordinator of the National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project since 2000. He conceived and edited the unique fourvolume book series for GIA Publications, Composers on Composing for Band. He was featured in a nationally broadcast interview on NPR’s Weekend America, focusing on his composition entitled A Movement for Rosa honoring late civil rights heroine Rosa Parks, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of her single act of courage sparking the modern civil rights movement
About the Composers
Mark Camphouse
Camphouse was Professor and Associate Director of the School of Music at George Mason University where he conducted the wind symphony and taught courses in conducting and composition; he retired in 2022. Other principal artistic, administrative, and educational positions he has held include serving as Music Director and Conductor of the New Mexico Music Festival at Taos Symphony Orchestra (1977-1982), Music Division Head of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts (1985-1989), Acting Dean of Music of New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida, during the 1998-99 academic year, and Director of Bands at Radford University in Virginia from 1984-2006. He won the 15th Annual National Band Association Composition Competition in 1991, received the 1991 Radford University Dedmon Award for Professorial Excellence (Radford’s highest faculty honor), and attained regional finalist status in the prestigious White House Fellowship Competition in 1992. Virginia Governor Mark Warner presented Professor Camphouse with a 2002 Outstanding Faculty Award, sponsored by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia This award is the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s colleges and universities for demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and public service.
About the Composers
Percy Aldridge Grainger
George Percy Grainger (8 July 1882, Brighton, Victoria, Australia – 20 February 1961, White Plains, N.Y.) was an Australian-born composer, pianist and champion of the saxophone and the concert band, who worked under the stage name of Percy Aldridge Grainger.
Grainger was an innovative musician who anticipated many forms of twentieth century music well before they became established by other composers. As early as
1899 he was working with "beatless music", using metric successions (including such sequences as 2/4, 2½/4, 3/4, 2½/4).
In December 1929, Grainger developed a style of orchestration that he called "Elastic Scoring". He outlined this concept in an essay that he called, "To Conductors, and those forming, or in charge of, Amateur Orchestras, High School, College and Music School Orchestras and Chamber-Music Bodies".
In 1932, he became Dean of Music at New York University, and underscored his reputation as an experimenter by putting jazz on the syllabus and inviting Duke Ellington as a guest lecturer. Twice he was offered honorary doctorates of music, but turned them down, explaining, "I feel that my music must be regarded as a product of noneducation."
About the Editor
R. Mark Rogers
R. Mark Rogers (b. 20 January 1955) is an American composer, arranger and conductor.
Dr. Rogers has degrees from Texas Tech University and the University of Texas.
As managing editor for Southern Music Company, he is the author of editions of the music of Percy Aldridge
Grainger and John Philip Sousa that have entered band repertory worldwide He is also widely published as an arranger and transcriber, with performances by all five of the Washington, D.C. service bands.
Dr. Rogers is on the adjunct faculty of San Antonio College, Texas Lutheran University, and Trinity University. Prior to coming to San Antonio, Dr. Rogers was on the faculty of the University of South Alabama and a staff member of the University of Texas Longhorn Band. He has guest conducted numerous community and professional bands, regional honor bands and orchestras, and is an active clinician for area high school and middle school bands and orchestras.
A bassoonist, he performs with the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Laredo Philharmonic, the Mid-Texas Symphony, the Austin Symphony Orchestra and the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra. Rogers is the conductor of the Heart of Texas Concert Band in San Antonio. He was elected to the American Bandmasters Association in 2022.
About the Composers
David Holsinger
David R. Holsinger (b. 26 December 1945, Hardin, Mo.) is an American composer, conductor, arranger and educator.
Prof. Holsinger, twice the recipient of the prestigious Ostwald Composition Prize of the American Bandmasters
Association, was educated at Central Methodist College, Fayette, Missouri, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, and the University of Kansas, Lawrence. His primary composition study has been with Donald Bohlen at Central Missouri State and Charles Hoag at the University of Kansas.
In 1999, following 15 years of service as music minister, worship leader, and composer in residence to Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, composer/conductor Holsinger joined the School of Music faculty at Lee University, Cleveland, Tennessee, as conductor of the Lee University Wind Ensemble. Holsinger’s duties include teaching advanced instrumental conducting and composition. He retired in 2023.
Prof. Holsinger is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. The April 1999 issue of The Instrumentalist magazine, the world’s leading publication in its genre, contains an interview with the composer, along with two accompanying articles concerning Holsinger’s compositions. Over the past several years, Holsinger has been named a National Patron of Delta Omicron Music Fraternity, awarded the Distinguished Music Alumni Award from Central Missouri State University, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia’s Orpheus Award, as well as honorary memberships in Kappa Kappa Psi National Music Fraternity and the Women’s National Band Directors Association. During festivities surrounding the premiere of the composer ’ s The Easter Symphony, Holsinger was honored by Gustavus Adolphus College with the awarding of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for lifetime achievement in composition and presented the Gustavus Fine Arts Medallion, the division’s highest award, designed and sculpted by renowned artist, Paul Granlund. Holsinger was the fourth composer honored with this medal and joins a distinguished roster which includes Gunther Schuller, Jan Bender, Csaba Deak, and most recent recipient, Libby Larsen.
About the Composers
David Holsinger
Over the past ten years, Holsinger served as Visiting Composer in Residence at eleven American colleges or universities, and held the Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee. In 1999, the Christian Instrumental Directors Association awarded Holsinger its “Director of the Year” citation. The composer was also honored with biographical inclusion in The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music, Vol. I and III, and in Norman Smith’s Program Notes for Band.
Holsinger's compositions have received kudos in several national competitions. He won the National Federation of Music Clubs Band Composition Contest in 1970. In 1971, The War Trilogy was awarded first place in the Kent State University Band Composition Contest. Liturgical Dances was first runner-up in both the 1981 NBA-DeMoulin and ABAOstwald competitions. In 1982, the ABA-Ostwald prize was awarded to Holsinger's The Armies of Omnipresent Otserf. In 1986, Holsinger's The Deathtree was a finalist in both the NBA-DeMoulin and the Sudler International Competition. His composition, In the Springs at the Time When Kings Go off to War won the 1986 ABA-Ostwald Prize. In April of 2023, prior to his retirement, Lee University celebrated Holsinger in a two-day gala which featured a concert of his music and several receptions for nearly 1300 alumni and community friends, both the night of the concert and the following day with alumni of the wind ensemble.
About the Composers
Quincy Hilliard
Quincy C. Hilliard (b. 22 September 1954, Starkville, Miss.) is an American composer, author and educator.
Dr. Hilliard’s early music experience was as a trumpet player in the public elementary and high school of his native Starkville, Mississippi. Dr. Hilliard holds a Ph.D. in music theory and composition from the University of Florida where, in 1999, he was recognized as the outstanding alumnus of the School of Music.
sic Education from Arkansas State University and the Bachelor of Science in Music Education from Mississippi State University where he was designated College of Education 1998 Alumnus of the Year.
Quincy C. Hilliard’s compositions for wind band are published by a variety of wellknown publishers. In 2014, Hilliard received the prestigious Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in the Classical Music Division. He was also recognized with a Global Music Award for his work as a composer In 2012, one of his pieces, Coty (for clarinet and piano) was recorded on a CD that was nominated for a Grammy Award. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Library of Congress to compose a work in celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln He is frequently commissioned to compose works, including one for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and a score for a documentary film, The Texas Rangers. For many years, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) has recognized him with annual awards for the unusually frequent performance of his compositions. Hilliard is regularly invited to conduct, demonstrate effective techniques, and adjudicate festivals throughout the world.
Because Hilliard is also a scholar of Aaron Copland’s music and life, Copland estate administrators authorized Hilliard to publish the educational performance edition Copland for Solo Instruments (Boosey and Hawkes, 1999). To train school band students, he wrote Superior Bands in Sixteen Weeks (FJH Music Company, 2003), Chorales and Rhythmic Etudes for Superior Bands (FJH Music Company, 2004), Scales and Tuning Exercises for Superior Bands (FJH Music Company, 2009), Theory Concepts, Books One and Two and is the co-author of the Skill Builders, Books One and Two (Sounds Spectacular Series, Carl Fischer, 1996)
About the Composers
Quincy Hilliard
He is also the co-author of Percussion Time (C.L. Barnhouse Company), which is a collection of music written specifically for the beginning percussion ensemble. He has presented scholarly papers on music theory and analysis at meetings of the College Music Society and the Central Gulf Society of Music Theory (of which he is past president). He has published articles in Opera Journal, The Instrumentalist, School Musician, Bandworld, American Music Teacher, Florida Music Director, and Tennessee Musician.
Currently [2022], Hilliard holds the position of Composer in Residence and is the Heymann Endowed Professor of Music at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. Previous teaching positions were at Nicholls State University, Florida International University, North Marion High School (Sparr, Florida) and White Station Junior and Senior High School (Memphis, Tennessee). Dr. Hilliard was also president of Hilliard Music Enterprises, Inc. a personal consulting firm, which has a corporate board of distinguished music educators.
About the Composers
Rick DeJonge
Rick DeJonge is an American composer and conductor.
Mr. DeJonge's mother was a band director, and musician and he was inspired by all the different sounds of the instruments from an early age He started teaching himself the piano at age nine, and by the time he was 11 he would play different parts of my friends’ music on the piano That is really when he started to understand not only the different transpositions of the instruments, but also
how the different instruments were joined together to create specific colors. By the eighth grade, he was writing small pieces for his middle school band.
Mr. DeJonge is a graduate of the Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the University of Southern California, and also earned a Master’s Art and Bachelor’s of Music degrees at Western Michigan University. As a composer, DeJonge has written music for orchestra and wind ensemble. He also has worked on the scores for television programs such as Lost, The West Wing and CSI Miami He also has a long-standing relationship with the Boston Brass.
As a conductor, DeJonge has conducted his compositions for Paramount, Fox, and Firehouse Studios in Pasadena, California. He also wrote the music and did the sound design for the popular Nintendo game Konductra, and several wii games.
About the Works
Mother Earth- David Maslanka
Mother Earth (A Fanfare) was commissioned by and is dedicated to Brian Silvey and the South Dearborn High School Band of Aurora, Indiana. It is based on the short poem by the influential medieval friar St. Francis of Assisi: Praised by You, my Lord, for our sister, MOTHER EARTH, Who nourishes us and teaches us, Bringing forth all kinds of fruits and colored flowers and herbs.
- St. Francis of Assisi
The commission was for a three-minute fanfare piece. Each piece takes on a reason for being all its own, and Mother Earth is no exception. It became an urgent message from Our Mother to treat her more kindly! My reading at the time of writing this music was For a Future to be Possible by the Vietnamese monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. He believes that the only way forward is to be extremely alive and aware in our present moment, to become awake to the needs of our beloved planet, and to respond to it as a living entity. Music making allows us to come immediately awake. It is an instant connection to the powerful wellspring of our creativity, and opens our minds to the solution of any number of problems, including that of our damaged environment. My little piece does not solve the problem! But it is a living call to the wide-awake life, and it continues to be performed by young people around the world.
- Program Note by composer
About the Works
Watchman, Tell Us of the NightMark Camphouse
A hymn for all children, Watchman, Tell Us of the Night portrays the loneliness, loss of innocence and yet enduring hope of the survivor of child abuse. The work is a musical tribute to survivors, often dreamlike in nature, as seen through the eyes of the child. With this work, Mr. Camphouse responds to the shockingly widespread national tragedy of child abuse. Victims often suffer life-long effects mentally, physically, and socially. This shameful societal illness must be faced openly, honestly, and compassionately.
The title, taken from John Bowring's 1825 text setting of George Elvey's church hymn, Watchman, Tell Us of the Night, is also known as the Thanksgiving hymn, Come Ye Thankful People Come.
Watchman, Tell Us of the Night was commissioned by the St. Louis Youth Wind Ensemble, Milton Allen, conductor, and is dedicated to the composer's twin daughters, Beth and Briton.
Watchman, tell us of the night. For the morning seems to dawn; Traveler, darkness takes its flight; Doubt and terror are withdrawn.
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease; Hie thee to thy quiet home. Traveler, yes; it brings the day. Healing wholeness now has come!
- Program Note from score
Information about this work collected by The Wind Repertory Project Click Here to read more
About the Works
Children’s March- Percy Alridge Grainger, rev. R. Mark Rogers
Children's March was scored for band by Grainger in 1919 from a piano solo which he had composed between 1916 and 1918. The band arrangement was begun in 1918 while the composer was a member of the U.S. Coast Artillery Band and was written to take advantage of that band's instrumentation. Generally accepted as the first band composition utilizing the piano, the march features the woodwinds -- especially the low reeds -- during most of its sevenminute duration. From the introduction to the end, the folk-like melodies make it difficult for the listener to realize that the work was original with Grainger. It was first performed by the Goldman Band on June 6, 1919, with the composer conducting and Ralph Leopold at the piano.
Like many of Grainger's works, the march demonstrates both the fierceness and the tenderness of the composer's personality. It was dedicated to "my playmate beyond the hills," believed to be Karen Holton, a Scandinavian beauty with whom the composer corresponded for eight years but did not marry because of his mother's jealousy. In 1953, 48 years after they first met, they saw each other for the last time in Denmark where Grainger had gone for a cancer operation to be be performed by Dr. Fai Holton, Karen's brother.
- Program Note from Program Notes for Band
Information about this work collected by The Wind Repertory Project Click Here to read more
About the Works
A Childhood Hymn- David Holsinger
David Holsinger based this beautiful composition on the Bradbury tune Jesus Loves Me, which can be heard in various iterations throughout the work. This is a standard work for young developing wind bands.
- Program note by Cabrillo High School Wind Ensemble concert program, 22 May 2013
Information about this work collected by The Wind Repertory Project Click Here to read more
About the Works
As the World Watched- Quincy Hilliard
As the World Watched is a programmatic work based on the composer ’ s view of some of the violent events that have happened around the world, both past and present. The abuse that mankind has perpetrated upon each other, man ’ s inhumanity to man, and the taking of human life -- for no reason at all -- are the major points of the piece.
The work is divided into three sections: shock and disbelief, anger, and depression. Each section paints the deep emotions that such troubling events bring forth.
Commissioned by the Tenth District Band Directors of the Georgia Music Education Association.
- Program Note from score
Information about this work collected by The Wind Repertory Project Click Here to read more
About the Works
A Toonful Tone- Rick DeJonge
“…Inspired by one of the best cartoon composers of all time, Carl Stalling, the piece uses very rapid and tightly coordinated musical punches, along with effects for both brass and percussion to bring out the lively and sometimes humorous sounds reminiscent of Looney Tunes. A Toonful Tune makes listeners feel as if they are listening to a soundtrack from a cartoon. Flutter tongue, and"wah-wah" harmon mutes are just a few of the tricks for the brass that help recreate these iconic sounds and emotions in a work that audiences of any age will enjoy. The percussion section combines nearly two dozen different instruments and toys, along with a huge array of mallet instruments performing melodic and ornamentation runs. Once all the forces are combined, this animated piece sounds just like it fell out of a grand old cartoon.”
-Rick DeJonge
Dr. Domenic Joseph Christian Pisano Concert Band Music Director & Conductor
Dr. Pisano is currently the Director of the Drexel University Concert Band and Pep Band, as well the Coordinator of Visual and Performing Arts for the Brandywine School District, serving over 80 teachers in 16 schools with over 8,000 Visual and Performing Arts students.
Dr. Pisano has been a music educator for over 27 years, teaching at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and the Upper Perkiomen School District before becoming the Music Department Chair and instrumental music teacher at Concord High School in Wilmington, Delaware for 17 years.
Dr. Pisano has written extensively about music education, including “Music Educators:
Investigating the Relationship Between Undergraduate Music Education, State Certification, and Professional Responsibilities,” and he was a contributing author for the book “Creative Music Making at Your Fingertips: A Mobile Technology Guide for Music Educators.”
He has directed ten honor bands through Europe with American Music Abroad and edited several pieces of band literature with his mentor, Dr. Jack Stamp. Dr. Pisano has also served as a clinician, guest speaker, adjudicator, guest conductor, and lecturer for Universities and several state MEAs and worked on educational policy with various state agencies.
Drexel offers four different music minors:
Music: requires 26 credits, including work in Music Theory, History, private lessons, ensemble performance, and 9 credits of music electives.
Music Theory and Composition: aimed at people who are writing their own music or who would like to begin doing so. You will take courses in Music Theory, Arranging, Composition, and Digital Composition, and end with a portfolio of several completed pieces.
Music Performance: requires two years of private lesson studies with our artist faculty culminating in a recital. The Music Program will provide support for the recital venue and accompanist.
Jazz & African-American Music: includes course work in Jazz History, African-American Music, Jazz Theory, private study in Jazz performance, and ensemble work in several ensembles devoted to jazz.
Support Great Performance
Dance, Music, and Theatre are a vital, central part of the Drexel academia and student life. Donations support performing arts ensembles and programs, as well as the operation of our performing arts venues, including the Mandell Theater and URBN Annex Black Box Theater.
Drexel University Department of Performing Arts Staff
Department Head
Dr. Miriam Giguere
Program Directors
Luke Abruzzo
Music
Nick Anselmo Theatre
Jennifer Morley Dance
Administrative Staff
Ellie Ebby Department Assistant
Hannah Burke Department Administrator
Caroline Leipf
Mandell Theater Managing Director
Cece Hill
Performing Arts Graduate Assistant
Liv Shoup
Audience Services Coordinator
Lauren Tracy
Ensemble Production Associate
Production Staff
Paul Jerue
Theatre Production Manager/Black Box Theater Technical Director
Asaki Kuruma
Costume Shop Manager
Chris Totora
Mandell Theater Technical Director
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