Beyond the Baton: Programming, Interpretation, Performance and Leadership
Clinic Synopsis:
This session is a discussion on the importance of the interpreter’s imagination, personality and need for dedicated, continuous study of works. "Beyond the Baton" will bring increased insight and imagination to programming, interpretation, performance and leadership.
Frank Battisti
- Biographical Information
President Gunther Schuller brought Frank L. Battisti to New England Conservatory in 1969 with the goal of creating a wind ensemble program on the model of the seminal work done by Frederick Fennell at Eastman. During his time at NEC, Battisti cemented his reputation as one of the most respected champions of music for winds in America. Battisti is past president of the College Band Directors National Association, and his articles on the wind ensemble, music education, and wind literature have been published by many national and international journals. Battisti is the author of The New Winds of Change and coauthor of the book Guide to Score Study. He has conducted many professional, university, and school wind bands/ensembles throughout the world. Battisti has commissioned and conducted the premiere performances of works by Colgrass, Chavez, Persichetti, Bassett, Pinkham, Wilder, Benson, Tippett, and Harbison.
Richard Floyd - Biographical Information
Richard Floyd has enjoyed a distinguished career encompassing every level of wind band performance, from beginning band programs to high school and university wind ensembles and adult community bands. He holds the title of UIL State Director of Music Emeritus, having retired from that post in 2015. He is a recognized authority on conducting, the art of wind band rehearsing, concert band repertoire, and music advocacy, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. In 2016, he was named a Yamaha Master Educator. In 2002, Floyd was the recipient of the prestigious A.A. Harding Award, recognizing his significant contributions to the school band movement. He was named Texas Bandmaster of the Year in 2006 and in 2009, he was presented the Texas Music Educators Association Distinguished Service Award. In March of 2011, he was inducted into the Bands of America Hall of Fame and awarded the prestigious Midwest Clinic Medal of Honor for his distinguished and unique contributions to educational bands and orchestras. In 2021, the College Band Directors National Association established the Richard Floyd CBDNA Distinguished Service Award, honoring his decades of service to that organization, as well as presented him with the CBDNA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. His critically acclaimed books, The Artistry of Teaching and Making Music and The Seven Deadly Sins of Music Making are available from GIA Publications.
Craig Kirchoff - Biographical Information
Craig Kirchhoff is professor emeritus of conducting at the University of Minnesota. Born and educated in Wisconsin, Mr. Kirchhoff brings to his position a wide knowledge of both traditional and contemporary literature. He has won critical acclaim from composers Warren Benson, Henry Brant, Michael Colgrass, Karel Husa, Libby Larsen, George Perle, Vincent Persichetti, Stephen Paulus, Verne Reynolds, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Steven Stucky, Elliott Schwartz, Chen Yi, and others.
Mr. Kirchhoff is past president of the College Band Directors National Association and is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, the National Band Association, the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and the Music Educators National Conference, and he served as the founding editor and principal advisor of the College Band Directors National Association Journal.
Professor Kirchhoff has appeared as guest conductor, clinician, and lecturer throughout the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, and Scandinavia. Mr. Kirchhoff is a frequent guest conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and has recorded with them on the Kosei Publishing label.
Thomas Duffy - Biographical Information
Thomas C. Duffy is Professor in the Practice of Music,
Clinical Professor of Nursing, and Director of University Bands at Yale
University, where he has worked since 1982. His interests and research range
from non-tonal analysis to jazz, from wind band history to creativity and the
brain. He combined his interests in music and science to create a genre of
music for the bilateral conductor - in which a “split-brained conductor” must
conduct a different meter in each hand, sharing downbeats. His compositions have
introduced a generation of school musicians to aleatory, the integration of
spoken/sung words and “body rhythms” with instrumental performance; and to the
pairing of music with political, social, historical, and scientific themes. He
has twice been awarded the certificate of appreciation by United States
Attorney’s Office for his Yale 4/Peace: Rap for Justice concerts – music
programs designed for social impact by using the power of music to deliver a
message of peace and justice to impressionable middle and high school
students.
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