VanderCook College of Music Symphonic Band

Performer Details

Performer Bio Synopsis

For over 100 years, VanderCook College of Music has focused exclusively on music teacher education. Our unique curriculum prepares the whole music educator, emphasizing performance as well as instructional methods. VanderCook’s degree programs offer a thorough, comprehensive course of study that prepares our students to teach band, orchestra, choir and general music through a teacher immersion model. All students play in the band and orchestra, and they all sing in the choir. Every student develops competency on all of the brass, woodwind, string and percussion instruments along with piano, guitar, and voice. Our teacher training is rooted in the belief that you learn to teach by teaching. In addition to helping run and teach at VCM-sponsored clinics that attract numerous grade school and high school music students to our campus, our students benefit from partnering with local school music programs where they get the unique opportunity to teach during every semester of their undergraduate experience. VanderCook provides a collaborative conservatory-like environment that equips graduates to meet the challenges of today's K-12 classrooms through hands-on project-based learning. VanderCook College of Music has been a part of the Midwest Clinic since its origin, sponsoring the very first clinic in 1946 at a YWCA on the west side of Chicago. The VanderCook Symphonic Band has been invited to perform at every clinic every year since. In addition to wind and percussion majors, the band includes a number of choral and string music education majors performing on secondary instruments. The performers in the Symphonic Band represent VanderCook and its service to music education. Throughout the week of the Midwest Clinic, VanderCook students work as set-up and usher personnel, diligently giving attention to every detail. Their service to the Midwest Clinic is yet another important dimension of the comprehensive education degree that candidates receive at VanderCook College of Music.

VanderCook College of Music Symphonic Band

Conductor's Bio

Alexander Kaminsky was appointed Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at VanderCook College of Music in 2019 after a highly successful tenure at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Previous to that, Kaminsky led the band programs at Buchholz High School, Lincoln High School, Auburndale High School, and Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School, all of which excelled under his direction. He holds degrees from the University of Florida and Indiana University, is active as an adjudicator, and is in demand as a guest conductor/clinician across the country. Throughout his 30-year career as a high school band director, Kaminsky’s ensembles consistently earned Superior ratings at all levels of evaluation. In addition to earning straight Superior ratings at the Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA) State Concert Band Assessment beginning in 1997 for an unprecedented 21 years (the last 11 years with both his first and second bands), he is the only director in the history of the FBA to have had three concert bands from one school earn straight Superior ratings at State, which he achieved three times (2009, 2018, and 2019). Kaminsky’s high school bands performed at the Midwest Clinic (2005, 2009, 2014, and 2018), ABA National Convention (2014), CBDNA/NBA Southern Division Conference (2004 and 2014), FMEA State Conference (2014), Music for All National Concert Band Festival (2002 and 2012), and the National Wind Band Festival at Carnegie Hall (2009 and 2018). In 2018, the Stoneman Douglas Wind Symphony was named a Mark of Excellence National Wind Band Honors winner as one of only ten 6A bands in the nation. His marching bands consistently placed in the Florida Marching Band State Championship Finals, winning several FMBC State Championships (including 4 of his last 6 years as a high school band director), as well as being named a finalist band at BOA regional competitions.