Heather Buchman, director of the orchestra and the chamber music program at Hamilton College, is also an internationally recognized solo trombonist.
She completed professional studies in conducting at the Juilliard School. Buchman earned a M.M. in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan and a B. Mus. degree and Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Her conducting teachers were Otto Werner Mueller, Kenneth Kiesler, Leonid Korchmar and Oleg Proskurnya. Buchman has guest conducted the Society for New Music in Syracuse, Monarch Brass, and the U.S. Coast Guard Band Brass. In 2008 she was awarded a Women Conductors Grant from the League of American Orchestras.
Buchman served as principal trombonist of the San Diego Symphony from 1988 to 1997. She won prizes in solo trombone at international competitions in Munich, Germany; Brisbane, Australia; and with the New York Philharmonic. She performed as concerto soloist with the San Diego, National, and Canton Symphonies, and the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic. She has commissioned and premiered several new works for trombone. Her primary trombone teachers were John Marcellus, Mark Lawrence and Edward Zadrozny.
As a Mellon Curricular Leader at Hamilton Buchman is doing work on the role of creativity and aesthetic fluency in the liberal arts.
Hamessley received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota before coming to Hamilton in 1991. She teaches courses in Medieval and Renaissance music history, world music, American folk and traditional music, opera and film music. Hamessley received the Class of 1962 Outstanding Teaching Award in 2007 and the Samuel & Helen Lang Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2013. She was twice awarded the Class of 1963 Faculty Fellowship to support the development of additional areas of teaching expertise. Her current area of research is in old-time and bluegrass music, with a particular focus on Southern Appalachian music and women. She was the coordinator for the conference Feminist Theory and Music: Toward a Common Language, in Minneapolis, held in 1991. Hamessley has published articles in Music & Letters; Queering The Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology; Menacing Virgins: Images of Virginity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Women & Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture; Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music; and 19th-Century Music. She is the co-editor, with Elaine Barkin, of Audible Traces: Gender, Identity, and Music. Hamessley is currently working on a project about Dolly Parton as well as a preparing an article on the music for Paul Green's symphonic drama The Lost Colony (1937). She is also a clawhammer banjo player.
Hopkins earned his master's degree and Ph.D. in music history and theory from the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation provided the basis for his book, titled Closure and Mahler's Music (1990). Hopkins' research interests include the evolution of the barbershop quartet style of singing, analysis of codas in the works of 19th-century composers, and changes in sonata form in instrumental works during the nineteenth century. At Hamilton he teaches courses in music history, theory, and perception of music. Hopkins is also very active in the Barbershop Harmony Society (SPEBSQSA, Inc.), which he served as president in 2004-2005. He performs in his barbershop quartet and directs a barbershop chorus. Several of his arrangements have been published by the Barbershop Harmony Society.
A member of the Hamilton faculty since 1981, Kolb earned a master's at California State University at Fullerton and a D.M.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kolb is director of choral activities at Hamilton and is conductor of the Hamilton College Masterworks Chorale, as well as past conductor of the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble and Cayuga Vocal Ensemble. He is a contributing author to Up Front: Becoming the Complete Choral Conductor and Six Centuries of Choral Music. Kolb is a former holder of the Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Chair at Hamilton.
Pellman received his master's degree and doctorate from Cornell University. Many of his works may be heard on recordings by the Musical Heritage Society, Move Records, and innova recordings (including his October 2003 release titled "Selected Planets"), and much of his music is published by the Continental Music Press and Wesleyan Music Press. Recently his music has been presented at the International Symposium of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in Melbourne, Australia, and the Electric Rainbow Coalition festival at Dartmouth College, and the Musicacoustica Festival at the Central Conservatory for Music in Beijing. Pellman is also the author of An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music, a widely-adopted textbook published by Cengage. At Hamilton he teaches theory and composition and is co-director of the Studio for Transmedia Arts and Related Studies. Pelllman is also the organist and the director of instrumental music at the Clinton United Methodist Church. Further information about his music can be found on the web at: http://www.musicfromspace.com
"Doctuh" Michael Woods majored in composition and minored in string bass at Indiana University (M.M.), and the University of Oklahoma (D.M.A.). He was the first African-American to receive a doctorate in composition from Oklahoma University. He also received a M.M. degree in jazz studies from Indiana University. Woods has written more than 600 compositions in various styles including choral, orchestral, and chamber works, as well as jazz combo and big band charts. He has had his musical compositions performed by the Albany Symphony, the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Central New York Jazz Orchestra, and the Tulsa Philharmonic. Woods is also director and bassist for the Zoe Jazz Band, and bassist for the Omniverse jazz ensemble. Both groups often perform his compositions. At Hamilton, Woods teaches courses in jazz history, jazz arranging and jazz improvisation. He also directs the College's Jazz Ensemble.
Andrew Zaplatynsky has served as concertmaster of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for 30 years. Previous positions include associate concertmaster with the Cincinnati Symphony and assistant concertmaster with the Detroit Symphony. In addition, Zaplatynsky has been a member of the first violin section with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. These many years of orchestral experience have presented opportunities to work with some of the most notable conductors of the last 30 years, including Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Schippers, Leonard Slatkin, Erich Leinsdorf, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Yuri Temirkanov, Kiryl Kondrashin, Christopher Keene, Fabio Mechetti, Gerard Schwarz, JoAnne Falletta, Daniel Hege and Kazuyoshi Akiyama. His decades of teaching experience include seven years at Syracuse University, four summers at the Fundacion Univesitaria Juan N. Corpas in Bogota, Colombia, and an ongoing relationship with Hobart & William Smith Colleges and Onondaga Community College.
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The Performing artists series brings world-class performers to campus not only to perform, but to work with students in workshops, seminars and classes. Recent visitors include Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer, Piffaro, Harlem String Quartet, Imani Winds, Alex Torres and the Latin Kings, the Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo Puppet Company, and Ralph Stanley.
The College Choir continues a tradition of choral excellence that dates to the founding of this ensemble in 1867. The choir's annual spring concert tour has recently included performances in Chicago, Montreal and Atlanta, and the choir also has toured Europe seven times in 25 years most recently to Italy in 2009. Likewise the College Orchestra has logged five concert tours in a decade, including a trip to Romania and Bulgaria.
Students maintain many of their own musical groups that perform on and off campus. Among them: The Gospel Choir which ranges in size from 10 to 30 students; the Buffers, a men's a cappella octet; the Hamiltones, a progressive, coed a cappella group; Special K, an innovative women's close-harmony group; and Tumbling After, a women's a cappella group.
The Performing artists series brings world-class performers to campus not only to perform, but to work with students in workshops, seminars and classes. Recent visitors include Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer, Piffaro, Harlem String Quartet, Imani Winds, Alex Torres and the Latin Kings, the Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo Puppet Company, and Ralph Stanley.
The College Choir continues a tradition of choral excellence that dates to the founding of this ensemble in 1867. The choir's annual spring concert tour has recently included performances in Chicago, Montreal and Atlanta, and the choir also has toured Europe seven times in 25 years most recently to Italy in 2009. Likewise the College Orchestra has logged five concert tours in a decade, including a trip to Romania and Bulgaria.
Students maintain many of their own musical groups that perform on and off campus. Among them: The Gospel Choir which ranges in size from 10 to 30 students; the Buffers, a men's a cappella octet; the Hamiltones, a progressive, coed a cappella group; Special K, an innovative women's close-harmony group; and Tumbling After, a women's a cappella group.
The Performing artists series brings world-class performers to campus not only to perform, but to work with students in workshops, seminars and classes. Recent visitors include Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer, Piffaro, Harlem String Quartet, Imani Winds, Alex Torres and the Latin Kings, the Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo Puppet Company, and Ralph Stanley.
The College Choir continues a tradition of choral excellence that dates to the founding of this ensemble in 1867. The choir's annual spring concert tour has recently included performances in Chicago, Montreal and Atlanta, and the choir also has toured Europe seven times in 25 years most recently to Italy in 2009. Likewise the College Orchestra has logged five concert tours in a decade, including a trip to Romania and Bulgaria.
Students maintain many of their own musical groups that perform on and off campus. Among them: The Gospel Choir which ranges in size from 10 to 30 students; the Buffers, a men's a cappella octet; the Hamiltones, a progressive, coed a cappella group; Special K, an innovative women's close-harmony group; and Tumbling After, a women's a cappella group.
