Clinicians
Music Director/Lead Clinician
The Festival’s music director and lead clinician is Adam Flatt. He is Music Director of the Newport Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Ballet, and the University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa Symphony. Mr. Flatt also has a notable career in making music with some of our country’s most talented young musicians. He has served on the summer faculties of both the Rocky Ridge Music Center and the Curtis Institute of Music’s Summerfest, and recently conducted the springtime residency of the Landes-Jugend-Sinfonie-Orchester Saar.
“What a gift for young orchestra musicians to have some days away from home to devote entirely to music and to each other,” Maestro Flatt says. “The high school programs receive a great boost from this intense work, making strides in both music-making and in team-building, and bring home treasured memories of a musical weekend at the coast.”
Mr. Flatt served an acclaimed seven year tenure as Music Director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra (DTAO), one of America’s best youth orchestras, leading its concerts at home and on international tours. During his DYAO tenure, Mr. Flatt founded the organization’s first training ensembles: the Conservatory Orchestra and the Young String Ensemble. Before working in Denver, Mr. Flatt served for years on the staff of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, leading both of its training orchestras. He has led several festival and all-state orchestras in Indiana, California, and Colorado.
April 18-21, 2024 Festival Guest Clinicians
The Festival board is proud to have Joni Swenson and Héctor Agüero as clinicians for the April 18-21, 2024 Festival. High school orchestras participating in the 4-day April 2024 Festival are from Astoria, Brookings-Harbor, Newberg, North Medford, North Salem, and Summit (Bend-LaPine).
Joni Swenson, retired as Director of Orchestras at Santa Monica High School, a position she held from 2002 until 2020. She is a graduate of UCLA, and previously taught in the Sacramento City Unified School District and in the San Jose Unified School District prior to her position at Santa Monica High School.
Joni has served as guest conductor for many honor orchestras throughout California and recently conducted the 2023 Indiana All State Symphony Orchestra. She has presented sessions at both the CMEA State and Bay Section Conferences, as well as at the Southern California School Band and Orchestra (SCSBOA) Fall Conference. In addition, she has served as the Orchestra Representative in both CMEA Capitol and Bay Sections and is also a Past President of the California Orchestra Directors Association (CODA). In 2001, Joni was selected by San Francisco radio station KDFC Classical 102.1 as Music Educator of the Year. In 2004, she received the CMEA Le Blanc Outstanding Orchestra Music Educator Award, and she was selected as a finalist for the Los Angeles Music Center’s BRAVO Award in 2008. She received the 2016 American String Teachers Association (ASTA) Elizabeth A. H. Green School Educator Award and in 2020 received the CMEA Richard L. Levin Orchestra Award. Recently, in 2023, she received the CODA Distinguished Service Award.
In her retirement, Joni coaches violin sectionals for a few high schools. She also teaches private violin lessons and enjoys playing chamber and orchestral music in the community.
Héctor Agüero, is associate professor of music and director of orchestral studies at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Hailed as “a strong leader with a style everyone can follow” and a conductor who can “balance music” delights with its demands,” Agüero has earned a reputation as a dedicated music educator and highly sought-after guest conductor. A musician with wide-ranging experience, Professor Agüero’s previous positions include director of orchestras and bands at Willamette University, artistic director of the Willamette Valley Symphony, music director of the Fort Bend Symphony Orchestra, staff conductor with the Houston Youth Symphony, and director of orchestras at Houston’s prestigious High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
A versatile conductor, Agüero made his operatic debut in 2006 at the Moores Opera Center in the Houston premier of Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia. Since then, he has continued his love of opera, leading productions of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Thomas Pasatieri’s The Hotel Casablanca, Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor, and more. He has collaborated with many choral organizations, including the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Agüero has also performed in concert with Grammy Award-winning artists B. J. Thomas and CeCe Winans. He has been awarded recognition from the American Prize in Conducting and won the 2018 International Conducting Workshop and Competition in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 2017 Agüero made his international conducting debut as a guest conductor for the Orquesta Universitaria de Música Popular in Veracruz, Mexico. While in Mexico, Agüero led a masterclass for young conductors and served as guest lecturer for the Universidad Veracruzana. In 2022 he returned to Xalapa as guest conductor of the Orquesta Sinf≤nica Juvenil del Estado de Veracruz at the Instituto Superior de Música del Estado de Veracruz. His work with youth orchestras includes engagements with the Salem Youth Symphony, the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and the Elkhart County Youth Honors Orchestra in Goshen, Indiana. A native of Laredo, Texas, Agüero earned degrees in conducting and music education from the Texas Tech University School of Music in Lubbock where he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, and the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music where he received the Schissler Conducting Fellowship. His primary teachers were Franz Anton Krager and Gary Lewis, and he has participated in workshops and masterclasses with Adrian Gnam, Gustav Meier, Kenneth Keisler, John Farrer, Daniel Lewis, and Donald Thulean. Agüero currently resides in Des Moines with his wife Laura and their two children, Eva Grace and Thomas.
Composers’ Symposium
Dr. Dana Reason is founder and director of popular music studies at Oregon State University. She is currently the coordinator of contemporary music and research at Oregon State University.
Dr. Reason holds a bachelor’s degree in music from McGill University, a master’s degree in composition from Mills College and a doctoral degree in critical studies/experimental practices (now called integrative studies) from the University of California San Diego. She was the founder and director of popular music studies at Oregon State University (OSU) from 2011 to 2015 and is currently the coordinator of contemporary music and research at OSU.
A composer, improviser, keyboardist, sound artist, producer and researcher working at the intersections of 20th- and 21st-century music genres and intermedia practices, Dr. Reason’s album Angle of Vision was long-listed for Grammy Awards in three separate categories including best instrumental composition, best arrangement and best jazz instrumental album. Additionally, her wind symphony “Currents” was long-listed for best contemporary classical composition. Dr. Reason is a performing artist and composer that moves easily between genres encompassing a dynamic stylistic range and repertoire.
Ethan Gans-Morse is best known for his opera The Canticle of the Black Madonna, which The Oregonian called “A huge achievement… generous, carefully crafted and supremely compassionate” and Oregon ArtsWatch hailed as “One of the most exciting developments of the arts season.” He focuses on collaborative, socially relevant projects that foster greater human connection.
Recent commissions include projects based on real-life Oregonians’ stories, such as the chamber opera Dreams Have No Borders, the oratorio Six Feet Apart: Stories of Resilience and Transformation, and the program symphony How Can You Own The Sky? He’s also enjoying a three-year collaboration with the Rogue Valley Symphony called Composers in the Classroom, for which he’s composing for high school orchestras and the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon.
His works have been performed around the US and abroad—including at the Seattle Opera Center, the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy, the Instrumenta Oaxaca Festival in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the University of Wyoming New Music Festival—and around Oregon at the Music Today Festival, the Vanguard Concert Series, the Oregon Composers Forum, the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, and the Ashland Winter Fine Arts Festival.
He holds a Bachelors in Music and Linguistics from Macalester College and a Masters in Music Composition from the University of Oregon.
Alex Hastings discovered an interest in music as a young violin student, creating multiple-layered violin arrangements of pop songs and recording them together. She dove into composing music during her university studies at George Fox University under the teaching of Dr. Brent Weaver. There, she explored composing chamber music and solo works, as well as multimedia pieces. Her most notable work, Spectrum, juxtaposes a traditional string quartet with computer tracks, recorded voices, and film. This multimedia composition was featured in the 2020 “A Show A Change Film Festival” and the 2021 “Conquering Disabilities with Film Festival.” She has since brought composition into her violin studio– composing melodies and accompaniments for her students.
Now a resident of Boise, Idaho, Alex continues to teach, compose, and play in orchestras around the Northwest. She is the assistant concertmaster of Boise Baroque Orchestra, and she also maintains a full private lesson studio for violin and composition students. Alex is excited to continue growing her music studio to reach students of all needs and abilities, and to share her love of music with everyone she teaches.
Recent Guest Clinicians
Aviva Segall has held her “dream job”, for over 20 years, as Music Director and Principal Conductor for the Omaha Area Youth Orchestras. Ms. Segall works nationally as a guest conductor, adjudicator and clinician with a variety of professional orchestras, national conferences, all state and festival ensembles. A small sample of groups she recently worked with include the Omaha Symphony, ASTA national conference, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Wisconsin middle level All State Orchestra and school districts throughout the country. She served on the Board of Directors for the American Symphony Orchestra League- Youth Orchestra Division, the Nebraska Music Education Association and on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Segall served as Conducting Apprentice with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and was concurrently on the conducting staff of the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Ms. Segall studied at Wellesley College, the University of Southern California and Northwestern University as well as training at the Aspen Music Festival. Her Thomas J. Watson Fellowship studied rehearsal techniques in Europe. Ms. Segall’s principal conducting mentors include Victor Yampolsky, Daniel Lewis, Murry Sidlin, and James De Priest.
Dr. Mark Laycock, guest clinician, is a Professor of Music at Wichita State University, where he holds the Ann Walenta Faculty of Distinction Endowed Professorship. His work as guest conductor, clinician, or adjudicator spans 34 states. He has been recognized with the WSU Excellence in Creative Activity Award and the College of Fine Arts Excellence in Teaching Award. He serves as Director of Orchestras and Coordinator of Strings. Wichita State University Symphony Orchestra appearances under his direction include international tours to Spain and Canada, a concert at Carnegie Hall, and multiple invited performances at Kansas Music Educators Association In-Service Workshops. Dr. Laycock is a member of the Board of Directors of the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic; he serves as chair of Orchestra Activities. He is Conductor of the Wichita Youth Symphony and Director of the Wichita Youth Orchestras Program. He earned a Doctor of Arts degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Laycock holds a Master of Music degree in instrumental conducting from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Bachelor of Arts degree in music history and literature from the University of Southern California.
Cynthia Woods, guest clinician, is the Music Director for the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Woods is also a frequent guest conductor, having performed across the U.S., Europe and South America. Along with her conducting activities, Ms. Woods is also a frequent speaker and writer. She has been a guest lecturer at institutions such as MIT and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. She was awarded a scholarship to study violin with the Grammy award winning Takacs String Quartet at the University of Colorado-Boulder, received the Dean’s Talent Award while doing her graduate studies at the Hartt School of Music and won a full fellowship to study composition at the prestigious Atlantic Center for the Arts. In addition to her current roles as Music Director and guest conductor, Ms. Woods is also a member of the conducting and violin faculty for the New England Conservatory.
Dr. Dan Allcott, Tennessee Technical University – For over 20 years, Dan Allcott has been conducting daring collaborations, outstanding symphonic concerts, and leading opera and ballet productions with international stars. Music Director of both the Oak Ridge Symphony and the Bryan Symphony orchestras in Tennessee, Allcott regularly conducts Tennessee’s finest musicians (members of the Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga Symphonies) in concerts lauded by critics and enthusiastically enjoyed by audiences. He has conducted the Dallas Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, and Danish Radio Orchestra, and has a continuing relationship as a guest conductor with Asheville Lyric Opera, where he most recently led performances of Tosca and Marriage of Figaro, and Barber of Seville. In 2013, Allcott became Artistic Advisor and Summer conductor with Eastport Strings in Maine. He is Professor of Music at Tennessee Tech, where he is Director of Orchestras and Instructor of Cello.
Dr. Blake Richardson, University of Alabama – Currently serving as Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra, Mr. Richardson joined the University of Alabama School of Music faculty as Director of Orchestral Studies in the fall of 2013. He had held assistant conductor positions with the Barcelona Symphony and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and has conducted the San Diego Symphony, the Brandenburger Symphoniker, and Cincinnati’s Chamber Orchestra. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Richardson worked as assistant conductor for the inaugural international tour of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the USA, spending three weeks touring Russia and the United Kingdom. As winner of the 2010 Ansbacher Fellowship, he attended the Salzburg Festival on invitation of the Vienna Philharmonic. Originally trained on violin, piano, and percussion, Dr. Richardson was a scholarship violin student at the University of Texas and holds graduate degrees in conducting from Indiana University and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He was the Cincinnati Symphony conducting fellow from 2008-2009 and was awarded the David Effron Conducting Fellowship at the Chautauqua Institution during the summer of 2006.
Helen Cha-Pyo, Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts – Ms. Cha-Pyo is currently the Artistic Director of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts and the Principal Conductor of the New Jersey Youth Symphony. The Wharton Arts is New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community performing arts education center serving over 1,400 students from 13 different counties of New Jersey through a range of classes at Wharton Performing Arts School, 15 performing ensembles at New Jersey Youth Symphony and Paterson Music Project, an El Sistema-inspired program serving children every day at 5 different sites in the city of Paterson, NJ. She previously served as Visiting Associate Professor of Orchestral Studies and Conductor of the Montclair University Symphony Orchestra at the John J. Cali School of Music (NJ) from 2017 to 2019.