Carnegie Hall

Brian Drye is an award-winning jazz trombonist, pianist, and educator based in New York City. He has performed and recorded with the Hank Roberts Sextet, Billy Martin’s Wicked Knee, The Wood Brothers, Steven Bernstein, Slavic Soul Party, John Baptiste, and Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars. His debut as a leader, Bizingas, was hailed as “one of the best introductions to a new band” (The New York Times). Drye has spent the last two decades exploring and performing the vast array of music that is available in the New York City area including jazz , rock, funk, salsa, gospel, reggae, Balkan, Pakistani, Mexican, Haitian, Brazilian forro, and klezmer. In 2024 he was recognized as a rising star trombonist by DownBeat and is the original Broadway cast trombonist for the Tony Award–winning show Hadestown. He has traveled the globe as a curriculum specialist for The Juilliard School’s global K–12 program and is a teaching artist for numerous arts organizations across the city. He has developed resources for Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, Juilliard, and Hadestown’s education initiative, and he is a faculty member at Carnegie Hall’s Music Educators Workshop. He is currently serving as the program director of the Community Music School at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

Emily Eagen is a performer, songwriter, and teacher based in New York City. Most recently, she wrote and co-wrote music for the 2025 installation We Will Sing by artist Ann Hamilton in Bradford, England, where community voices echo in the space of a former wool factory. She is a teaching artist for Carnegie Hall, where she leads songwriting workshops for parents and families in the Lullaby Project, hosted the video series Sing with Carnegie Hall, and appeared on Carnegie Hall’s podcast Great Music Teaching. As part of a Carnegie Hall commission, Emily co-wrote Nooma (2019), an immersive opera for babies ages 0–3, and songs for the album A Colorful World by Falu Shah, which won a Grammy for Best Children’s Album in 2022. Also a specialist in early music, Emily is the Assistant Festival Director at Amherst Early Music, and weaves elements of medieval and renaissance music into her original works. She teaches vocal harmony and technique at the Jalopy Theater and School of Music, and is a professional whistler and two-time International Whistling Champion. Emily can be heard with the vocal improvisation ensemble Moving Star, the close-harmony trio Up at Dawn, and on her forthcoming album produced by Jalopy Records of songs for the young and the young at heart.

Margaret Jenks is the current chair of the Wisconsin Comprehensive Musicianship Project and is committed to raising the bar for music education, both in her teaching of K–12 students and in her work mentoring and training teachers. Jenks strives to use her role as a music educator to create a more equitable society with strategies that promote critical thinking and self-reflection, empowering students to see themselves as capable learners, listeners, and creators. She currently teaches choral music and theater at Hamilton Middle School, a large, diverse school in the city center of Madison, Wisconsin. She also conducts several choirs for Madison Youth Choirs, a community music organization serving more than 500 students from the greater Madison area. Since 2012, Jenks has been a regular presenter with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

Margaret is a frequent guest conductor for state and regional honor choirs and has directed choirs and led teacher workshops across the US, Europe, and Asia. The Madison Symphony Orchestra named her its first Music Educator of the Year in 2014, and in 2019, she participated in the Yale Music Symposium, where she received the Yale University Distinguished Music Educator Award.

Dr. Janet Kim (은하 ) is the director of wind bands and coordinator of large instrumental ensembles at the University of Connecticut, where they conduct the UConn Symphonic Wind Ensemble and teach courses in conducting, woodwind techniques, pedagogy, and wind literature. They also oversee graduate studies in wind conducting.

They hold a doctorate in conducting from UCLA, a master’s degree in instrumental conducting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s degree in music education and jazz studies from Montclair State University. Their mentors include Travis J. Cross, Timothy A. Paul, Jason Worzbyt, and Shelley Axelson. While in Los Angeles, they served as the associate director of the Peninsula Symphonic Winds in San Pedro, and successfully led a fully virtual ensemble through the pandemic. In recognition of their expertise, UCLA hired Dr. Kim to teach a course on audio technology.

A sought-after guest conductor and clinician, Dr. Kim has led honor bands and festivals across the US and Canada, and virtual clinics for ensembles in Hong Kong and South Korea. They are a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Their work has been featured at the Midwest Clinic, in state conferences, podcasts, and publications.

Alysia Lee is a nationally recognized voice for equity, access, and decolonization in the arts and youth development. Her work centers anti-racism, creativity, and justice across sectors.

She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sister Cities Girlchoir, an El Sistema-inspired choral academy for girls in Philadelphia, Camden, and Baltimore, now in its eleventh season. A Kennedy Center Citizen Artist, Alysia is also an active guest conductor, with recent appearances with the LA Master Chorale, Mendelssohn Chorus, and Boston Children’s Chorus.

Her choral work “Say Her Name” is published by Hal Leonard, and she has received recent composition commissions from Baltimore Choral Arts and Portland Lesbian Choir.

Alysia serves on the board of Chorus America and is a sought-after speaker and facilitator, with engagements including the U.S. Department of Education, Carnegie Hall, VH1 Save the Music, The Kennedy Center, and national conferences and universities.

She previously led Fine Arts Education for the Maryland State Department of Education.

Alysia is the inaugural President & CEO of the Baltimore Children & Youth Fund, a bold public fund committed to advancing justice, abundance, and creativity for Baltimore’s young people.

Dr. Stephen Neely is a teacher, conductor, theorist, writer, and clinician who lectures and presents workshops in the fields of design, music, architecture, and pedagogy. He holds a Dalcroze License and is a past President of the Dalcroze Society of America.

He teaches Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Dalcroze Pedagogy for the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) School of Music, having taught every bachelor’s student in music performance and composition at CMU since 1999. He taught Dalcroze Eurhythmics and directed the Opera Workshop at Pittsburgh’s High School for the Creative and Performing Arts for 23 years (1994–2018), served as chorusmaster for Opera Theater of Pittsburgh from 1999–2010, and was a featured speaker at TEDxCMU 2012.

In addition to his duties at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Neely is on faculty for the Houston Grand Opera Butler Studio Emerging Artist Program, co-chair of the International Conference of Dalcroze Studies, co-founder and co-host of the Virtual Dalcroze Meet-Up, special faculty for the Tepper School of Business Executive Education, and an author. His newest book, Make it Music—Dalcroze Strategies for Every Classroom, is an invaluable resource for classroom teachers interested in including more movement activities in their practice.

Dr. Ann Marie Stanley is director of the school of music and professor of music education at The Pennsylvania State University. Previously, she served as professor and associate dean at Louisiana State University, and held faculty positions at the Eastman School of Music. She taught public school music and children’s choir for seven years in Napa Valley, California. Dr. Stanley earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan and degrees in oboe performance from Wichita State University. She is the chair of the Society for Music Teacher Education and co-authored the Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the U.S. (2020).

She has published more than 30 research studies and book chapters in major music journals including Arts Education Policy Review and Journal of Music Teacher Education. Her expertise encompasses music-teacher learning, professional development, musical collaboration, and qualitative research methodology.

Dr. Stanley has presented at more than 30 national and international conferences, including as the research headliner at the 2022 Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association conference and the collegiate presenter at the 2025 conference of the Texas Music Educator Association. She has been scholar-in-residence at Temple University, University of Florida, and Wichita State University, and presented at universities across the UK, Belgium, France, and China.

Randal “Randy” Swiggum has served as conductor, composer, and performer, but his favorite role is music educator, working with students and teachers around the world for more than 30 years. Randy has been part of the Carnegie Hall Summer Music Educators Workshop in many roles over the last 10 years. He has conducted all-state orchestras and choirs throughout the US and around the world, from Singapore to Hong Kong, and from Rio de Janeiro to Venice.

With professional orchestras around the country, Swiggum has created and conducted concerts for young audiences, such as Beethoven Superhero, The Amazing Mr. Copland, and Symphony Safari. He has conducted Midori and Rachel Barton Pine, performing the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius violin concertos, and he has also collaborated with many other artists, including Brandon Ridenour, Yo-Yo Ma, and eighth blackbird.

Swiggum lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and serves as the Arts Teacher Leader for the Madison Metropolitan School District, where he coaches and leads professional development for 132 music and art teachers, K–12. He serves on the Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance Project and continues to lead teacher workshops around the world, as well as writing and publishing books and articles for music educators, including the new second edition of Shaping Sound Musicians. 

Yasser Tejeda, the award-winning Dominican composer, guitarist, vocalist, and producer, passionately advocates for new generations to explore, promote, and enrich their cultural heritage. With a diverse musical portfolio, Tejeda is a prominent contributor in the conversation about Afro-Dominican roots music and its fusion with jazz, rock, and Caribbean rhythms. Mezclansa, his first album, was dubbed one of the “100 essential recordings” of Dominican music by the Dominican National Association of Art Writers (Acroarte). His second album, Kijombo, received six awards from the Dominican Republic’s Premios Indie, including Best Album, and his latest album, La Madrugá, earned him a nomination for Best Alternative Artist at the 2024 Premios Soberano in the Dominican Republic.

Tejeda’s music has captivated audiences globally. He appeared as a guest artist at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC, to honor the great Arturo Sandoval. He has performed at esteemed festivals such as Isle of Light (Dominican Republic), LatiNxt (Chicago), and the Afro-Latino Fest (Washington, DC). He has also sold out prestigious venues like New York’s Carnegie Hall and Apollo Music Café, and Mexico City’s Frëims. Furthermore, his music has been part of the curriculum of renowned institutions like UCLA, Fordham University, Rutgers, and Princeton. Juan Luis Guerra, the most influential Dominican artist in the world, has called him “marvelous example of what’s happening with Dominican music.”