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President

Formerly on the music faculties of Florida International University and the Sewanee Summer Music Camp, Solo Competition Chair Wesley Baldwin currently serves as associate professor of cello at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with the Diaz Trio, the Miami String Quartet, Michael Tilson Thomas, and has appeared at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Subtropics Music Festivals. Internationally he has performed in chamber concerts in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world's great conductors, and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, and Brazil. An enthusiast for education and cello playing, he has conducted workshops and master classes throughout the U.S. He is the founder and director of the Tennessee Cello Workshop, an annual three-day seminar for young cellists. In the summer he performs and teaches at the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts, the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, and at the Wintergreen Festival, where he serves as associate principal cello. He is featured as cellist on several CD labels and has won numerous awards for both teaching and performance.

Secretary

Jenifer van Tol grew up in Oak Ridge and started on violin in the 5th grade, in an earlier string program started by Anthony Raisis in 1955. This program only existed for 3 years and was then dropped. Jenifer went on to study privately and participate in the Oak Ridge Symphony, and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the All East and All State Orchestra, and attended the Sewanee Summer Music Center for several years. She then attended Indiana University, majoring in Music and minoring in German, and earning a BS Degree in 1969. After spending her senior year in Hamburg, Germany, she completed her studies at Hamburg University and the Hamburg Conservatory of Music. She graduated from there in 1971 with the First and Second State Exams as a Gymnasium Teacher, in Music and English, and as a Certified Private Violin Teacher. She taught Music, Violin and English in Hamburg, performed with a Baroque Music Ensemble, and conducted a Youth Orchestra, until 1981, when she returned to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Here, she continued teaching privately, and playing with the Knoxville and Oak Ridge Symphonies, serving as concertmaster of the latter from 1987-1991. When a teaching position in the Oak Ridge School System opened up in 1987, she became a part time teacher, working with students in 4th - 9th grades. In 1989, after the death of Edgar Meyer, she became the Director of the Oak Ridge High School Orchestra and full time teacher in the school system. In the meantime, the Oak Ridge High School Orchestra has grown from 17 players in 1989 to 165 enrolled in grades 9-12. The orchestra has performed in Washington DC for a millennium celebration in year 2000, in Avery Fischer Hall in Lincoln Center in New York in 2008 and has participated in competitions in Williamsburg,Virginia, New Orleans, LA. Branson Missouri and in Orlando, Florida, winning superior ratings. The orchestra program in Oak Ridge now has 675 students enrolled in grades 4-12.

Treasurer

Sara Johnson has been teaching Orchestra in the Metro Nashville Public Schools at the Middle School and High School levels for twenty-three years. She also teaches Strings Methods at Belmont University, and Suzuki Violin at Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music. Currently serving as Treasurer for the Tennessee Chapter of the American String Teachers Association, Mrs. Johnson is also a Past-President. She continues to be active in the Middle Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association, and is a charter member of the Trevecca Symphony Orchestra and of the Centennial String Quartet in which she plays viola. Mrs. Johnson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa, and attained her Plus-30 from MTSU and Cumberland University. She has been listed in five editions of "Who's Who Among America's Teachers", and has been a Clinician for the Quad State Orchestra Festival, the All-West Junior High Orchestra, Metro Summer Orchestra Camp, and the UNC Asheville Summer Music Camp.

Regional Representatives

West: Andrew Palmer

Middle: TBA

East: Matt Wilkinson

Newsletter Editor

Dr. Emily Hanna Crane joined Austin Peay State University in 2008 as the Coordinator of Orchestral Strings and Assistant Professor of Music. She teaches violin, viola, chamber music, music appreciation, chamber music literature, and string methods. Dr. Crane also teaches Suzuki and traditional violin through the Community School of the Arts, where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010. She is the Director of the APSU Honor Orchestra Festival and has been an active adjudicator, clinician, and sectional coach for summer festivals and honor orchestras. Prior to APSU, Dr. Crane taught at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg and held a large private violin studio in Tallahassee, Fla. She has also been an active free-lance musician in the Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Dr. Crane earned the Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Florida State University where she studied violin with Eliot Chapo, Gary Kosloski, and Karen Clarke. She earned the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she studied with Richard Luby. Dr. Crane has also studied with Kenneth Goldsmith, Kevin Lawrence, Ernest Pereira, and Mary Jane Kirkendol. She has also studied viola pedagogy with Pamela Ryan and Dana Meyer. An avid performer, Dr. Crane has given concerts across North America, Taiwan, and Europe. She is a member of the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, and as concertmaster, has played the solo violin part on a variety of works ranging from Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 6 ("Le Matin") to J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 to Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Op. 9. In November 2011 Dr. Crane was featured as the violin soloist in Michael Daugherty's violin concerto Ladder to the Moon. Dr. Crane is a founding member of the Hanna-Yang Duo, with pianist Hui-Ting Yang, dedicated to premiering new works. The Duo premiered Metamorphoses II by Clifton Callender (commissioned by the Florida State Music Teachers Association and the Hanna-Yang Duo) at the 2009 FSMTA conference in Tallahassee. The Duo has performed Metamorphoses II at the 2011 Southern Chapter College Music Society Conference, the 2011 Florida State University New Music Festival, and the 2010 College Music Society National Conference. A recording of the piece will be released in late 2012 or early 2013. In 2005, the Duo premiered and recorded Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano (2004) by Ju-hwan Yu, which appears on a recording featuring contemporary Korean composers (Kum-Seong records) released in 2008. Dr. Crane has been a member of Tango Sur (traditional Argentinean music, Tallahassee) and Quartet alla Turca (first prize at the 2002 NUMUS competition; 2001-02 Eppes Graduate Quartet, FSU). She has also performed as a chamber musician on Live in Studio C (WPLN Nashville Public Radio) and performed with the Nexus Chamber Orchestra (Brentwood, Tenn.). Dr. Crane has served as concertmaster and associate concertmaster of the Valley (South Texas) and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestras and played in the violin sections of several orchestras including the Jacksonville (Fla.) and Columbus (Ga.) Symphony Orchestras. In addition to serving as one of the faculty advisers for Sigma Alpha Iota, Dr. Crane is a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas, American String Teacher Association, College Music Society (Board Member for Performance in the Southern College Music Society 2012-2014), National Association for Music Education, and Tennessee Music Educators Association.

Solo Competition Chair

Formerly on the music faculties of Florida International University and the Sewanee Summer Music Camp, Solo Competition Chair Wesley Baldwin currently serves as associate professor of cello at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with the Diaz Trio, the Miami String Quartet, Michael Tilson Thomas, and has appeared at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Subtropics Music Festivals. Internationally he has performed in chamber concerts in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world's great conductors, and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, and Brazil. An enthusiast for education and cello playing, he has conducted workshops and master classes throughout the U.S. He is the founder and director of the Tennessee Cello Workshop, an annual three-day seminar for young cellists. In the summer he performs and teaches at the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts, the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, and at the Wintergreen Festival, where he serves as associate principal cello. He is featured as cellist on several CD labels and has won numerous awards for both teaching and performance.

President-Elect

Immediate Past President

Conductor of the University Orchestra and the Bryan Symphony Orchestra, President-Elect Dan Allcott serves as assistant professor of cello and director of orchestras at Tennessee Tech University. Mr. Allcott holds cello performance degrees from Indiana University and Drake University and has recently undergone formal conducting studies with veteran opera conductor Imre Pallo at Indiana University, where he has completed his coursework towards his Doctorate in Music. Mr. Allcott has received numerous national and international awards for his conducting, and he has conducted in master classes with Michael Tilson Thomas and Gunther Schuller with the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Conductors' Guild. As Music Director with Atlanta Ballet he conducted over 150 performances. His commitment to string education is evident in his involvement in many educational initiatives. As Associate Conductor/Director of Education for the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, and Music Director of the Columbus Youth Orchestra, Allcott also nurtured a start-up after school string program into a string ensemble and Youth Orchestra including students from a 3 county area. He also led the "Phil's Family Jam" pre-concert program for families and conducted the "Adventure Concert" series for 3rd and 4th graders, which grew its participation to include a 5 county area in South Central Indiana.

Past Presidents

We are now maintaining an online archive of past presidents of Tennessee ASTA. If you can help complete the archive, please send additions to the webmaster.