Dr. Robert Schwartz is the Director of Bands at Southeastern Louisiana University. At Southeastern, he is responsible for guiding all aspects of the band program, which include conducing the Wind Symphony as well as directing The Spirit of Southland Marching Band and Pep Band. In addition to his responsibilities with the band program, he teaches instrumental conducting classes and Instrumental Band Methods. Schwartz is also the recipient of the 2022 NEH-Southeastern Development Foundation Endowed Professorship in Music. Additionally, he is the conductor of the Northlake Community Band.

Prior to his appointment at Southeastern, Dr. Schwartz was the Director of Bands at Central Connecticut State University and Visiting Director of Bands at Washburn University. At both places he was in charge of overseeing all aspects of the band program with both concert ensembles and athletic bands. He also taught classes in Conducting, Orchestration, Instrumental Music Education Methods and Enjoyment of Music. He was also the Assistant Director of Bands at Drake University. Dr. Schwartz completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Colorado Boulder. At CU, his primary teacher was Dr. Donald McKinney and was involved with all of the concert ensembles and athletic bands. His dissertation project included an extensive document on the Recording Projects of Eugene Migliaro Corporon. Other research projects included a repertoire project focusing on works for choir and band as well as vocal soloist and band from 2000-2015 and a transcription for winds or Ola Gjeilo’s choral work, Phoenix. Schwartz has recently completed transcriptions of Joseph Turrin’s Hymn for Diana and Robert Kurka’s Julius Caesar, both premiered by the Southeastern Louisiana University Wind Symphony.

Dr. Schwartz received his Master of Music degree from the University of North Texas where he studied with Eugene Migliaro Corporon. He was also a part in a number of recording projects as a production assistant with the North Texas Wind Symphony and North Texas Symphonic Band. He has written the liner-notes to several of the North Texas Wind Symphony Windworks discs. During his time in Denton, he was one of the assistant conductors for the Lone Star Wind Orchestra for three seasons and was involved with a variety of aspects of the organization. He was one of the assistant producers to the Lone Star Wind Orchestra’s disc, Converging Cultures. Additionally, Dr. Schwartz has published articles in eight of the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr. Schwartz received his Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education from Duquesne University. While at Duquesne, he studied conducting extensively under Dr. Robert Cameron. After graduation, he taught middle school and high school band at Center Area School District for four years.

Dr. Schwartz has participated in a number of conducting workshops, including the Sixth Frederick Fennell Master Class, sponsored by the Conductors Guild. Through workshops, he has worked with Dr. Jack Stamp, Allan McMurray, Michael Haithcock, H. Robert Reynolds, Steve Davis, Mark Scatterday, Frank Battisti and Jerry Junkin.

Dr. Schwartz holds membership in the College Band Directors National Association, the National Association for Music Education, Louisiana Music Educators Association and the Conductors Guild.

Six-time Grammy® Award winning composer Michael Daugherty is one of the most commissioned, performed, and recorded composers on the American concert music scene today. His music is rich with cultural allusions and bears the stamp of classic modernism, with colliding tonalities and blocks of sound; at the same time, his melodies can be eloquent and stirring. Daugherty has been hailed by The Times (London) as “a master icon maker” with a “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.”

Daugherty first came to international attention when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Zinman, performed his Metropolis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Since that time, Daugherty’s music has entered the orchestral, band and chamber music repertory and made him, according to the League of American Orchestras, one of the ten most performed American composers. Daugherty’s orchestral music, recorded by Naxos over the last two decades, has received six Grammy® awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 and 2017.

Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Daugherty is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. He studied music composition at the University of North Texas (1972-76), the Manhattan School of Music (1976-78), and computer music at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris (1979-80). Daugherty received his doctorate from Yale University in 1986 where his teachers included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Roger Reynolds, and Bernard Rands. During this time, he also collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York, and pursued further studies with composer György Ligeti in Hamburg, Germany (1982-84). After teaching music composition from 1986-90 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daugherty joined the School of Music at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1991, where he is Professor of Composition and a mentor to many of today’s most talented young composers.

Daugherty has been Composer-in-Residence with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra (2000), Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1999-2003), Colorado Symphony Orchestra (2001-02), Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (2001-04, 2006-08, 2011), Westshore Symphony Orchestra (2005-06), Eugene Symphony (2006), Henry Mancini Summer Institute (2006), Music from Angel Fire Chamber Music Festival (2006), Pacific Symphony (2010-11), Chattanooga Symphony (2012-13), New Century Chamber Orchestra (2013), Albany Symphony (2015), and Winnipeg New Music Festival (2020).

Daugherty has received numerous awards, distinctions, and fellowships for his music, including: a Fulbright Fellowship (1977), the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award (1989), the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1991), fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1996), and the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (2000). In 2005, Daugherty received the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Composer’s Award, and in 2007, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra selected Daugherty as the winner of the A.I. DuPont Award. Also in 2007, he received the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award for his composition Raise the Roof for Timpani and Symphonic Band. Daugherty has been named “Outstanding Classical Composer” at the Detroit Music Awards in 2007, 2009 and 2010. His Grammy® award winning recordings can be heard on Albany, Argo, Delos, Equilibrium, Klavier, Naxos and Nonesuch labels.

Eugene Migliaro Corporon is the conductor of the Wind Symphony and Regents Professor of Music at the University of North Texas. As director of wind studies he guides all aspects of the program, including the masters and doctoral degrees in wind conducting. Mr. Corporon is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach and Claremont Graduate University. His performances have drawn praise from colleagues, composers, connoisseurs and music critics alike. Professor Corporon’s career, which spans six decades, began in 1969 as director of instrumental music at Mt. Miguel High School in Spring Valley, California.

He has held collegiate positions since 1971 which include California State University, Fullerton, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Northern Colorado, Michigan State University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the University of North Texas. His ensembles have performed at the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, Southwestern Music Educators National Conference, Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention, Texas Bandmasters Association Convention/Clinic, National Trumpet Competition, International Trumpet Guild Conference, International Clarinet Society Convention, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, International Horn Society Conference, National Wind Ensemble Conference, College Band Directors National Association Conference, Japan Band Clinic, and the Conference for the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles.

Mr. Corporon maintains an active guest-conducting schedule and is in demand as a conductor and teacher throughout the world. He is past president of the College Band Directors National Association and a past member of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles International Board. He has been honored by the American Bandmasters Association and by Phi Beta Mu with invitations to membership. Mr. Corporon, a frequent guest conductor at the Showa University of Music in Kawasaki City, Japan, has also served as a visiting conductor at the Juilliard School, Interlochen World Center for Arts Education and the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is the music director and conductor of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, a professional group comprised of passionate and committed musicians from the Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton/ metroplex.

Having recorded over 1000 works, including many premieres and commissions, his groups have released 150 plus recordings on the GIA, Toshiba/EMI, Klavier, Mark, CAFUA, Donemus, Soundmark, Albany, Naxos, and Centaur labels. These recordings, three of which have appeared on the Grammy nomination long ballot, are aired regularly on radio broadcasts throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The collective recordings with the North Texas Wind Symphony, Cincinnati Wind Symphony, Showa Wind Symphony and Lone Star Wind Orchestra have garnered more than 15 million hits worldwide on sites such as YouTube, Pandora and Spotify. His GIA audio and video digital releases are distributed by NAXOS. They include the WindWorks Series, Composer’s Collection and Teaching Music Through Performance in Band Resource Recordings. Other initiatives include the CAFUA and BRAVO Showa Residency Sessions, the KLAVIER Recording Project and the Live at the MPAC Videos from the University of North Texas Recording Services.

He is co-host with Barry Green on The Inner Game of Music video, which focuses on overcoming mental obstacles and achieving one’s full potential as a performer. He also appears with James Jordan on the DVD, The Anatomy of Conducting. He is co-author of the book Teaching Music Through Performance in Band that is published in eleven volumes by GIA Publications. This series includes twenty-three sets of Resource Recordings by the North Texas Wind Symphony. The Teaching Music Project emphasizes the importance of comprehensive conceptual learning in the music-making process as well as the value of performing music of artistic significance. His most recent addition to this series is entitled Explorations, Discoveries, Inventions, and Designs in the Know Where.

Professor Corporon, who was inducted into the Bands of America Hall of Fame in 2014, is a recipient of the International Grainger Society Distinctive Contribution Medallion, Kappa Kappa Psi Distinguished Service to Music Award, Phi Beta Mu International Band Conductor of the Year Award as well as an Honorary Life Membership granted by the Texas Bandmasters Association. He has also received the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia National Citation for advancing the cause of music in America, the University of North Texas Student Government Association Honor Professor Award for Teaching Excellence, Student Rapport, and Scholarly Publications, the American School Band Directors Association A. A. Harding Award for making significant and lasting contributions to the school band movement, and the California State University, Long Beach, College of Fine Arts and Department of Music Distinguished Alumni Awards. He was awarded the Midwest Clinic Medal of Honor in 2015 to recognize his unique service to music education and continuing influence on the development and improvement of bands and orchestras worldwide. Mr. Corporon received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the College Band Directors National Association in 2019. He is grateful to many people for their guidance and inspiration in his life. Among them are Charles Yates, Robert Reynolds, Benton Minor, Don Wilcox, Larry Maxey, Jack Hopkins, Frederick Fennell, Barry Green, James Jordan, and Carolyn Corporon.