The Sunderman Conservatory Announces New Faculty Members

Schmucker Hall, home to the Sunderman Conservatory of Music (Photo Mary Frasier/The Gettysburgian)

Schmucker Hall, home to the Sunderman Conservatory of Music (Photo Mary Frasier/The Gettysburgian)

By Julia Gokalp, Contributing Writer

As Gettysburg College welcomed the return of the full student body this semester, new appointees were concurrently welcomed to the faculty of the Sunderman Conservatory of Music. In a series of emails addressed to the students and staff of the Conservatory, its director, James Day, introduced each of the new faculty members to the community.

Among the new members of the faculty is Eric Byrd, the new director for the Jazz Ensemble. A pianist and vocalist with over thirty years of experience, he developed a passion for music at a young age. Byrd’s love of music was furthered when, in his freshman year of college, he heard jazz trumpeter Miles Davis’s record, “Kind of Blue.”

Byrd was moved by the creative, contrasting improvisations of each of the artists and the expressive individuality of their interwoven music: “[An] aspect that got me was the reinforcement [that] I didn’t have to play like anyone else to have a relationship with this music. I just had to reference jazz masters in my playing, but I could totally be myself. … [The musicians on the record] just played out of who they were.”

Byrd’s teaching career began shortly after he earned his undergraduate degree from McDaniel College. “[A] year after I graduated the department chair asked me if I wanted to start a gospel choir,” he recalled. “I said no. She said yes. So I started the choir.”

He subsequently began to teach both classes and piano lessons, which he enjoyed. Currently, he is the director of Worship and Media at Frederick Church of the Brethren in Maryland, an artist-in-residence and gospel choir director at Messiah College, and a jazz piano instructor at Shenandoah University.

He came to Gettysburg this year at the request of Paul Carr, his friend and the previous Jazz Ensemble director. He has performed alongside Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, and Mike Stern, among many others. He is also the pianist and vocalist for the Eric Byrd Trio, which also includes Alphonso Young, Jr., who has also joined the Conservatory faculty this year as an adjunct assistant professor teaching percussion.

Young, who has been a professional musician for over forty years, was also exposed to music at an early age—initially, mostly soul and R&B. In high school, he joined the jazz band where he learned different styles of jazz and developed an appreciation for the genre. He attended Shenandoah University—where, alongside Loudoun County Public Schools, he has taught since 1994—for his undergraduate degree.

Throughout his career, he has played with renowned musicians; joined the Young Brothers Trio and the Robert Larson Trio; and toured across the world, including as the percussionist for the European tour of the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. He has been described by Eric Byrd as “unapologetically committed to ‘the sound’ of jazz.”

Also joining the Conservatory’s roster of percussion professors is I Ketut Suadin, director of Gamelan Gita Semara as well as a musician, composer, teacher, puppeteer, and dancer from the Indonesian island of Bali.

Exposed to music after seeing his father participate in his village gamelan (a traditional Balinese ensemble of tuned percussion instruments) and participating in a children’s gamelan, he was formally trained at Konservatori Karawitan (Conservatory for the Performing Arts) in Bali. Since 1988, he has taught, traveled throughout the U.S., and performed in various gamelan. He currently directs gamelan at Bard College, Eastman School of Music, and the University of Maryland.

Additionally, two members of the resident faculty ensemble, the Sunderman Wind Quintet, recently joined the faculty: Sarah McIver and Lynn Moncilovich. McIver teaches flute and coaches chamber music, and she has extensive experience as both a chamber and orchestral musician, as well as twelve years of experience touring with the U.S. Army Field Band. While she left active duty in 2015, she currently serves as Staff Sergeant of the 229th Army Band in the Maryland National Guard.

Moncilovich, in addition to teaching bassoon at Gettysburg, teaches at the Music School of Delaware and the Kolker-Moncilovich Bassoon Academy. She is also the contrabassoonist of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, second bassoonist of the Apollo Orchestra, and formerly the second bassoonist with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony and Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra. While pursuing her Masters of Music in

Bassoon Performance at the University of North Texas, she was a featured soloist with their Wind Symphony.
Michaela Trnkova, who recently began to teach harp at Gettysburg, received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where she founded a harp ensemble and currently serves as the coordinator of the Peabody Preparatory Harp Department. Throughout her career in classical and pop music, she has participated in recitals internationally, held officer positions in various Harp Society chapters, and performed for multiple presidents and alongside well-known musicians such as Ray Charles and Clay Aiken.

The newest addition to the Conservatory’s administrative team is Greta McNally, the Academic Administrative Assistant. Her role, as detailed by James Day, includes “serving as a point of contact for folks outside the Conservatory; supporting our initiatives in the areas of admissions, recruiting, communications, and marketing; [and] supporting the Director’s office.”

Possessing experience and education in public relations and communications, she returns to Gettysburg after having worked here as an intern for the Office of Multicultural Engagement for three summers during her undergraduate studies at Loyola University Maryland.
After this academic year, jazz studies at Gettysburg will undergo another significant change: Paul Austerlitz, professor of Music and Africana Studies and the director of Jazz Dispatch, will be retiring. Eric Byrd will fill his role as director of Dispatch, while Amanda Heim will direct the Jazz Ensemble.

Though he has been an instrumentalist for many years, he considers himself primarily an ethnomusicologist; his field is, as he explains it, “the study of music in its cultural context.” Music, he believes, is inextricably intertwined with the culture—such as the political, religious, and social factors—that surrounds it. “Music is a creative manifestation of human culture,” he said, and in order to understand a type of music fully, it is vital to know the context that underlies it.

With those tenets in mind, he has pursued one of his career’s missions: to more closely link music and Africana Studies, teaching cross-listed classes between the departments. He has also advocated for credit for jazz ensembles toward the music major. With gratitude for his opportunities at Gettysburg and optimism for the Conservatory’s future, especially in the wake of the recent Music Conservatory Diversity Committee meeting, he expressed hope that the Conservatory will continue to become more inclusive.

Austerlitz sees an opportunity to teach as much of the world’s music as possible and bring more people into the music community since, according to him, “[m]usic can be such a force for bringing people together.”

This article originally appeared on pages 12–13 of the December 6, 2021 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.

Author: Gettysburgian Staff

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