I am a Scranton native and have been an elementary music teacher in the Scranton School District since 2002. While I currently teach music to students from Pre-K to 5th grade, I have also directed and created programming material for the TV studio at George Bancroft and produced the first and only podcasts in the district for Bancroft Elementary School and John Adams Elementary School. I have published articles about my work in the Scranton School District newsletter, which is distributed by the Scranton Times quarterly.
I started at St. Catherine of Siena as an organist for the weekend masses in 1991. Since that time, I became the accompanist for the Youth Choir, the Adult Choir, choir director, and as of July 2009, director of music. I have debuted many original musical works at my church, including settings for “Ave Maria,” “Immaculate Mary,” “For the Beauty of the Earth,” and “Taste & See,” several instrumental pieces performed during the Christmas and Easter seasons, and my mass settings, “Missa Benedicta,” named in memory of Sr. Benedicta Berendes IHM, my music history teacher and undergrad advisor at Marywood, and “Missa Miriam,” named in honor of my music theory teacher, Sr. Miriam Joseph Reinhardt.
I graduated from Marywood University in 1999 with a BM in Music Education and was awarded The Sister M. Clare Kelley Medal for Excellence in Music. In 2007, I received my MA, also in Music Education from Marywood. In addition, I have studied music technology during summer classes at Villanova University and online through the University of Colorado and have completed my TI:ME (Technology Institute for Music Educators) certification. My TI:ME instructors have included Dr. Tom Rudolph, Dr. Floyd Richmond, Dr. John Kuzmich, Ken Peters, and Mike Fein. I have taught various music and technology classes at Marywood University’s Vivace Music Institute (formerly known as the Summer Music Camp) from 1995 until 2011, when the program was discontinued, and I taught online music technology classes for music educators from the summer of 2010 through 2015. In 2014 and 2015 I taught as an adjunct professor with Seattle Pacific University.
I have performed in the pit orchestra of Marywood’s major theatre productions: “Pippin,” “A Chorus Line,” “Guys & Dolls,” and “The Will Rogers Follies;” and in the senior workshop production of “The Fantastics.” I have also worked “behind the scenes,” assisting with props, lighting, and sound, for several music department productions, and I was the music director for Marywood’s Children’s Theatre Production of “Sleeping Beauty” in 2013. Several of my original pieces have been performed by the Marywood Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, Percussion Ensemble, and at the Vivace Music Institute. I have also performed in several musicals and cabarets with the former “Diva Theater” and continue to work as an independent musician for weddings, receptions, and funerals. I taught private music lessons from 1997 until 2014, when I closed the studio to persue other interests.
I play the piano, organ, violin, and percussion, and have studied privately with Bob Manento, Sr. Immaculate Severino IHM, Steve Mathiesen, Mark Laubach, Sophie Till, and Patrick J. Marcinko Ⅲ.
