2017 Alabama All State Orchestra Conductors Sinfonia
Festival
Foster Beyershas served as Director of Orchestras at Concordia College since 2011. In addition to leading the Concordia Orchestra, he teaches instrumental conducting and special topics courses in music history. Prior to coming to Concordia, Beyers
served as interim director of orchestra at the College of St. Benedict/St. John University for the 2010/2011 academic year. While there, he led the orchestra in the midwest premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Symphony for the Dance Floor in February of 2011. From 2008-2011 he was a James Sample Fellow in conducting at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities where he led the Campus Orchestra and String Orchestra and studied with Mark Russell Smith. In November of 2009 he conducted the University of Minnesota Opera Theater and Orchestra in four performances of Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol. He also worked closely with Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Osmo Vanska in preparation for a performance with the University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony in March of 2011.
Mr. Beyers came to Minnesota from Chicago where he served as Music Director of the Ravenswood Community Orchestra, Assistant Director of Choirs at Kenilworth Union Church, and adjunct instructor of music at Loyola College. He also received a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from Northwestern University in Evanston where he studied with Victor Yampolsky and Mallory Thompson. He also taught band and orchestra in the Green Bay Public schools for five years.
Mr. Beyers has led orchestras including the St.Louis Youth Symphony, Northshore Chamber Orchestra, Skokie Valley Symphony, the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra and the Jugendorchester Stuttgart. As an educator he has conducted the Merit School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Music Institute of Chicago Junior Academy Orchestra and the 2010 Minnesota Middle Level Honors Orchestra as well as numerous regional honors orchestras throughout the midwest. Mr. Beyers has also served as Music Director for the Buffalo Community Orchestra in Buffalo, Minnesota as well as the Seward Concert Band in Minneapolis. Beyers lives in Moorhead with his wife, conductor Christina Chen-Beyers and their daughter Amelia.
ala breve
Sandra Dackow earned the Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and the Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music of The University of Rochester. She is currently serving as Music Director of the Hershey Symphony Orchestra in
Pennsylvania and is a former Music Director of the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey.
Recent guest conducting has included appearances with the Helena Symphony, Montana, the All-Queensland Honors Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, the Kharkov Philharmonic in Ukraine, the Rapides Symphony, Alexandria, Louisiana and the Monroe Symphony, also in Louisiana and the Spartanburg Philharmonic, South Carolina, as well as a tour with the Moriah College Orchestra in Australia.
A Native of East Paterson (Elmwood Park), New Jersey, Dr. Dackow has conducted bands and orchestras in the schools of Glen Rock and East Brunswick, New Jersey, and served as Supervisor of Music for the Ridgewood NJ public schools. A former chair of the string department and orchestra director at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, she has been a visiting faculty member during the summer sessions of the Eastman School of Music, Temple University, Montclair State College NJ, Wichita State University, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the Cork School of Music, Ireland. She most recently served on the faculty of Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, as director of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble.
An annual ASCAP award winning arranger, Dr. Dackow has generated over seventy published works for orchestras and is an author of the Orchestra Expressions curriculum. She is active as a guest conductor, adjudicator and clinician across the nation and Canada, in England, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ukraine, South Africa and throughout Australia and Ireland.
Articles of hers have appeared in major professional journals and she has contributed to, or co-authored music reference books, methods and texts. Dr. Dackow currently serves as President-elect of the Conductors Guild, an international organization.
Consort
Dr. Christina Yi-Ping Chen-Beyers currently serves as the Orchestra Director of the University Orchestra in Fargo- Moorhead, an ensemble which includes students from Minnesota State University-Moorhead and North Dakota State University. She is
also the music director of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra in St. Paul and Northern Valley Youth Orchestras in Grand Forks. As a Sample Fellow in Conducting at the University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities she led the Campus Orchestra and founded the Campus String Orchestra and Summer Orchestra.
Dr. Chen-Beyers believes in the value of music as a powerful tool to bridge the divides between people. Her passion for community engagement led her to organize and conduct a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion with musicians from the University of Minnesota Orchestra and Choirs. In conjunction with this concert, she organized a dialogue about anti-Semitism among religious leaders in the twin-cities. Dr. Chen-Beyers is active locally and internationally as clinician and educator. Recently she was invited to lead the European Middle School Honors Orchestra in Berlin which is organized by AMIS (The Association of Music in International Schools). She was also invited to lead an orchestra as part of the 2011 North Dakota String Teachers Association Orchestra Festival.
As an oboist she has extensive experience as a performer in numerous setting and has played under world-renowned conductors such as Daniel Harding and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. As an educator she currently holds positions as oboe instructor at University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University where she is excited to join the NDSU faculty woodwind quintet.
Dr. Chen-Beyers holds a D.M.A. degree in conducting from University of Minnesota; a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting from Northwestern University and a B.M. degree in Oboe Performance from the University of Toronto. Her principal conducting teachers include Mark Russell Smith, Victor Yampolsky, and Raffi Armenian. Her oboe teachers include John Snow, Grover Schiltz and Keith Atkinson.
Dr. Chen-Beyers resides in Moorhead with her husband Foster and enjoys taking long walks and watching the sunrise over the great plains.
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