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Dr. Paula Holcomb, director of bands and professor of music at the Fredonia School of Music, has been named Principal Guest Conductor of the Beijing Wind Orchestra. The Beijing Wind Orchestra, a professional Wind Ensemble, will be nationally televised from their concert at the National Center for the Arts in The Forbidden City in addition to concerts including the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Mr. Mark Dubois and Dr. Karolyn Stonefelt will join Dr. Holcomb as soloists with the Ensemble as well as coaching and adjudicating at the Beijing International Band Festival. Dr. Holcomb will also present conducting symposiums at the Central Conservatory and Beijing International Band Festival.
About Dr. Holcomb
As director of bands at SUNY Fredonia, Dr. Holcomb oversees an extensive band program consisting of four concert bands while she conducts the Wind Ensemble and musicals. In addition, she initiated the Master of Music in Conducting degree program and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting.
She is highly sought after as an adjudicator and guest conductor, and has conducted bands and orchestras in 39 states, South America, Australia, Mexico, Europe, and Canada. Recently, she was presented with the A. Frank Miller award from Kappa Kappa Psi, served on the Council and Artistic Planning Conference Committee for the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, serving on the board of the Conductors Guild and is currently Northeastern Division President-elect of the College Band Directors National Association.
About Dr. Stonefelt
Kay Stonefelt, Professor of Music, Percussion, joined the Fredonia School of Music faculty in 1993 while she was concurrently the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Grant to Ghana, West Africa. During her year in Ghana Kay worked with the Ghana Dance Ensemble at the National Theatre where she studied xylophone styles of the Dagara people with Bernard Woma, and various indigenous drumming patterns of Ghana with Francis Kofi. In return, Kay was able to share her knowledge of contemporary music through a course that she taught at the University of Ghana at Legon on music of the Twentieth Century.
At Fredonia, as a part of our multicultural awareness, and in an attempt to include world music performance in our program, African xylophone and drumming ensemble classes are offered through participation in percussion ensemble. In addition to Western European percussion performance, Kay produces and performs concerts in the U.S. with Ghanaian xylophonist Bernard Woma.
About Mr. Dubois:
Mark DuBois teaches oboe and music theory at SUNY Fredonia, and occasionally performs with the Erie Philharmonic, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Mark also serves as oboe instructor at Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA. He served as principal oboist with the Flint Symphony Orchestra in Michigan from 1984-1992, while performing as extra and substitute with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra during those years as well as teaching a large private studio of oboists. He additionally performs as an accompanying pianist for student recitals at Fredonia, as well as occasionally accompanying his colleagues on faculty recitals.
