South Central Regional

Music Conference

February 24 - 26, 2011

Fred Allen, Stephen F. Austin State University

FRED J. ALLEN is Director of Bands at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. In addition to his conducting the Wind Ensemble at SFASU, he also teaches conducting, orchestration and music education classes. He oversees nearly three hundred band students involved in the SFA band program, in four concert groups, the athletic bands and several chamber ensembles. He was the 2006 recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award at SFA for the College of Fine Arts.

Allen is a product of Music Education in the state of Texas. Before playing in the Longview High School Band of John C. "Pete" Kunkel, he was in the bands of Verna Covington and David Pennington in Austin and Don Turner, Paul Stroud and Jimmy Yancey in Longview. His undergraduate studies with Dr. Charles Trayler, then at Abilene Christian University, furthered his training in Music Education.

Under his direction, the Wind Ensemble at SFA has performed regularly at conventions of the Texas Music Educators Association and College Band Directors National Association. His SFA Wind Ensemble has performed with several guest artists and guest conductors. Under his leadership the SFA Wind Ensemble continues its long tradition of commissioning new works from composers. Recent commissions have produced works from David Maslanka, Jack Stamp, Samuel Zyman, Frank Ticheli and SFA's Stephen Lias.

Allen has conducted All-Region and All-State Bands throughout Texas and the United States, where he is also an active concert clinician and adjudicator. He has often served as guest conductor for bands playing at the Mid-West Band Convention and the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, and has also conducted the Seoul Wind Ensemble and the Al Fine Concert Band in Taegu, Korea. He remains current in the public school classroom through regular visits to area band classes, from beginners through high school.

Allen has published several pieces for band that draw upon his experience teaching band in the public schools in Texas. These works have been performed frequently at band conventions and festivals across the United States and recently, in Korea, Great Britain, Germany and Australia. He has several commissioned works in progress. There are several pieces for band by Fred J. Allen on the Prescribed Music List used by the University Interscholastic League in Texas:

Works for Band:

• Bosnian Folk Songs - Grade II
• They Led My Lord Away - Grade II
• Fantasy on "Barbara Allen" - Grade III
• He's Gone Away - Grade III
• Moravian Hymn Dance - Grade IV

Works for Flute Choir:

• All Through the Night - Class I
• Come, O Come Emmanuel - Class

Read More About the Music of Fred J. Allen

As a woodwind specialist, he performed professionally at Opryland U.S.A., for the Ice Capades, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Circus and for over forty musical productions and operas. He is a former member of the Orchestra of the Pines, the Abilene Philharmonic, the Fort Worth Civic Orchestra, and the Irving Symphony as well as community bands in Forth Worth and Lubbock.

He is a member of Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters' Fraternity, the College Band Directors National Association, and the Texas Music Educators Association.

Hal Cooper

Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Arkansas Tech University

Hal Cooper just completed his 27th year as Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Arkansas Tech University.  His duties include directing all aspects of the band program, teaching conducting, marching band techniques, band laboratory and music administration.  He has also directed the jazz ensemble and university-community orchestra in years past.  He is director of the well-known TECH Music Camps which attract over 1700 students to campus during the summer.

He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from Henderson State, where he studied and performed with Wendell Evanson.  He has also done advanced work at the University of North Texas, where he studied with Robert Winslow.  He was recently named a distinguished alumni of Henderson State University.

Professional memberships include CBDNA (past president SW division), Phi Beta Mu (past two-term president), Kappa Kappa Psi (past district governor), Arkansas Bandmasters Association (past president and charter member), and he was elected to membership in the American Bandmasters’ Association in 1992.

Cooper’s professional involvement is significant, working as clinician and adjudicator in Arkansas and across the nation.  He has conducted honor groups all over Arkansas as well as Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, Mississippi, Colorado and South Carolina.  He is a performer on the double brass and electric bass and has performed with the Fort Smith, River Valley and South Arkansas Symphonies in addition to many performances in the pop-jazz genres.  He is married to Beth (Parsons) Cooper, and has four children: Mindy, Clayton, Lee and Hal Jr.

Thomas V. Fraschillo, University of Southern Mississippi

Director of Bands
Professor of Music

D.M.A., University of South Carolina
M.M.Ed., The University of Southern Mississippi
B.M.Ed., The University of Southern Mississippi

Thomas V. Fraschillo has served as catalyst and mentor for the music profession in the area of Wind Music for 38 years. His influence on extremely high standards of performance has been felt by virtually every wind music organization in the Southeast and his performances serve as models throughout the world whether in the professional or academic arena. Through his recent recordings, The Music of Luigi Zaninelli and L’Orchestra di fiati-University of Southern Mississippi Wind Ensemble (recorded in Italy with the USM Wind Ensemble), and his publishing, conducting, and lecturing in the United States, Europe, and Australia he is considered an international musician/scholar.

His most recent publications, a translation from the original Italian of Alessandro Vessella’s Studi di strumentazione (Instrumentation Studies) published by BMG Ricordi, Milan, and distributed in the United States by Shawnee Press, and La Tecnica dell’orchestra contemporanea (The Technique of Contemporary Orchestration), by Alessandro Casella and Vittorio Mortari, published by BMG Ricordi and distributed in the United States by Hal Leonard Publications, have put his name in music libraries of the entire English speaking world. The translation of the Casella/Mortari makes available an English version of probably the most significant music publication on writing for orchestra in Europe after the Second World War. Further Dr. Fraschillo serves as a frequent conductor and lecturer in Italy as an American scholar. It should be noted that he lectures in Italy in the Italian language.

His most recent conducting in Italy has been with La banda dell’esercito/The Italian Army Band from Rome.  One of his most significant engagements with them occurred in the summer of 2002 and signaled a very important milestone for the Italian Army in that Dr. Fraschillo was the first American born conductor to have been invited to appear in a public performance by what is considered Italy’s most prestigious military concert band. The concert with Dr. Fraschillo conducting was the opening concert of the International Festival in Spoleto, “The Festival of Two Worlds, Festival dei due mondi.” His appearance was enormously significant for conductors of bands in that the opening performance featured such international artists as Gian Carlo Menotti, the renowned composer who organized and began the event some 30 years ago, the Orchestra and Giuseppe Verdi Chorus of Milan with Ricardo Chailly conducting, and the famous Italian actress, Claudia Cardinale whose work was being displayed in a film retrospective.

In 2005, the Melbourne, Australia, Summer Youth Music Program invited Dr. Fraschillo to be their guest conductor for a week long session, and in 2006 he returned to be guest lecturer for the Australian Band and Orchestra Directors Association followed by another week of guest conducting with the Melbourne group.  His performance in the Melbourne Town Hall received significant acclaim by critics in the Australian press, something normally reserved for strictly professional performances.

Dr. Fraschillo has devoted a significant amount of his career to the education of young people in the urban and rural environments of Mississippi.  For example his ten-year tenure at Meridian High School was highlighted by an invitation to perform at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious music event for wind and string educators. The invitation was only the second to have been given to a band from Mississippi until now. In December, 2001, a former USM student of Dr.Fraschillo, Mohamad Schuman of Stone County High School, was the third conductor to take a group from Mississippi to perform for this international audience. Further Dr. Fraschillo’s students have broken barriers not before reached, for he taught and helped place the first two African-American female students from Meridian, Vanessa Cox and Melanie Thomas, in the Mississippi All-State Band. Not only were they the first minority female members, but they were also the first African-American young women to be in the very highest positions in the group.

Dr. Fraschillo has attained a level of international leadership that has significantly elevated the awareness of bands by professional musicians from throughout the USA, Europe, Asia, and Canada in that he has served as President of the world’s largest organization for band directors, the National Band Association, and now serves as its Executive Secretary/Treasurer. As president of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, Dr. Fraschillo follows in this office a long line of distinguished conductors. Further he serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago based Sudler Foundation, a foundation that enhances the music education and experiences of young people through the John Philip Sousa Honor Bands and various competitions for young conductors, e.g., the Sir Georg Solti International Young Conductors Competition in honor of the late Sir Georg Solti, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Under his leadership the University of Southern Mississippi’s Wind Ensemble has been featured on frequent public radio broadcasts in Mississippi, on Performance Today, a program of PRI (Public Radio International), and has performed for many regional and national conventions including two of the American Bandmasters Association and three of the College Band Director’s National Association. In 1998, he brought the national convention of the American Bandmasters Association to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for its annual meeting. As a result of all of the above he is constantly in demand as a conductor and lecturer throughout the world and attracts a steady stream of graduate students to USM to study in its Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting degree program.

Presently, Dr. Fraschillo served as the president of the National Band Association, the world's largest organization for band directors. Other memberships include the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, the College Band Directors National Association, the Mississippi Bandmasters Association, Phi Beta Mu, Phi Delta Kappa, and various fraternal organizations. In all of these organizations, Dr. Fraschillo has served in various capacities. Other than the presidency of the NBA, his most recent appointments have been as the CBDNA president in the Southern Division and first vice-president of the NBA. As a clinician and adjudicator, he is constantly in demand.

Richard Crain

Director of Music for the Spring Independent School Distrct - Retired
Vice President  Midwest International
Band and Orchestra Clinic

Richard C. Crain served as Director of Music for the Spring Independent School District in a suburb of Houston, Texas, for 21 years.  He currently serves as a frequent clinician, adjudicator, lecturer, consultant, and evaluator of music programs throughout the United States and Canada.   Crain previously served as Band Director of award-winning band programs at Westfield High School, Spring High School, and Belton High School.  His bands won prestigious invitations such as performing a concert at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago and marching in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Los Angeles and also won honors at marching and concert festivals in Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, and Colorado.  All of his bands consistently received first divisions at UIL and ranked in the TMEA top ten bands of Texas.  During his tenure as Director of Music for the Spring ISD, the music programs of that district received state and national honors and recognition.  He “retired” in 2000 after 44 years in music education in Texas.  
Crain serves as Vice President on the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Board of Directors, of which he has been a member since 1991.  He served as the Executive Secretary for Region IX UIL Music contests from 1994-2005.  He has been the Festival Coordinator for the National Concert Band Festival since its debut in 1992 and was inducted into the Bands of America Hall of Fame in 2005.  Crain is Past President of the Texas Bandmasters Association, Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Mu, and the Texas Music Adjudicators Association.  He previously served as the Region Chairman and the Band Chairman for Region IX and Region VIII.  He has been the International Executive Secretary of Phi Beta Mu since 1977 and is included in the Phi Beta Mu Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame. He is also a contributing author for Band Expressions, published by Alfred Publications.  
The Richard C. Crain Fine Arts Building at Spring High School was named in his honor in 2000.  His awards include Texas Bandmaster of the Year by the Texas Bandmasters Association and Outstanding Music Educator award from NFIAA on both the state and national levels. In 2002, he received the “Distinguished Faculty Award” from the Spring High School Alumni Association.  He previously served as Orchestra Director and Choir Director for several Texas churches and directed the Houston Police Department Band for one year.  He currently serves as Director of the North Harris College/Community Band and the Spring Baptist Church Orchestra.  Early in 2006, he was elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association and in the summer of 2006, Crain received the Music Administrator Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Bandmasters Association.

Troy Breaux

Troy Breaux is Director of Percussion Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he teaches all courses in percussion performance, both classical and jazz, and pedagogy.  In addition, Mr. Breaux is the director of the UL Percussion Ensemble, which, in addition to the standard repertoire, includes the Marimba Ensemble, Pop-Contemporary Ensemble, Steel Drum Band, Afro-Cuban Ensemble, Brazilian Ensemble, Taiko Ensemble and Indonesian Gamelan Orchestra.

            Prior to his appointment at UL Lafayette, Mr. Breaux served on the faculties at Auburn University and the University of Tennessee where he taught courses in percussion performance and also served as Assistant Director of Bands and Director of Jazz Bands.  From 1993 to 1996 he served as Assistant Director of Bands and Director of Percussion at Seguin High School in Seguin, Texas.  There the band received numerous UIL division one ratings and was a consistent finalist in the Bands of America Southwest Regional Competition.  Mr. Breaux has also served as a percussion specialist for several bands in the Dallas, Texas area.

            As a performer, Mr. Breaux has appeared with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, the Mid-Texas Symphony, the Los Colinas Symphony and is presently a member of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra.  He has appeared as a soloist and clinician at universities and percussion festivals throughout the United States in several genres including orchestral percussion, marimba, drumset, Afro-Cuban percussion and marching percussion.  He can be heard as a featured performer with the University of North Texas Wind Symphony on its 1997 Klavier label recording entitled Deja View.  Mr. Breaux is also a former percussion section leader of the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps.

            Mr. Breaux holds a B.M. degree in Music Performance from Louisiana State University, a M.M. degree in Music Performance from the University of Miami and is presently pursuing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas.  He is an artist/clinician for the Yamaha Corporation, Innovative Percussion Sticks and Mallets and Bosphorus Cymbals and his original compositions for percussion are published by Drop6 Media.

Performance clips:

Journey Interrupted, composed by Troy Breaux

• A Fork in the Road (I)
• Excursions (II)

Alissa Mercurio Rowe

Alissa Mercurio Rowe is an active choral conductor and voice teacher. Since 2002, she has held instructor positions at Southeastern Louisiana University. During the summers of 2003 and 2004 she served as a member of the All-State voice faculty at Interlochen Arts Academy. She conducts the Southeastern Concert Choir, Southeastern Louisiana University's premiere choral ensemble,with which she conducted the world premiere of Theodore Morrison's Canzoni d'amore and Stephen Suber's His Rhythm! She is active as an adjudicator, has given choral and vocal workshops in the Midwest and Southeastern states and has conducted numerous Honor Choirs.

Ms. Rowe is also the current Vocal Area Coordinator at Southeastern.  In December of 2006, she was the featured soprano soloist with Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra for their performance of Handel’s Messiah. For the past five years, she has performed with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra on their Holiday Concert Series.  Having been a conducting participant in 2002, Ms, Rowe returned to the Conductor's Retreat at Medomak (Maine) as a soloist and sang two performances of Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915. She also performed and recorded three roles in David Schiff's opera Gimpel the Fool, conducted by Kenneth Kiesler, with Third Angle, Portland Oregon's renowned new music ensemble. Ms. Rowe is a versatile performer who regularly performs a wide variety of works such as the Beethoven's Mass in C, Messiah of Handel, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Schubert's Mass in G, as well as opera roles in La Cenerentola, The Consul, Magic Flute and La Perichole, among others. She is also active as a recitalist.

Ms. Rowe holds a Master of Music in Conducting, a Master of Music in Vocal Performance, a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and Teacher Certification K-12 from the University of Michigan. In August of 2005, she began course work for a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Conducting at Louisiana State University in conjunction with her teaching at Southeastern.

Dr. Burt Allen

Dr. Allen has been the Director of Choral Activities since the fall of 1983. His choirs have appeared before the Louisiana Music Educators Convention and the Louisiana All state Choir on several occasions. They have also appeared three times at the Louisiana ACDA/LMEA Fall Vocal Music Conference. Dr. Allen received his Bachelor and Master of Music Education degrees from the University of Kansas.

After teaching high school in Warren, MI from 1970-73, and also serving as Choral Director of Macomb County Community College from 1971-73, he returned to the University of Kansas as the Assistant Director of Choral Activities from 1973-77. He earned the DMA in Conducting from Kansas in 1977 and accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at William Woods and Westminster College in Fulton, MO. From 1981 to 1985 he served as one of the conductors of the high school choirs at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, MI.

In addition to studying conducting with James Ralston and George Lawner at the University of Kansas, he has also studied under Marcel Couroud at the University of Oklahoma and with Robert Shaw at Emory University. Dr. Allen also has written several grants related to the implementation of Electronic Technologies into Music and Music Education. These grants have been responsible for more than a quarter of a million dollars in equipment and supplies for Northwestern.