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SUDBURY VALLEY
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Staff Members - Who is Helping You Learn?
STRINGS:
Donna Nagle is heading up the string program. A longtime Weston Public Schools music 
teacher, Donna teaches strings, chorus and general music. She is also on the adjunct faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where she teaches Foundations of Music Education, Introduction to Music Education, String Pedagogy, and Introduction to Guitar. She is an active clinician, guest lecturer, and freelance performer. Donna has also been active in MMEA (Massachusetts Music Educators Association) for many years, holding numerous offices. She founded the Society for General Music in Massachusetts, an umbrella organization which seeks to unite practitioners of the Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze and Gordon approaches in pursuit of excellence in music education.
BANDS:
Diane Muffitt is the Music Director and founder of SVNHM. Band director at the Wayland Middle School, Diane arrived at WMS in 1980 and has been teaching instrumental music since 1974. At the middle school she directs two full concert bands, an honors wind ensemble and two jazz groups. In her spare time, she is active in the Massachusetts Music Educators Association and has helped organize and has conducted district band festivals. And, she was for many years conductor of the Freedom Trail Band. A French horn player and folk singer, Diane knows what it’s like to begin music study in adulthood, having begun piano lessons as an adult. (I WILL get back to it when I retire!!)
Diane was introduced to the New Horizons concept when her brother, music director for the Baton Rouge Symphony and the Lansing Symphony in Michigan, called having just filled in for conductor of the Lansing New Horizons Band and raved about the experience. Diane is passionate about canoeing, camping and anything outdoors. During the summers, she and Linda travel extensively in their 1991 VW camper van.
Jamie Clark also directs the bands and has been part of SVNHB since 2008. Jamie directs the concert bands, orchestra and jazz bands at Trottier Middle School in Southborough, Massachusetts. Before teaching in Southborough, Jamie traveled throughout the United States and beyond, performing, providing master classes and clinics in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. In 2008, Jamie conducted the inaugural concert for Massachusetts Music Educators Association Eastern Junior District Festival Concert Band. Additionally, for the 2008-2009 academic year, Jamie will be conducting the Trottier Alumni/Southborough Community Band and the Massachusetts Music Educators Association Western Junior District Festival Concert Band.
Kevin Donegan is the third band SVNHB director. He is band director at Sullivan Middle School in Franklin, Massachusetts, where he directs the concert band, symphony band, and jazz band. He teaches beginner brass lessons across the Franklin. Kevin also plays trumpet in the Claflin Hill Symphony, Newton Symphony and Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestras. Kevin attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he received a B.M. in Music Education and Performance.
Dan Foote, Percussion Coordinator, has performed in a wide variety of musical roles nationally and internationally, including freelance work in Hawaii, Peru, Germany and France. His role as the visual time keeper has taken him from the concert hall to the cruise ship, pit orchestra, recording studio, television, radio and nightclub. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the Berklee College of Music, three time Boston Music Award winner and recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Dan served as the Jazz Department chair, and on the board of the Arts and Education Committee, for Indian Hill Arts and was an adjunct faculty member at UMASS Lowell where he taught world music to grad students. He has been the percussion instructor for the Weston Public Schools for over 20 years and his students regularly make it into the district and all-state bands. Dan has had the opportunity to enrich, engage and entertain at many schools throughout the metrowest area with Rhythmkids, an interactive multicultural group of percussionists. He and his wife Penny reside with their three children in Weston, Massachusetts.
Linda Murdock is our General Do-All... She can be found copying and sorting music, teaching the brass class, sitting in with the trumpet or horn section, selling lesson books, taking pictures for this page, assisting the beginner teachers, etc. Linda is a principal in Southborough where she also accompanies the chorus when they need a pianist. She is a woman of many talents.
Blake is the band dog. He barks if anyone leaves the rehearsal, but otherwise lies quietly listening to the music. He also enjoys playing bone and is fond of helping out by cleaning the floor in the cafeteria of the school (where we rehearse). He lives in Sudbury with Diane & Linda and his cat, Musie.
PHOTO CREDITS:
Donegan & Nagel by Chris Bratt
Muffitt by Harold Curtin
others by D.Muffitt or L.Murdock
