Conductor

As music director of the Columbia University Wind Ensemble and the community band Columbia Summer Winds, Andrew Pease has helped to put the wind band back on the map in New York City. Mr. Pease graduated cum laude with high honors in music from Dartmouth College in 2001, where he received the Wind Symphony’s Senior Symphonic Award and the Richter Grant for Senior Research. He received Master of Arts degrees in Music Education from Columbia University’s Teachers College in 2004 and in Wind Conducting from Hofstra University in 2010. His past conducting teachers include Max Culpepper, Melinda O’Neal, Dino Anagnost, and Peter Boonshaft, as well as clinics with Glen Adsit, Michael Haithcock, Allan McMurray, Gary Hill, Jerry Junkin, Kevin Sedatole, Craig Kirchoff, Mallory Thompson, H. Robert Reynolds, Emily Threinen, Stephen Pratt, and Richard Blatti. In 2010 he was a Conducting Fellow at the first ever Juilliard School Conducting Workshop for Music Educators, where he studied with Jim Smith, George Stelluto, and Virginia Allen.

Mr. Pease has explored music in all its many forms, from symphony orchestras to his own rock band. An avid student musician in his youth, he was in 4 choirs and 3 bands in high school. In addition, he honed his musical skills in the rock band Pickled Pollies. At Dartmouth he was the founding Music Director and principal arranger of Dartmouth Steel, as well as Student Conductor of the Dartmouth College Marching Band during its 2000 season, still finding time to appear as a guest conductor with the Dartmouth Chamber Orchestra and conduct the pit in a concert production of Guys and Dolls. His senior thesis combined steel pans and brass instruments into his own original composition which he conducted in its premiere in 2001. By day he is a music teacher at Lakewood Elementary School in Congers, NY, where he teaches classroom music, elementary band, and chorus to grades k-5. He has appeared as guest conductor with New Jersey’s Hanover Wind Symphony and has conducted massed bands all over the Northeast. In March 2013, he will conduct the Westchester (NY) All-County Band for grades 5 and 6. He remains active as a brass player, featured recently on trombone, trumpet, and French horn. Mr. Pease is also in demand as an arranger and orchestrator, having most recently assisted award-winning composer Edward Green on the creation of his Symphony for band. Mr. Pease’s other arrangements have been cast in such diverse media as steel band, orchestra, and recorders, and have included styles ranging from Christmas carols to tango to popular movie and video game themes.