Music Dept

Jim Clemens is an active composer, church musician, and accompanist. His compositions include choral and instrumental works. In 2008, he and his wife, Angie Clemens, produced the recording “A Field of Voices: Hymns for Worship,” which includes all of the hymns from the book of the same title, published in 2007 by Table Round Press.

Jim and Angie, along with their two children, are cofounders of The Table, an emerging Mennonite church in Harrisonburg.

Mr. Fast, a member of the Eastern Mennonite University music faculty since 1975, teaches organ, piano, class piano, and music theory.

An active church musician and accompanist, Mr. Fast is currently organist at Park View Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, VA. Previously Mr. Fast was organist for several churches in the local area. He frequently serves as accompanist for various Shenandoah Valley choral ensembles.

Mr. Fast’s undergraduate degree in Music was from Bethel College, Kansas. He received the Master of Music degree from Indiana University, where he also received the Performer’s Certificate in Organ Performance.

During a sabbatical leave Spring Semester, 2008, Mr. Fast worked in a short-term voluntary service assignment for Mennonite Central Committee in Cairo, Egypt. Together with his wife Barbara, he taught English to young adults in the Anba Reuis program of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo and experienced the rich history and culture of Egypt.

In Cairo he played organ for services at St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo and performed in a recital featuring various performers from the church.

Dr. Griffing teaches violin and viola, coaches chamber music, and conducts the EMU orchestra. She is also concertmaster of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra and the Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra, and is a violinist with the Virginia Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the spring of 1999, she premiered a Violin Concerto written for her by Terry Vosbein, composer-in-residence at Washington and Lee University. She earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Indiana University, where she studied with Tadeusz Wronski, and her D.M.A. in violin performance from Ohio State University. Her chamber music coaching has been under artists such as Joseph Gingold, Janos Starker, James Buswell, Gyorgy Sebok, Boris Berman, the Fine Arts String Quartet, and the Tokyo String Quartet. Ms. Griffing has performed as concertmaster with the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Austria and Italy as well as with the Colorado, Grand Teton, Norfolk, and Spoleto Festivals in this country. She is also a founding member of Tal Consort, a chamber music group based in the Shenandoah Valley. Recent international appearances include a tour of Taiwan in 2004 with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra, a series of recitals and master classes in May of 2006 in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, a lecture recital in Adelaide, Australia at the International Viola Congress in June of 2007, and a series of chamber music performances in the northeastern part of Brazil in August of 2007 .

Dr. Mackey teaches applied piano, pedagogy, and music theory. She has performed in solo and chamber music settings in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, and she is currently on the Tour Roster of the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She is also pianist for the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. A graduate of The Juilliard School with her doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, she also holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. Winner of both the Wm. C. Byrd and Grand Rapids Symphony Concerto competitions, she has performed with the Grand Rapids and Flint Symphonies in Michigan. She has also performed as concerto soloist with the Lynchburg and University of Mary Washington Community Symphony Orchestras in Virginia. Ms. Mackey was the first performing artist to be awarded a fellowship by the Appalachian College Association. The fellowship funded a one-year residency at the University of Virginia in the field of contemporary music. In the field of contemporary music, Ms. Mackey has worked with several composers, including George Crumb, Samuel Adler and Joan Tower. She has appeared at Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Hall in New York City, the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, and the Vestak Theatre in Enschede, Netherlands. Her performances of new works for the piano include three New York premieres. Ms. Mackey is a member of the Gee-Mackey Duo with cellist David Gee. The Duo was formed in 2004, and since that time has performed in the United States, Europe and Africa. They toured in February in Spain and Morocco, where they presented works of American composers Dr. Timothy Mainland and Dr. Craig Naylor, as well as traditional repertoire. The Duo’s performances were heard on R.S.A.F.M., the English language radio program of the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain. In addition, the Duo offered a lecture on ‘Peace Dance’, a new work written for them by Dr. Naylor, at a school in Tangiers. While in Europe, the Duo also performed fund-raising concerts for the refurbishment of historic buildings. The Duo has toured in the Palm Beach area, as well as upstate New York, and recent performances include trips to West Virginia, North Carolina, and Southwest Virginia. Ms. Mackey also performs as a lecture-recitalist, and has presented programs for the College Music Society and Music Teachers National Association on regional and national levels. In January of 2009, she will present a lecture recital at the Hawaii International Conference on the Arts & Humanities. Ms. Mackey also performs as a lecture-recitalist, and has presented programs for the College Music Society and Music Teachers National Association on regional and national levels. Ms. Mackey is active as an adjudicator as well as a masterclass clinician. Ms. Mackey has taught on the faculty of Mary Washington University, Mary Baldwin College, the University of Virginia, Hollins University, James Madison University, and Bluefield College where she served as Chair of the music department.

Sharon Miller teaches music education courses at Eastern Mennonite University and is the administrative director of the Shenandoah Valley Preparatory Music Program which currently serves nearly 370 students from 5 Virginia counties and West Virginia. She has a large studio of violin and viola students and teacher Suzuki Pedagogy courses through the Preparatory Music Program and at summer Suzuki Institutes.

Ms. Miller received her M.Ed. (music) from Towson State University and M.M. (Suzuki Pedagogy) from East Carolina University. She is a registered Suzuki Violin Teacher Trainer with the Suzuki Association of the Americas and has taught at Institutes and workshops in the eastern United States. As a performer, she plays violin with the University Shenandoah Symphony, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival and serves as Principal Second Violin with the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra. She also performs viola with several chamber ensembles.

Ms. Miller has presented research papers on the topic of music reading at the International Suzuki Research Symposium in 1999 and 2001.

She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra and serves on the String School Committee. Other volunteer work includes beging a greeter and participating in worship at her church, and assisting clients at Patchwork Pantry.

Before coming to EMU in 1989, she taught strings and orchestra for 11 years in Baltimore and was the music department chair at Arlington Baptist School.

Kenneth Nafziger was a post-doctoral conducting student with Helmuth Rilling in Stuttgart-Germany. In addition to his EMU course load, he is artistic director and conductor of the annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival (Harrisonburg, Va.), and of the chamber choirs Musica Viva (in Winchester, Va.) and Voce (in Reston, Va.) Between 1999 and 2003, he made numerous trips to Cuba, where he was a guest orchestral and choral conductor, taught courses and workshops, and led EMU Chamber Singers. He was music editor of ‘Hymnal: A Worship Book’ (1992), editor of its accompaniment handbook, and assistant to the editor of ‘Sing the Journey’ (2005) and ‘Sing the Story’ (2007). He is active in the United States and Canada as a guest conductor, workshop leader and clinician. He co-authored a book ‘Singing, a Mennonite Voice’, which was released in 2001.

Shenandoah Valley native James Richardson teaches voice and related courses such as Vocal Pedagogy and Class Voice. He also co-directs ChoirWithoutBorders and teaches Appreciating Music Making. Next semester he will coach the vocalists involved in the spring musical.

Mr. Richardson, baritone, holds his Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, where he was awarded the Annie Wentz Prize in Voice and inducted into the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society. While in the studio of Marianna Busching and under the coaching of John Shirley-Quirk, he performed numerous opera roles ranging from early works such as Bacchus in Purcell’s Timon of Athens to 20th century opera including Bartly in Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea and the Vicar in Britten’s Albert Herring. His work with master teachers includes Martin Isepp, William Stone, William Sharp, and Vinson Cole. Equally at home in the world of oratorio, Mr. Richardson’s performance in Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus was described by the Baltimore Sun as “polished, richly laden with vivid tempos and dynamic phrasing.” Other credits at the Peabody include Bach’s Mass in B Minor under the baton of Edward Polochick. Not only has Mr. Richardson’s enthusiasm for Bach resulted in numerous cantata engagements, but it also led to his involvement with the creation of the Alabama Choral Artists in which he worked with director Richard Westerfield to assemble 60 well-trained singers to present the St. Matthew Passion as their first performance.

As an undergraduate soloist at Covenant College, Mr. Richardson earned his Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance, studying under Dr. John Hamm, founder of the Chattanooga Choral Arts Society. He was a first and second place winner in the NATS mid-south regional auditions, and a four-time semifinalist.

In addition to singing, Mr. Richardson loves teaching voice and conducting choirs. Since receiving his Master’s degree, he has taught music and directed choirs in several high schools, and he has conducted numerous church ensembles in and around Baltimore and Philadelphia. This past year, he performed Dvořák’s Biblické Pisně and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs at Westminster Choir College; and he toured throughout Ukraine as a soloist with Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church Choir and Westminster Brass.

Cindy graduated from EMU in 1989. She lived and worked in Pittsburgh, Pa., from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to August of 2001 she worked in the financial assistance office at EMU. She began working for the music department in August of 2001. Cindy lives in Broadway, Va., with her husband David and their son Ethan.

As Associate Dean for Curriculum at EMU, Beth K. Aracena provides leadership for the Global Village Curriculum and Cross-cultural Program. She received her Ph.D. in music history and theory from the University of Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Vassar College. Her research interests focus on music in colonial Chile, Anabaptist musical practices in early America, pedagogy, and intercultural learning. Dr. Aracena has articles and reviews published in Latin American Music Review, Ethnomusicology, and The Eighteenth-Century Current Bibliography. She has presented papers at national and regional conferences of the American Musicological Society, Society for Ethnomusicology, College Music Society, Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, Student Success in Virginia, and Virginia Humanities Conference among others. In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Dr. Aracena has taught a variety of courses in the music department at Eastern Mennonite University, including music history, appreciation, world music, theory, form and analysis, and American popular music. She has also team-taught in an interdisciplinary context. Her interest in improving student learning stems from these diverse classroom experiences.

Dr. Aracena serves as the campus Fulbright Program Adviser. Her research in Chile was supported by a Fulbright-Hays dissertation research abroad fellowship.