Will Frazier, Trombone
Will Frazier is Assistant Director and Librarian of America's Hometown Band. Will is a frequent trombone soloist with America's Hometown Concert Band and Big Band. Will also performs as a freelance jazz trombonist and bassist throughout the state of Indiana. Will is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Ball State University where he earned a Masters Degree in trombone performance and a Bachelors Degree in Music Education. While at Ball State, Will directed the Studio Jazz Ensemble and combo program, taught private trombone and jazz improvisation, and coordinated the annual Dimensions in Jazz Festival. Will performed with the national tour of Oliver the Musical, a European tour of A Chorus Line, My Sinatra, Manhattan Transfer, Lorna Luft, Dom Deluise, the Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, the Eddy Howard Orchestra, the Ted Weems Orchestra, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Wayne Bergeron, Chuck Findley, Michael Davis, Andy Martin and Marcus Printup. While living in New York City, Will performed in numerous big bands, orchestras, brass quintets and show bands. Will also did tours with Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
Jessica Clevenger, Oboe
Jessica Clevenger is principal oboist of America's Hometown Band and serves on the Board of Directors on the Grants Committee. She is currently a pathology resident physician at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. A Muncie native, she graduated from Ball State University with a B.S. in biochemistry and a minor in music performance (oboe) in 2005. She graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine with an M.D. in 2009. Jessica has been a three-time featured soloist with the Muncie Symphony Orchestra and has also been a featured soloist with America's Hometown Band. In addition, she is principal oboist of the Indianapolis Symphonic Band. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, yoga, and ballroom and latin dancing.
Joanna Galvin, Trumpet
Joanna Galvin plays the trumpet for America's Hometown Band. She started out as a trumpet major at Ball State University but ended up majoring in Medical Technology and minoring in music. Joanna works as a Medical Technologist in the Blood Bank at Ball Memorial Hospital where she has worked since she graduated from college. Joanna is married and has three children. She enjoys being in AHB, and feels it is sort of a family organization as her sister Julie Clevenger plays clarinet in the band and her niece Jessica plays oboe. Recently, Joanna joined the orchestra at St Mary Church and enjoys playing trumpet there.
Mark Mordue, Tuba
Mark Mordue is Associate Professor of Tuba and Euphonium in the Ball State University School of Music. He has been a faculty member there since 1996. He is also a member of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, the Marion Philharmonic and the DaCamera Brass Quintet.
Dr. Mordue holds degrees in tuba performance from the Eastman School of Music, the University of Akron and the University of Michigan. In addition, he was awarded a Premier Prix in tuba after one year of study at the Roubaix Conservatory in France. He was Principal Tubist with the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra for fifteen years and taught at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City University. At that time he also performed with the Oklahoma Brass Ensemble and the New American Ragtime Ensemble. He has held positions with the Windsor Symphony in Ontario, Canada, the Boise Philharmonic in Idaho, the Warren Symphony in Michigan, the Mansfield Symphony in Ohio and the University of Toledo. For sixteen summers he was tubist with the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado, performing as a member of the Breckenridge Festival Orchestra and the Breckenridge Brass Quintet.
Photo by BSU Photo Services
Robert Morris, Trumpet
Bob Morris is currently an adjunct faculty member at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Region 6. He teaches music appreciation both online and in the traditional classroom. He has been playing trumpet with the hometown band since 1996 and has recently been playing in the jazz band as well.
Bob received his bachelor's degree in music education from Ball State University in 1970 and a master's degree in music technology from Indiana University in 2004. He spent 20 years in the transportation industry and 20 years teaching band and choir in public schools. He enjoys teaching part-time, working on projects in his home studio, playing trumpet in the hometown band and the Center Chapel United Methodist Church praise band, and spending time with his grandchildren. His wife Jan teaches music at Royerton Elementary School.
Mike Costello, Percussion
While growing up on Chicago's southwest side, Mike played with a number of school and community bands including the Chicago CYO Band and the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps. In 1976, Mike received a Baccalaureate degree in music education from St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana. While there, he studied percussion and voice with a number of accomplished musicians. After graduating, Mike returned to St. Joe's in 1979 to teach applied percussion and direct the college percussion ensemble through 1981.
In addition to playing in the percussion section of America's Hometown Band since 1984, Mike has claimed membership in a number of amateur groups in central Indiana including Masterworks Chorale, the Magic City Music Men, the Indianapolis Municipal Band, and the Alexandria Community Band. He's also been in the pit for several productions at the Muncie Civic Theatre. Mike served as Drum Sergeant for the Indianapolis 500 Gordon Pipers through most of the 1990s and has written and taught percussion parts for several bagpipe bands in Indiana and Ohio.
Over the years, Mike's helped prepare a number of different high school percussion sections for concert and marching competitions.
Currently, Mike also performs with the Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band from Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Colts 12th-Man Brass Band and the Indianapolis Pacers Pep Band.
Mike currently serves as president of Local 245 of the American Federation of Musicians.Bob received his bachelor's degree in music education from Ball State University in 1970 and a master's degree in music technology from Indiana University in 2004. He spent 20 years in the transportation industry and 20 years teaching band and choir in public schools. He enjoys teaching part-time, working on projects in his home studio, playing trumpet in the hometown band and the Center Chapel United Methodist Church praise band, and spending time with his grandchildren. His wife Jan teaches music at Royerton Elementary School.
Allison Perry, French Horn
Allison Perry is a senior at Ball State University, majoring in music education. Even though violin is her primary instrument, Allison has played french horn for many years. Before assisting in the music library for America's Hometown Band, Allison worked in the Ball State Band Library and currently works in Music Collections in Bracken Library.
Roger McConnell, Director
Roger McConnell has been the Music Director of America's Hometown Band since 1986. His professional career has centered around music in the Muncie/ Ball State Community since 1971 with conducting and performing in many venues. The collaboration with his long time friend Phillip Cooley resulted in the present founding of the AHB, formerly know as the Muncie Municipal Band, an a American Federation of Musician, Local #245 Concert Band. McConnell has served as a Professor and Director in Bands since 1967 at Ball State University, Western Kentucky and Indiana University. He presently is a music history lecturer at the BSU School of Music and enjoys many activities associated with music and the promotion of Ball State. He has a daughter on the staff of Loyal Marymount University in Los Angles, and a son studying at the University of Washington in Seattle. He shares the excitement of the AHB Board that the best is yet to come with America's Hometown Band.
Photo by BSU Photo Services
Joseph D. Brown, Saxophone
Joe is a retired Ball State faculty member. As a Professor of Marketing, he was the founding director of the Bureau of Business Research and also served as a Chairperson for the Department. His band experience began early. He was a member of the All Ohio Boys Band during his four years of high school. He was also a member of The Ohio State University Symphonic Band during his undergraduate years at Ohio State. In cooperation with the Gemeinhardt Company, he authored Strategic Marketing for Music Educators, a professional book with more than 5,000 copies distributed to music educators in the United States and throughout the world.
Mike Gillilan, Euphonium/Tuba
Mike Gillilan is a new member of America's Hometown Band. Mike recently moved to Muncie in 2010 to join the Ball State University staff. A music education major briefly once upon a time, Mike has played with civic and college concert bands, symphonies, and big bands in Missouri, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and most recently in Minnesota with the St. Cloud Municipal Band. He is thrilled to found the AHB and join the other euph players and their tubaist cousins in the back row.
Carole Heller, French Horn
Carole Heller has been playing and writing music all her life, ranging from classical works through band music to choral pieces and popular songs. After obtaining an MM from Butler University in Indianapolis with emphases on education, music theory, composition, piano, and French horn, she went on to teach band and orchestra for nearly three decades in middle- and high-school settings.
She has also sung in the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and played French horn in several Midwestern bands and orchestras. Currently, in addition to giving private lessons and being a professional accompanist, she is the organist at her church, a member of America's Hometown Band, and a freelance composer of brass, woodwind, choral, and piano music. She is also a member of the International Horn Society. Among her favorite composers are Nelhýbel, Faurè, Canteloube, and Bernstein.
She is also a budding novelist. An avid drum corps enthusiast, she attends as many Drum and Bugle Corps events as she can. Married to a professional writer, she has three grown children, one step-daughter, and two wonderful grandchildren.
Marty Butler, Flute
Marty studied flute privately with Albert Saurini of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from age 9 to 17, also playing in the Indianapolis Summer Band under the direction of Bob Phillips as a Manual High School student. She played in the Purdue bands from 1970-1973 while studying for a B.S. in Chemistry. She then married her high school "band flame", George Butler, also a Purdue grad in mechanical engineering. They traveled together, with his work, through four states and overseas before returning to Indiana where she played in the Ft. Wayne Community Band from 1989-2002. During the traveling, Marty worked twice for Dow Chemical's Michigan Division. They have two married children, in Cincinnati and Ft. Wayne, and a daughter who is a freshman English major at Ball State where George also works in Facilities Planning & Management. Music has always been Marty's hobby, never a profession.
Jeff Seitz, French Horn
After graduating with an undergraduate degree in Music Engineering Technology and a Master in Music degree from Ball State University, Jeff Seitz worked as a freelance engineer at Gaither Studios, Alexandra, IN. Jeff returned to BSU to work as the Audio/Digital System's Engineer for the Music Technology division. He worked closely with architects, administration, faculty and audio integrators in the facility design, equipment choice, and system integration of BSU's eleven studios for music technology in the new Music Instruction Building. Currently, Jeff teaches recording techniques, analog electronics, and studio maintenance as part of BSU's undergraduate Music Technology curriculum. In between his system engineering and teaching responsibilities, Jeff engineers a few independent recording projects a year and lately has found increasing work in audio post-production projects for film.
Photo by BSU Photo Services
Julie Clevenger, Clarinet
Julie Clevenger teaches elementary music at South View Elementary here in Muncie. She has been playing the clarinet in America's Hometown Band since it started in 1986. She also plays clarinet in the East Central Indiana Chamber Orchestra, plays solos at her church, and is a member of the Sigma Alpha Iota handbell choir. She received both her undergraduate and masters degrees in Music Education at Ball State. She is married and has three children. Her daughter, Jessica, also plays in America's Hometown Band. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, reading, and spending time with her 2 year old granddaughter.
Wayne and Linda Putman,
Tuba and Flute
Wayne began playing tuba in the 5th grade with his good buddy, David Humbert. As a student at Royerton High School, Wayne became an AFM 245 member and played with the Marhoefer German Band under the direction of Dick Jolliffee. He attended Purdue University and worked at ABB Large Transformer Plant in Muncie. Wayne enjoys playing the Muncie Tuba Christmas with Rex Turner and all of his Tuba friends. Trivia: In case you like corny acts and if you have ever heard the phrase "Are you ready, Hezzie?" --- Wayne's great-uncles were the "Hoosier Hotshots" famous from WWII-1970's. Here is a video of Uncle Ken and Uncle Paul (Hezzie), etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRjcdagNKPY
As a high school student, Linda studied flute with William Wittig and Ladonna Dingledine and played in the Muncie Central High School band and orchestra under the direction of Paul McDaniel. She is the past president of the Muncie Alumnae Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota. The Putmans attended the ACB 2008 Convention in Corning, NY and played in the Convention Band. Their eldest son, Greg, plays tuba with the Cuyahoga Falls, OH Community band.
David Martin, French Horn
David Martin, returned to his roots and joined up with America's Hometown Band half way through the 2010 season as principal French Horn for the organization. David's musical history spans several decades of professional playing, beginning as a student at Ball State University, studying with the late Robert Marsh, and the late Fred Ehnes. During his years as an accomplished student performer, he held performing positions with the Muncie Symphony, principal Horn with the Marion Philharmonic, and the Sinfonia Da Camera, Richmond Philharmonic and the Anderson Symphony, and recorded a myriad of albums at Pinebrook Studios in Alexandria. While a student at Ball State, David played under the baton of Charles Ansbacher, Dr. Robert Hargreaves, Arthur Hill, John Campbell, Sir Guy Frazier Harrison, Robert Antonian, Roger McConnell, and many other celebrated quest conductors. After his undergraduate studies David won the graduate assistantship at Northern Michigan University where he taught applied horn studies, and undergraduate conducting classes, and performed as principal horn with the Marquette Choral Society under the direction of Douglas Amman, and the Marquette Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Errante. At the completion of his two year graduate assistantship at NMU, David set his sights on Houston and performed with the Houston Pops, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Orchestra, the Woodlands Symphony, the Kingwood Pops, the Houston Chamber Symphony, Danny Ward Entertainment, and freelanced as a recording artist as well. In his distinguished career as a performer he has had the opportunity to play some of the finest orchestral literature ever written and with some of the finest musicians in the world. Now he's happy to be back performing music for the Muncie community once again.
