Faculty

Instructor of Cello B.M., Drake University M.M., Indiana University Cellist Elizabeth Anderson performs frequently throughout the Chicago area, with groups such as the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, Lake Forest Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, City Lights Orchestra, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra. She has performed with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Chicago Opera Theater, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and in the orchestra pit for many ballets and musicals in Chicago’s theater district. She teaches cello at North Park University, and at Francis W. Parker school.

Supervisor of the Master of Music in Vocal Performance Program B.M., M.M., D.M. in Voice, Northwestern University Karen Bauer, mezzo-soprano, is in her 29th year of teaching at North Park University. She has soloed with the Chicago Baroque Ensemble, Northwest Symphony, Elgin Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia Festival. She is a respected pedagogue, committed to developing sound vocal technique with singers at all levels. Her pedagogical methods have helped many students enter careers in opera and teaching in the United States and Europe. As well as teaching applied voice at North Park, she has directed the opera program and Chamber Singers, taught voice-related courses such as Vocal Literature, Vocal Pedagogy, and Vocal Diction, and served a seven-year term as director of the School of Music. Bauer is sought after as a master class teacher, most recently at the Opera Festival di Roma in Italy, for Korean universities in Seoul and KwangJu, and in American colleges and universities. She has held various posts in the National Association of Teachers of Singing including president of the Chicago Chapter. Her articles on the Baroque solo cantata will be published in the NATS Journal of Singing early in 2007.

Instructor of Harp B.M., Eastman School of Music Kara is on the faculty of North Park University and The Moody Bible Institute and has founded Tick Tock Publications which publishes chamber music arrangements for harp. She is principal harp of the Northwest Indiana Symphony and also performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, and the Grant Park Symphony. Some of her celebrity credits include, Barry Manilow, Julie Andrews, Art Garfunkel, Johnny Mathis, Aretha Franklin, The Moody Blues, and Kansas. Her performances on harp can also be heard in the Hollywood film scores, My Best Friend's Wedding, Home Alone II, and the Kodak Film documentary, Symphony.

Cantata/Mass/Oraorio Survey L.T.C.L., Trinity College of Music, London B.M. (Hons.), University of Birningham, England M.M., Orchestral Conducting, University of Kansas Ph.D., Musicology, University of Kansas Colin Holman combines performance and academic intrests in a wide number of pursuits. Following graduate work, he taught at Teikyo Westmar University and, since moving to Chicago in 1992, he has lectured at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Northwestern University, Wheaton College, and Northern Illinois University. His primary specialty revolves around English music, although he has contributed to publications on early American keyboard music, a text on eighteenth-century culture and the arts, and on contemporary American brass band music. Celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the American constitution and being a passionate advocate for studies in American music, he toured the Midwest giving lectures on music. Most recently he participated in a PBS documentary on music at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair. His extensive conducting credits include work in opera and musical theater, with orchestras, concert and brass bands, and in early music. In 2001, Holman was one of only two people in the arts named by Chicago's Daily Herald newspaper as one of 100 people who had made significant contributions to cultural life in Chicago.

Instructor of Violin B.M., North Park University M.M., Eastman School of Music Carol Lahti comes from a family of professional musicians and has played violin most of her life. She attended the Aspen Music Festival as a three-year fellowship student of Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. Ms. Lahti is the assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Sinfonietta and teaches violin at North Park University; she is also the concertmaster of the Kenosha Symphony and a member of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.

Director of Bands B.A. in Secondary Education (Music), Northeastern Illinois University M.M. in Trumpet Performance, DePaul University D.M. in Trumpet Performance, Northwestern University Joseph Lill is in his 20th year as a faculty member at North Park University, where he conducts the Jazz Ensemble and Concert Band. An active performer in a variety of idioms including jazz, classical, and popular, Dr. Lill has been leading his own band, Six of One, since 1980. He has performed with such Chicago-area orchestras as the Ravinia Festival Orchestra and the Evanston Symphony, and with a variety of area big bands such as the Chicago Grandstand Big Band and those of Bill Porter and Bill O'Connell. He is frequently called on as a guest soloist, clinician, and adjudicator.

Theory/Church Music/Composition/Keyboard Skills B.M., Wheaton College Conservatory of Music M.M., D.M., Northwestern University Michael McBride (b. 1980) is an internationally-performed composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Having studied with Augusta Read Thomas, Jay Alan Yim, and Jason Eckardt, he earned a DM in composition at Northwestern University, where he was also a lecturer in the Theory/Cognition program. He is an Adjunct Professor of Music at North Park University since 2006 and has also taught at Elmhurst College. The summer of 2008 marked the fifth year he served as the coordinator of the composition program for the National High School Music Institute at NU.

Instructor of Trombone B.M., M.M., Eastman School of Music Audrey Morrison is a native of New York City. She is a performer and educator in both classical and jazz styles and has been a member of the big bands of Clark Terry, Barrett Deems and the Diva Big Band in New York City. In addition to playing lead trombone in the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Ms. Morrison also plays with the jazz sextet SHE, Bradley Williams’ 21st Century Revue, The Elgin Symphony Orchestra and the Lake Forest Symphony. She is on the faculties of Columbia College Chicago, Wheaton college and North Park University, and she teaches and performs with the Ravinia Jazz Mentors. During the summer she teaches and performs at the Birch Creek Music Center in Door County, WI. She is a clinician for Conn-Selmer and can be heard on numerous radio and TV commercials.

Director of Women's Chorale B.A., Trinity College, Deerfield, IL M.M., Northwestern University Leon Nelson has been on the music faculty of North Park University since 1985 where he teaches organ and is the University Organist. He served three terms as Dean of the North Shore Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and is contributing editor for The Diapason, an international monthly journal devoted to the organ, harpsichord, and church music. He has studied conducting with Robert Carbaugh, Paul Aliapoulios and John Paynter, and organ with Robert Rayfield, Robert Lodine, Lillian Robinson and Paul Manz. Mr. Nelson also Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church of Arlington Heights, a position he has held since 1994. He held a similar post for 23 years at First Presbyterian Church in Deerfield. He has played recitals at Fourth Presbyterian Church and the Chicago Temple in Chicago, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and in 1992 played a recital on the new 205-rank, $2.7-million pipe organ in the 6,000-seat sanctuary of Calvary Church in Charlotte, NC. He was choral director of the Westminster Chamber Orchestra (1979-89) and director of the summer chorale at Northwestern University/Music Institute of Chicago (1988-94).

Dr. Rebecca Olthafer received her Bachelor of Music Education at Luther College, and Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As Director of Operations, she supervises all applied and adjunct faculty, assists Dean Neale Murray with various operational tasks, counsels and processes all potential music student applications and teaches Music Appreciation. Away from the School of Music, she maintains a private voice and piano studio in Albany Park, and occasionally sings part-time with Chicago Symphony chorus and Lyric Opera chorus. Prior to this Dr. Olthafer served as the graduate admissions project assistant at UW-Madison and taught as an adjunct professor of voice at Luther College and Viterbo University.

Director of Chamber Singers B.M., University of Kentucky M.M., Wichita State University Doctoral Studies Northwestern University Wayland Rogers, Director of the North Park University Chamber Singers, is an active vocalist, composer, teacher, and conductor. Besides his university studies in the U.S., he has studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum and in London. In Chicago he trained as a conductor with Margaret Hillis, and for 15 years he was Artistic Director/Conductor of The Camerata Singers of Lake Forest. He is an award-winning composer whose works are published by Boosey and Hawkes and other publishing houses. Mr. Rogers has sung with Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Symphony, Music of the Baroque, Grant Park Music Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Blossom Festival, Ravinia Festival, and Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Currently, he is Music Director at North Shore Unitarian Church in Deerfield, IL. http://www.waylandrogers.com

Collaborative Pianist B.M. in Piano Performance, DePaul University, Chicago M.M. in Piano Performance, Villa Schifanoia, Florence, Italy Graduate Studies, Hochschule für Musik, Vienna, Austria George Tenegal was on the faculty at DePaul University for many years, where he taught piano, coached singers, and gave classes in Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English diction, and French Vocal Literature. He has coached and accompanied in many of the most prestigious vocal studios in Chicago and Italy. He has been the recipient of many awards and scholarships and was a prize winner in the IBLA International Piano Competition in Ragusa, Italy, in both the soloist and accompanist categories. He has appeared as soloist with numerous U.S. orchestras and has given many solo and ensemble recitals both here and in Europe, including appearances at Orchestra Hall and Ravinia. He has also frequently been heard on the “Live from Studio One” series on WFMT radio. On the lighter side he has appeared as singer-pianist in many restaurants and night clubs and performed the role of Mike in the broadway musical Oil City Symphony at theatres in Chicago, Delaware, Florida, and New York.

Instructor of Viola M.M., B.M. in Viola Performance, Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University Shiho Toyonaga is the assistant principal violist of the Northwest Indiana Symphony and has performed with Tulsa Opera, Grand Rapids Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, L’Orchestre des Régions Européennes. She collaborated with members of Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has been on live broadcast of “Impromptu” at WFMT. Her teachers include Paul Coletti, Victoria Chiang, Heidi Castleman and Iwao Furusawa. She also studied the violin at the Musashino Music College in Tokyo.

Instructor of Voice Performer's Certificate, Eastman School of Music Baritone Ronald Watkins has been a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Chorus since 1992. His featured appearances on the Lyric stage include roles in Peter Grimes, Boris Godunov, Madama Butterfly, and Sweeney Todd. His regional credits include Eisentstein in Die Fledermaus, Marcello in La Boheme, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor,and the Baron in La Traviata. A frequent concert artist and recitalist, Mr. Watkins has appeared with the South West Symphony, Corning Symphony, Colgate Symphony, Lake Placid Sinfonietta, Finger Lakes Symphony, Rochester Bach Festival, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series. He can be heard on composer John Giles' recording entitled A Song for All Seasons.

Instructor of Clarinet B.M., M.M., Northwestern University As a clarinetist, Ralph Wilder has performed worldwide and has been a member of numerous ballet, opera, and symphony orchestras. As the founder and leader of the Ralph Wilder Orchestra, he performs on flute and saxophone, as well as clarinet. He is also the founder and director of the Mount Prospect Community Band.