Academic Faculty

Craig Johnson is dean of the School of Music at North Park University. Previously, he was chairperson and professor of music in the department of music at Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio, where he had been on the faculty since 1980. He holds degrees from Northwestern University and the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He has also had a parallel career in church music, most recently serving as director of music at North Community Lutheran Church in Columbus, and teaching graduate choral conducting at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, also in Columbus. Choirs under Dr. Johnson’s direction have sung at conferences of the Ohio Music Education Association, the Ohio Choral Director’s Association, the Central Division of the American Choral Director’s Association, and the Organization of American Kodaly Educators National Conference. He co-authored The Chorus in Opera: A Guide to the Repertory, and is active as a clinician, adjudicator, and consultant. He is a former president of the Ohio Choral Directors Association, and received the OCDA Distinguished Service Award in 2010. He serves the National Association of Schools of Music as an evaluation team member and leader, and as a newly elected member of the Commission on Accreditation. He is married to Cass, associate director of admission at DePaul University; they have two daughters — Elizabeth, who works for Google in Chicago, and Maria, a sixth-grade math teacher in Atlanta.

Helen Hudgens' concentrated studies in music cognition, post-tonal music, and theory pedagogy have lent much insight to her extensive classroom experience at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has been on the faculty of North Park University since 2001 where she supervises and teaches the theory and aural skills curriculum and teaches courses in music history, music appreciation, and keyboard skills. Before this appointment, she was senior lecturer at Northwestern University in theory and analysis courses. Hudgens is concurrently the minister of music at Reba Place Church in Evanston, Ill. She has presented academic papers on Webern's music for the Society of Music Perception and Cognition and the Society of Music Theory.

Michael Scott McBride (b. 1980) is an internationally-performed composer, performer, conductor, songwriter, 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. McBride has been an adjunct professor of music at North Park University since 2006. Other teaching includes serving as coordinator of the composition program for the National High School Music Institute at Northwestern University and a sabbatical replacement at Elmhurst College. He has also served as music director for various ensembles and churches such as the Chicago Cabaret Project, Dal Niente, Opera Cabal, Sonic Impact, Winnetka Bible Church, Edison Park Lutheran Church, and Achurch4me? MCC. Additionally, Dr. McBride acted as chair for the College Music Society Great Lakes Composition Review Committee in 2008.

Dr. McBride uniquely mixes influences of contemporary classical music with pop, gospel, inspirational, and dance music in his writing and performing career. His first EP, Almost There, and two other singles are currently available on iTunes. He is also a regular performer throughout the Chicago cabaret and festival scene and has appeared in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Denver, and Phoenix.

He received his bachelor of music from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Wheaton, Ill., where he double-majored in composition and piano performance. At Wheaton, he seized a variety of honors and experiences such as the Halvorsen Composition Award, Conservatory Faculty Endowed Scholarship, Scholastic Honor Society membership and scholarship, three best soundtrack awards at the annual Film Festival, playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto (1st movt.) with the Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra, being the principal student conductor of the WCSO, and teaching aural skills in the classroom and privately. He has received awards and grants from the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation and the American Music Center.

Scott Scharf is a Chicago-based composer of acoustic and electronic music. He is interested in the deconstruction of both popular and art music, as well as non-music sources, and the process of reconstructing them as a means of integration and dispersion reflective of the original material. Pieces focus on parametric systems disassembling source material then generating a precise aleatoric output with which a reassembly may occur. Much of his work stems from his interest in other mediums of art, particularly poetry, mixed media and video. This influence of visual art has led him to focus on using timbre as structure independent of form. His most recent activities include working with the
ai ensemble, I.C.E. and the JACK Quartet. Scott has taught at San Francisco State University and currently
teaches composition at Northwestern University, theory and aural skills at North Park University and guitar at the British Music School of Chicago. Currently Scott is in the dissertation portion of his degree at Northwestern. Composition professors include Lee Hyla, Jay Alan Yim, Hans Thomalla, Ronald Caltabiano, Richard Festinger, Dan Coleman, Craig Walsh and James Wiznerowicz.

Dr. David Koeller taught European history, world history, western civilization, and philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Phillips University before joining the faculty of North Park University in 1993. At North Park he has served as the faculty liaison for service learning, chair of the history separtment, chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, and director of North Park Dialogue and the Campus Theme Program. In addition to his teaching and administrative duties in the history department he teaches world music for the School of Music.