CONDUCTORS
& SOLOIST
larry matysiak
Conductor
Larry Matysiak has been a music educator for the past 47 years. He earned a Bachelor of Music in 1976 and a Masters Degree in 1986 from the University of Houston. He was an assistant director at Dulles High School from 1977-1983. In 1983 he was appointed Head Director and Fine Arts Chair at Clements High School. During his tenure there, the band received 22 consecutive UIL Sweepstakes Awards, and was selected as the 1994 TMEA 5A (now 6A) Honor Band. In 1995 they performed at the Mid-West Clinic in Chicago. That same year they were awarded the Sudler Flag of Honor by the Sousa Foundation. Mr. Matysiak was also named the Clements High School “Teacher of the Year” in 1995. The Clements Band was selected to the UIL State Marching Contest in 1998 and made four appearances there during his tenure. This culminated with the band being selected to UIL State Marching Finals in 2004.
Mr. Matysiak is a recipient of the TMEA Leadership Award, the Sudler Flag of Honor by the Sousa Foundation and the state UIL Denius Award for Outstanding UIL Sponsors. Mr. Matysiak was co-founder and co-conductor of the Clements Symphony Orchestra. They performed at the Mid-West Clinic and were selected as the TMEA Honor Symphony Orchestra in 2000.
From 2006 to 2014 Mr. Matysiak served as the Director of Fine Arts for the Cypress Fairbanks ISD. During his time in the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, staffing increased each year and many of the districts performing groups received state and national honors. In addition, the district received an award from NAMM as an outstanding district for fine arts. In 2010 he was recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award from the Moores School of Music at The University of Houston. In 2016, he co-founded the Sugar Land Winds, a community wind ensemble comprised of music educators and other professionals. In 2018 he was inducted to the Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame.
In 2023, Mr. Matysiak was recipient of the Meritorious Achievement Award given by the Texas Bandmasters Association for his devotion to music education. Mr. Matysiak is currently an active clinician and judge. He has provided in-service workshops for surrounding districts as well as clinics at TMEA and TBA. His affiliations include the Texas Music Educators Association, the Texas Bandmasters Association, The American Concert Band Association and the honor band director fraternity Phi Beta Mu. He also serves on the board of trustees for the Foundation for Music Education.
He resides in Sugar Land with his wife Mary. They have two children, John Matysiak, a cinematographer in Los Angeles and Laura Yoakum, an elementary teacher in Colorado Springs. They are blessed to have four grandchildren, Charlotte, Jamie, Mason and Mia.
Rick Yancey
Conductor
Rick Yancey is co-conductor of the Sugar Land Winds, a wind ensemble composed of band directors and private teachers in the Houston area. He was a 2019 inductee into the Texas Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame. He was director of bands at Stratford High School from 1985 – 1991 and Elkins High School from 1992 – 2006.
Mr. Yancey has a broad experience teaching band and orchestra in Texas. He grew up in Texas City Texas, where he played in the Texas City bands under Mr. Robert Renfroe, and won All State honors twice. While at the University of Houston, he was principal clarinet of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble under A. Clyde Roller and James Matthews. Mr. Yancey attended the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and was principal clarinet of the Chamber Symphony. As a clarinetist, he has performed with the Rapides and Lake Charles Orchestras in Louisiana, and in Houston with Theater Under the Stars (TUTS), the Houston Ballet and Houston Pops Orchestra. He has taken his high school bands and orchestras to New York, Washington DC, Durango Colorado, Chicago, London England, Nassau, and to the Rose Parade. As head band director at Elkins High School in Fort Bend ISD, the Elkins Band won 14 consecutive UIL sweepstakes awards and were outstanding in class at numerous festivals. After retiring from Elkins, he was orchestra director and director of Instrumental Music for Lamar High School in Houston for three years.
Mr. Yancey is the Managing Director of the Mark of Excellence project for The Foundation for Music Education, and is on their Board of Trustees. This project serves over 500 musical ensembles annually and provides them with feedback from master adjudicators. He is an active judge of band and orchestra competitions, conducts region honor bands, and presents staff development for school districts. He is married to Jill Yancey, former band director at Sugar Land Middle School, and has a son, Chris, who is Director of Bands at Stratford High School. The Yancey family loves to spend time with grand children Sadie, Samantha, and Cole.
Jason K. Fettig
Guest Conductor
Jason K. Fettig is an internationally recognized conductor of wind band and orchestra and a highly sought-after educator and clinician. Performances under his baton have occurred in forty-nine U.S. states as well as Japan, the Czech Republic, Austria and The Netherlands, and live concerts have been regularly heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and on national television broadcasts from the White House, on “The Today Show,” the “David Letterman Show” on PBS, NBC and CBS. He has worked with an incredibly wide array of artists from across the entire musical spectrum, from internationally renowned classical artists such as pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, violinist Joshua Bell, and the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, Broadway luminaries Norm Lewis, Jessica Vosk, and Lea Salonga, to pop superstars including Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks and Lady Gaga.
Fettig served as the 28th Director of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band and Chamber Orchestra, where he was the music adviser to the White House and regularly conducted the Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra at the Executive Mansion. He led the musical program for the Inaugurations of President Donald Trump and President Joseph Biden and the State Funeral of George H.W. Bush. He also served as music director of Washington, D.C.’s historic Gridiron Club, a position held by every Marine Band Director since John Philip Sousa.
Fettig has conducted featured performances at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, the international conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, the Texas Bandmasters Association, and the national conventions of the American Bandmasters Association and the Music Educators National Conference. He has led concerts at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and Boston Symphony Hall, and has twice partnered with the National Symphony Orchestra and their Music Director Gianandrea Noseda for special joint performances at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has also collaborated on numerous occasions with legendary composer and conductor John Williams, most recently sharing conducting with Maestro Williams of a gala concert of music at the Kennedy Center in July, 2023. In May 2019, Fettig and the Marine Band, in partnership with the All-Star Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz, won an Emmy at the 62nd Annual New York Emmy Awards for a program entitled “New England Spirit.” Fettig also represented the Marine Corps at the White House when military bands were awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Trump in 2019.
Throughout his career, Fettig has been deeply committed to music education. He began an interactive Young People’s Concert series in 2006 and authored, hosted, and conducted this popular annual event until 2015. He has launched innovative new digital programs for world-wide audiences, including a video series entitled the Digital Rehearsal Hall, which provides viewers a behind-the-scenes view into the working rehearsal process of professional musicians. Fettig has served as a clinician or guest conductor at more than three dozen universities and colleges. He frequently teaches at conducting symposia both in the U.S. and internationally, and he has appeared as conductor for numerous national Honor and All-State festivals around the country, leading both bands and orchestras. He has presented at the Midwest Clinic on multiple occasions and has served as adjudicator for major competitions, including the Thailand International Wind Symphony Competition and at the World Music Contest in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.
In addition to his many live performances, Fettig has conducted or served as lead producer for over 20 publicly-released albums of both traditional and contemporary band and orchestra repertoire. In 2014, Fettig launched an ambitious project to re-record all of the marches of John Philip Sousa and provide free performance and educational materials online to schools and ensembles worldwide. His steadfast focus on preserving and celebrating historic band repertoire and performance practice is complemented by a fervent advocacy for contemporary American music. He has commissioned and/or conducted the world premieres of more than forty works, including substantial new pieces by James Stephenson, Jacob Bancks, Jennifer Higdon, David Rakowski, Stacy Garrop, Narong Prangcharoen, Peter Boyer, Zhou Tian, Jessica Meyer, Michael Gilbertson, Dominick DiOrio, Donald Grantham, and Jonathan Leshnoff.
Fettig holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in both clarinet performance and music education, and a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2014, he was elected as a member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. He serves on the board of directors for several national organizations and is the current President-Elect of The National Band Association.
Frank Ticheli
Guest Conductor
Frank Ticheli's music has been described as being “optimistic and thoughtful" (Los Angeles Times), “lean and muscular" (New York Times), “brilliantly effective" (Miami Herald) and “powerful, deeply felt crafted with impressive flair and an ear for striking instrumental colors" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Ticheli (b. 1958) joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in 1991, where he is Professor of Composition. From 1991 to 1998, Ticheli was Composer in Residence of the Pacific Symphony.
Frank Ticheli's orchestral works have received considerable recognition in the U.S. and Europe. Orchestral performances have come from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, the radio orchestras of Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Saarbruecken, and Austria, and the orchestras of Austin, Bridgeport, Charlotte, Colorado, Haddonfield, Harrisburg, Hong Kong, Jacksonville, Lansing, Long Island, Louisville, Lubbock, Memphis, Nashville, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, San Antonio, San Jose, Wichita Falls, and others. His clarinet concerto was recently recorded by the Nashville Symphony on the Naxos label with soloist James Zimmermann.
Ticheli is well known for his works for concert band, many of which have become standards in the repertoire. In addition to composing, he has appeared as guest conductor of his music at Carnegie Hall, at many American universities and music festivals, and in cities throughout the world, including Schladming (Austria), Beijing and Shanghai, London and Manchester, Singapore, Rome, Sydney, and numerous cities in Japan.
Frank Ticheli is the recipient of a 2012 “Arts and Letters Award" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, his third award from that prestigious organization. His Symphony No. 2 was named winner of the 2006 NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest. Other awards include the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize and First Prize awards in the Texas Sesquicentennial Orchestral Composition Competition, Britten-on-the-Bay Choral Composition Contest, and Virginia CBDNA Symposium for New Band Music.
In 2018, Ticheli received the University of Michigan Alumni Society’s highest honor, the Hall of Fame Award, in recognition for his career as a composer. He was also awarded national honorary membership to Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, "bestowed to individuals who have significantly contributed to the cause of music in America," and the A. Austin Harding Award by the American School Band Directors Association, “given to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the school band movement in America." At USC, he has received the Virginia Ramo Award for excellence in teaching, and the Dean's Award for Professional Achievement.
Frank Ticheli received his doctoral and masters degrees in composition from The University of Michigan. His works are published by Manhattan Beach, Southern, Hinshaw, and Encore Music, and are recorded on the labels of Albany, Chandos, Clarion, Equilibrium, Klavier, Koch International, Mark, Naxos, and Reference.
Michael Isadore
Guest Soloist
An American Prize-winning conductor, Michael Isadore is the Philharmonia Conductor with the Houston Youth Symphony, Associate Conductor with the Houston Civic Symphony and the Director of Orchestras at Dulles High School. Known for being an energetic conductor with authentic, moving performances, Mr. Isadore has become a prominent voice in the Houston area.
Since work with young musicians plays an important part in his career, Mr. Isadore has developed a detailed rehearsal strategy and creative ways to spark and communicate the most advanced musical concepts. Under his direction, the Dulles High School orchestra has performed several times at The Midwest Clinic, made multiple finalist appearances in the Texas Music Educators Association Honor Orchestra competitions and been a consistent “commended” and “National” winners in the Mark of Excellence competition. Mr. Isadore has won the American Prize in Conducting, Performance, and American Music with all three organizations. Locally, Mr. Isadore has been recognized with the Spec’s Charitable Foundation Award for Excellence in Music Education, presented by the Houston Symphony.
In addition to being a conductor, Mr. Isadore’s versatile career involves performances as an orchestral and chamber musician, concerto soloist, recitalist, lecturer, and teacher. He holds clarinet positions with the Victoria Symphony, the Symphony of Southeast Texas, and has performed professionally with the Houston Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, San Antonio Chamber Orchestra, Victoria Bach Festival and the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society. As a soloist, Isadore has performed recitals and concertos around Texas.
When not performing, Mr. Isadore remains active as a clinician, adjudicator, martial arts practitioner, knitter, and badminton player.
Dr. Matthew Lamm
Guest Conductor
Dr. Matthew Robert Lamm is currently Director of Bands & Instrumental Studies at Houston Christian University. He holds a DMA in tuba & conducting from the University of Houston, an MM in music performance from DePaul University, and a BM in tuba performance from the University of Houston.
It is an interesting fact that Dr. Lamm originally pursued a career as an orchestral musician. This was likely the result of positive early experience performing with the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra (junior high) and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra (high school). This continued with performances as a substitute musician in the Houston Ballet Orchestra during undergraduate studies and with the Chicago Civic Symphony in graduate school.
Matthew also owes much to the robust public school band programs in the state of Texas. Keller ISD provided his initial music ensemble experience and marching band in high school sparked a life-long relationship with the marching arts. As a performer, Matthew is a 2x DCI World champion, 4x DCI I&E champion, and featured in the recorded audio and on-field choreography of an MTV-produced NFL Super Bowl halftime show. As an educator he has taught all age groups, from beginning 5th/6th grade band to middle and high school; bands under his guidance have reached UIL state finals (both marching & concert), earned a BOA Regional championship, a BOA Grand Nationals championship, and a Midwest Clinic feature.
Dr. Lamm’s unique performing background – as both orchestral tuba player and marching band member - enables him to bring the resonance and gravitas of the concert hall to the field, and the integration and work-ethic of the marching field to the concert hall. Matthew is privileged to bring these diverse musical experiences to bear on modern music-making endeavors with adult students of various backgrounds. He finds joy and purpose in realizing human potential through cultivated psychoanalytic & physio-analytic approaches to music performance. Yet Dr. Matthew Lamm’s true goal is the comprehensive development of the human organism through an intellectual, experiential & evidence-based teaching methodology. It is his sincere hope that you leave this performance inspired – by the music, first and foremost, but also through the demonstration of realized human potential.