2020 adjudicators

Dr. Shelley Axelson McCauley
Assistant Professor,

Cali School of Music,
Director of Campus-Community Band,

Pep Band Montclair State University, New Jersey

Dr. Shelley Axelson is currently Assistant Professor of Music Education at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where her responsibilities include teaching conducting, conducting the Symphonic Band and Campus Band, and teaching courses in instrumental music education. Before coming to New Jersey, she held a similar position at the University of Indianapolis. Dr. Axelson was also the Director of Bands at Central College in Pella, Iowa, Pasco Middle School in Dade City, Florida (co-author of the Secondary Music Curriculum) and Richardson Junior High School in Richardson, Texas.

Dr. Axelson has appeared as a guest conductor, clinician, or adjudicator throughout much of the United States and Canada. She received an undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of South Florida, a Master of Music degree in Conducting from the University of Michigan and the Doctor of Music degree in Conducting from Northwestern University. Her principal conducting teachers are Mallory Thompson and H. Robert Reynolds.

Dennis Beck earned two undergraduate degrees from Western University, and completed a graduate program in conducting from the University of Calgary. In addition to teaching experience at the junior and senior high school levels, he has been a sessional lecturer for the Faculty of Education of the University of Toronto, conducted at Alberta College Conservatory in Edmonton for several years, and played clarinet with the Edmonton Wind Sinfonia and the CBC's Edmonton Wind Ensemble. He founded the Ontario chapter of Phi Beta Mu, the international band director’s fraternal organization, and is a member of the College Band Directors National Association.  He served as a vice-president of the Alberta Band Association, was a founding director of the Ontario Band Association and is a past-president of the OBA. For several years he was a facilitator for student leaders at the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre. His articles on music education have appeared in several professional journals, and since 2000 he has written analyses of band compositions for several volumes of the highly regarded series of music texts, Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, published by GIA in Chicago.

Recognized as an advocate for excellence in conducting, he co-founded the Unionville Wind Conductors’ Symposium 1994. In the fall of 2008, he was one of ten alumni of the Don Wright Faculty of Music, at Western University named as the inaugural recipients of the university’s Wall of Fame honour. In 2011, the OBA recognized him with an HonouraryLifetime Membership, and also that year he was named to the Advisory Board of the Midwest Clinic in Chicago.  In 2013, he was the recipient of the Canadian Band Association’s National Band Award, joining a list of 23 other Canadian musicians who had been so honoured since 1976. For twenty years he taught music, coached soloists and chamber ensembles, and conducted bands at Unionville High School’s Arts York program, in Markham. Most recently, he has been a faculty member at the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University in London, Ontario, where he was conductor of the Symphonic Band and taught music education and conducting.

Dennis Beck

Dr. Peter J Haberman
Director of Bands, Concordia College Minnesota

Dr. Peter J. Haberman serves as the director of bands and associate professor of music at Concordia College where he conducts the Concordia Band. He also leads the Echo Band, works with student conductors, teaches music education courses, and coordinates the comprehensive band program. Prior to his appointment at Concordia, Haberman held similar positions as director of bands at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Bucknell University.

Haberman maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor and clinician across North America. His ensembles have performed at conferences and music festivals across the nation and internationally, and he has served as music director for many community ensembles including the Chippewa Valley Youth Symphony.

Haberman is an active board member for the Minnesota Band Directors Association. He is also a member of the College Band Directors National Association, Minnesota Music Educators Association, National Association for Music Education, and World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. His honorary memberships include Phi Beta Mu, Phi Mu Alpha, and Pi Kappa Lambda.

A native of Minnesota, Haberman has earned degrees from Concordia College, the University of Montana, and the University of Minnesota where he completed a Doctor of Music Arts in conducting.

Andrew Mast is the Kimberly-Clark Professor of Music and Director of Bands, a position he has held since the fall of 2004. He has also served as Associate Dean of the Conservatory since 2015. Only the third person to hold the title of Lawrence University Director of Bands since 1951, he conducts the Wind Ensemble while teaching courses in band history, conducting and the freshman studies program. Prior to his appointment at Lawrence, he was Director of Bands at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa where he conducted the Symphonic Band, Orchestra, served as department chair, conducted the Quad City Wind Ensemble and founded the Quad City Area Youth Wind Symphony.

In the fall of 2013, he co-founded and became music director of Vento Winds, an ensemble of excellent adult musicians from the Fox Valley committed to the highest performance standards of the finest wind band repertoire. He has been recognized for his teaching via the Freshman Studies Teaching Award in 2011, Young Teacher Award at Lawrence in 2009 and the Faculty of the Year award at St. Ambrose in 2004.

Bands under his direction have appeared at several conferences, including the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) National and North Central Regional conferences and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association. A 2012 CD released on the Mark Records label features music commissioned and premiered by the Lawrence Wind Ensemble. Mast taught for seven years in the public schools of Iowa and Minnesota, teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels of instrumental music.

Mast is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. Other professional affiliations include the College Band Director's National Association, National Band Association, Conductor’s Guild, and the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. He is a co-founder and President of the Vincent Persichetti Society. He has made scholarly contributions to The Instrumentalist, Journal of Band Research, the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series, and The Annals of Iowa.

Andrew Mast 
Associate Dean of the Conservatory and Professor of Music Lawrence University

Jennifer McAllister
MMus University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Jennifer holds a B.Mus. in Flute Performance from the University of Alberta, a Bachelor of Education from the University of Saskatchewan, where she received the most outstanding graduate from the College of Education award in 2002, and a M. Mus. in Conducting from the University of North Texas where she studied under the guidance of Eugene Corporon.

With the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Jennifer attended graduate school at the University of North Texas where she was both guest and principal conductor with professional, graduate, and undergraduate ensembles, chamber ensembles, conducting classes, and was involved as a production assistant and performer on several commercial recordings for Klavier and Mark Records. As a Research Associate for Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, Jennifer has published study guides in the second, third, and fourth volumes of this series. She has performed with the Saskatoon Symphony, the Saskatoon Opera Orchestra, the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra, the Texas Wind Ensemble, and the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra.

Currently teaching at Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, Jennifer has adjudicated music festivals and worked with honor bands throughout Canada. She conducted the Saskatoon Symphony during the Festival of New Music over the 2000 and 2001 series and was also artistic administrator for the Symphony. She is a sessional instructor at the University of Saskatchewan, most recently teaching Philosophy of Music Education, and is a Past-President of the Saskatchewan Band Association and Past Vice-President of the Canadian Band Association. Jennifer continues to work as a contributing editor to the Canadian Winds journal, spearheading a series of study guides for Canadian wind band repertoire. In 1997-98, Jennifer was employed as associate director of bands at Berkner High School in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, Texas. Jennifer was raised in Red Deer, Alberta and now resides in her birthplace of Saskatoon, with her husband Dean and three-year-old daughter Phoebe.