Scott J. Dunn has been the Director of Bands at Baldwin High School since 2007. Overseeing a comprehensive program, Mr. Dunn directs the Symphony Band, Wind Symphony, and Pep Band. During his tenure at Baldwin, he has received consistent Gold with Distinction ratings at the NYSSMA major organization festival, performed twice with the Wind Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and performed five times at the LIU Post Invitational Band Festival. Deeply dedicated to commissioning new works for advancing the artistic medium of the modern wind ensemble, the Baldwin Wind Symphony has commissioned and premiered many new works for winds during his tenure, by composers Adam Schoenberg, Anthony Barfield, William C. White, David Heckendorn Joel Puckett, Kenneth Lampl, Andy Akiho, David Gillingham and Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec. Additional composers who have visited Baldwin and worked with its ensembles include Roger Cichy, Carl Strommen, Brant Karrick, Philip Sparke, Julie Giroux and Andrew Boysen, Jr. Beginning in the Fall of 2017, Baldwin High School will be one of the 56 members of the ASPIRE commissioning consortium, a national effort to encourage the finest living composers to write educationally accessible music for public school students. Baldwin recently joined a consortium for a Bass Trombone concerto by Kenneth Fuchs to be premiered in the spring of 2019.
In 2012, Mr. Dunn was appointed Music Director and Conductor of the Long Island Youth Orchestra, becoming only the second music director in the distinguished 56-year history of that orchestra. He has led LIYO on three of their recent international tours- in 2007 to Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey, in 2008 to Eastern Russia, Japan, Korea and Hawaii, and in 2013 to Ireland, Scotland, France and Iceland. In addition, Scott served for two years as an Adjunct Professor at Adelphi University, where he conducted the Concert Band.
Mr. Dunn earned his BM in Music Education from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and his MM in Trombone and Wind Conducting from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. During the summers of 2010 and 2011, Scott was selected to be a conducting fellow at the prestigious Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians in Hancock, Maine, where he studied under the tutelage of Maestro Michael Jinbo. He lives in Merrick with his wife, flutist and educator Patricia Blackman Dunn, and their son, Lukas, and daughter, Natalie.
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Martin Dreiwitz has been a Long Island woodwind teacher and travel agent for more than 50 years. Mr. Dreiwitz, a former professional clarinetist, is a graduate of New York City’s High School of Music and Art and the University of Chicago. He studied for many years with the world famous clarinet virtuoso Simeon Bellison, at that time principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic and Anthony Gigliotti, former principal clarinet of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Dreiwitz continued his musical studies with the distinguished American composer Alexi Haieff and, in Salzburg, Austria, conducting with the great German maestro Wilhelm Furtwaengler. Mr. Dreiwitz founded the Long Island Youth Orchestra 50 years ago in 1962. He has overseen its expansion and continuation from a fledgling 50-member community youth orchestra to its present island-wide 105-member size. In addition to serving as its music director and permanent conductor, he has also been the orchestra’s president, operations manager and principal fundraiser. He has conducted in every concert and directed nearly all of the orchestra’s weekly rehearsals since 1962.
Mr. Dreiwitz’ leadership of the touring LIYO has helped make it a well-known and widely acclaimed musical organization in the far corners of the globe. He has led the orchestra on 40 consecutive tours to every continent and indeed every corner of the globe. President Bill Clinton in 1995 wrote in a letter to the orchestra, “I am pleased to commend your director, Martin Dreiwitz, for his many wonderful contributions to the youth of New York and to music lovers around the globe. His caring leadership has inspired and encouraged for the past fifty years, and the thousands of students whose lives he’s touched are the best possible measure of his success.”
Although his weekday commercial activities still keep him fully occupied, he manages to find time for the orchestra because “I feel I have found a way to put my years of music training to a use which is not only constructive but which has never ceased to be most satisfying to me personally”.
Although Mr. Dreiwitz is relinquishing his position as current director, he continues his involvement with LIYO as Music Director Emeritus,and will continue to conduct when the orchestra’s schedule permits and is planning another international tour for the orchestra for July of 2013.
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Gregory Sisco is a passionate conductor, educator, and performer in the Long Island area. Greg is a graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music with degrees in Music Education and Saxophone Performance. In 2016, he began as a Director of Bands at East Meadow High School in East Meadow. Beginning in the Spring of 2017, Greg became Interim Assistant Conductor for the Long Island Youth Orchestra. Additionally, for the past five years Greg has been employed by Interlochen Center for the Arts and Interlochen Arts Camp, in northern Michigan, most recently as a Camp Life Division Director.
As a performer, Greg has performed with top ensembles in the Ithaca area as well as on Long Island. In 2016 he was a featured soloist with the Baldwin High School Wind Symphony on the premiere of a new concerto for saxophone and wind ensemble. Greg maintains an active performing schedule and private studio here on Long Island.
As a conductor, Greg has had the privilege of working with both orchestras and wind ensembles in recent years. In 2015, he was selected to participate in the Ithaca International Conducting Masterclass with conductors Jeffrey Meyer (Arizona State University) and Donald Schleicher (University of Illinois) where he had the opportunity to conduct the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra in concert. Since taking up residence in East Meadow, Greg has had the opportunity to conduct numerous concert band and handbell choir performances in the district. Greg made his East Meadow conducting debut at the 2016 NYSSMA Winter Conference where he led the East Meadow High School Wind Ensemble in concert.
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