Andover Press

Barbara Conable grew up on a farm in central Illinois and was educated at the University of Illinois. Her first books were about the theory and practice of Body Mapping: How to Learn the Alexander Technique; What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body; and The Structures and Movement of Breathing, all available from GIA Publications, Chicago (giamusic.com). Barbara is founder of Andover Educators (www.bodymap.org), a network of music teachers saving, securing, and enhancing musical careers with accurate information about the body in movement.

Now, in retirement from teaching, Barbara is writing books on other subjects. Her new workbook–2008–How to Find Your Cooking Style is available here at Andover Press in three different formats and at Amazon.com. Look for more of her books here as they are completed: Delight in Life: An Entertaining and Instructive Memoir; aMusement, a Narrative Poem about the Nine Muses; Denser than Flesh (poems); Darwin Hastings (novel); Selfhood, with life coach Michelle Kunz.

Barbara lives in Portland, Oregon, where she gardens, serves on the board of the Sabin Community Association, and enjoys being mother to grown-ups and grandmother to young ones.

Trombonist David Vining is a dynamic teacher and performer who has delivered hundreds of recitals and masterclasses nationwide to critical acclaim. Currently professor of Trombone at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, Mr. Vining has also served on the faculties of the University of Kansas, the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and Temple University.

Mr. Vining is a popular clinician, presenting clinics and workshops throughout the country as a clinician for Conn-Selmer Musical Instruments. He is a certified member of Andover Educators, a consortium of music educators dedicated to preserving and enhancing the careers of musicians through accurate anatomical information and somatic awareness as applied to music-making. Through a unique and powerful tool called Body Mapping, Professor Vining helps students in all disciplines avoid injury and become better musicians.

As trombonist with the Chestnut Brass Company from 1985-1990, Mr. Vining toured the United Stated and Europe performing recitals, master classes, and concerts with orchestras. Mr. Vining may be heard with the Chestnut Brass Company on the Crystal, Musical Heritage, and Newport Classics labels.

Mr. Vining has performed orchestrally with the Flagstaff Symphony, Cincinnati Opera Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Kansas City Camerata, Fort Wayne (IN) Philharmonic, Toledo (OH) Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra.

Mr. Vining holds degrees from Bowling Green State University and Florida State University. He is the author of the best selling method book Daily Routines for Trombone: Tenor, Bass and Easy Editions. He is also the author of Long Tone Duets, Long Tone Duets, Ralph Sauer Edition, Ear Training for Trombone, Ear Training for Trumpet and What Every Trombonist Needs to Know About the Body.

A native of Cocoa, FL, Mr. Vining resides in Flagstaff, Arizona with his wife Leslie, daughter Sarah, and son Benjamin. Visit his personal web page at: www.davidvining.net

Thomas Carson Mark holds AB, MA, and PhD degrees from Columbia University. He studied piano in New York with David Bar-Illan and Jeannette Haien, taught philosophy for several years at various colleges and universities, then returned to the piano. From 1992 to 2001 he organized and performed in the Newport Coffee Concerts, a chamber music series. He attended the Taubman Institute of Piano from 1994 to 1999, where he served for three years as a practice assistant, and lectured from 2000 until 2002 at the Piano Wellness Institute. He has studied the Taubman technique with Robert Durso, and studies Alexander Technique and body mapping with Barbara Conable, founder of Andover Educators. He is a certified Andover Educator. Tom is the author of the book What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body, published by GIA Publications, Inc. and currently available in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean translations. He is also the author of the article”Pianists’ Injuries” and of two philosophical articles related to performance: “Philosophy of Piano Playing: Reflections on the Concept of Performance” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1981) and “On Works of Virtuosity” (Journal of Philosophy, 1980), as well as a book and several articles on the philosophy of Spinoza. He is currently at work on a new book, Motion, Emotion, and Love: A Practical Philosophy of Artistic Performance. More about Tom at his website, www.pianomap.com.

Melissa Malde has performed with numerous organizations throughout the United States, including Opera Colorado, Kentucky Opera, Ohio Light Opera, the Bangor Symphony, the Cedar Rapids Symphony, Dorian Opera Theatre, the Cheyenne Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival, Opera Fort Collins, Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre and the Greeley Philharmonic. She has sung abroad with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, with the Prague Radio Symphony and has also performed in Munich, Bad Reichenhall, and Wolfrathshausen in Germany.  Dr. Malde holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory, Northwestern University, the University of Cincinnati, and the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, where she studied under the auspices of a German Academic Exchange grant. While in Munich, she won first prize in the Kulturforum Competition. Other honors include winning Cincinnati Conservatory’s Concerto Contest, first prize in Chicago’s Sudler Oratorio Competition, a Farwell Award, and the Brice-Gooter Award in the Artist Award competition of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She has studied the Alexander Technique and is certified as an Andover Educator to teach Body Mapping.  She serves on the voice faculty of the University of Northern Colorado. When not singing or teaching, Melissa enjoys gardening, cooking, snow-shoeing, back-packing and working as a volunteer on the Continental Divide Trail.

Kurt-Alexander Zeller began performing in opera, musical theatre, and oratorio in his native Pacific Northwest at age eight. Since then, he has sung throughout the United States and has appeared on German television, winning acclaim for his memorable characterizations as a singing actor in works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Haydn, Sondheim, Zemlinsky, and especially in many operettas of Strauss, Lehár, and Gilbert and Sullivan. He also has toured Austria in a Kurt Weill revue, performed weekly “operatic soap operas” on the streets of Portland, Oregon, under a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and spent two seasons in the company of the Tony® Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

With his recital partner, pianist Michiko Otaki, he has appeared in concerts across North America, from a performance at the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Vancouver, B.C., to many recitals in Atlanta’s renowned Spivey Hall. He has been a soloist with numerous symphonies and early music ensembles, including the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque, the Terra Nova Consort, the Portland and Salem (OR) Chamber Orchestras, and the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony.

Dr. Zeller holds degrees in Theatre and Music from Southern Methodist University and the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. He is now Director of Opera and Vocal Studies at Clayton State University in suburban Atlanta. As a certified Andover Educator, he is an active vocal adjudicator and clinician and has presented at conventions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the International Congress of Voice Teachers, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, Early Music America and Mu Phi Epsilon. He enjoys studying plants, maps and languages and someday hopes to be able to turn those interests into actual pursuits of gardening and recreational travel.

Robin Gilmore, MFA, began studying the Alexander Technique and other somatic disciplines in 1980. She has been dancing her entire life. She studied with Marjorie Barstow, Barbara Conable, Bill Conable, Martha Hansen and others. She qualified to teach the Alexander Technique in 1986. She is a Teaching Member and Sponsoring Member of Alexander Technique International (ATI). Robin directs an Alexander teacher training program in Greensboro, NC and from 1993-1999 was the director of the Kyoto Alexander Program in Japan. She has taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, American University, Temple University and other institutions and has been a presenter at the International Congress of the Alexander Technique. She is a faculty member at the annual residential Alexander course at Ohio State University. In addition to writing What Every Dancer Needs to Know About the Body, she has written numerous articles for publications including Contact Quarterly and Direction Journal.

As a dancer and choreographer, Robin’s work has been presented internationally. She received an award for outstanding solo dance performance from the Maryland State Arts Council. She holds a BA with Honors from American University and an MFA in Dance and Choreography from Temple University. Robin teaches developmental movement and dance to children with special needs and has had great success helping children with autism improve their coordination and social skills.

Robin resides in Annapolis, Maryland and takes daily pleasure from the Chesapeake Bay.