The BW Conservatory of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of new faculty members who will bring energy and expertise to the Conservatory community.
Colin Briskey
Visiting Assistant Professor of Voice
M.F.A., Musical Theatre Vocal Pedagogy, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
B.M., Music Theatre, Oklahoma City University
cbriskey@bw.edu
Colin Briskey is excited to join the faculty at BW. Briskey is an innovative, evidence-based voice teacher who collaborates with students to craft a singing technique that is flexible, authentic, and empowering. Before joining the faculty at BW, Briskey taught voice for the Musical Theatre Dance Intensive (MTDI) and Vocal Choral Intensive (VCI) at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and served on the Music, Theatre, and Dance faculty at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, NH.
In their work with Theatre Major LLC, Briskey has presented audition and vocal health master classes at The REACH at the Kennedy Center. Briskey’s voice students can be seen in national tours and regional theaters around the country, but particularly in the Seattle regional scene where Briskey was a sought after performer - ranging from the Who’s TOMMY to the tenors of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Academic interests include vocal registration and tessitura analysis, elite-level belting, rehab for working singers, and musical theater vocal pedagogy.
Briskey is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) where he served on the board of the Tahoma Chapter 2017-2020 and as the Tahoma Student Auditions Coordinator 2018-2020. He is also a member of the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA) where he is the Professional Development Program Director taking over the program created by Oren Brown and redeveloped by Amanda Flynn and Jared Trudeau.
Kaleb Chesnic
Lecturer of Flute
D.M.A., University of Colorado Boulder
M.M., University of Colorado Boulder
B.M., Baldwin Wallace University
kchesnic@bw.edu
Hailed by Gramophone as a “sensitive and virtuoso performer,” flutist Kaleb Chesnic delights audiences with his commanding presence, brilliant technique, and thoughtful interpretations. Chesnic is an active solo and orchestral musician, having performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra, and the Grammy Award winning Albany Symphony Orchestra. He appeared as a soloist and as the conductor of the Colorado Flute Orchestra at the 2017 National Flute Association convention. Chesnic’s awards and honors are First Prize at the Bruce Ekstrand Memorial Competition, The MPIMC Prize at the Marina Piccinini International Masterclass, Winner of the Tuesday Musical Association’s Competition, and Winner of the Baldwin Wallace Concerto Competition. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dwight Oltman and twice with the University of Colorado Early Music ensemble, working with Music Directors Zachary Carrettin and Robert Hill. As a teacher and clinician, Chesnic has been on the faculty of the Baldwin Wallace Community Music School and The Joyful Noise Neighborhood Music School. Chesnic received his Bachelor’s degree from the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was a graduate Teaching Assistant, member of the graduate woodwind quintet, and lead TA for the College of Music. His principal teachers include George Pope, Christina Jennings, Damian Bursill-Hall and Andrei Pidkivka. His other significant influences have been Brook Ferguson and Amy Porter. Chesnic’s debut album, Grieg: Violin Sonatas for Flute, is available from MSR Classics.
Matt Chiu
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Ph.D., in Music Theory, University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music
M.M., in Music Theory, Boston University
B.M., in Music Theory, Pipe Organ Concentration, University of Connecticut
mchiu@bw.edu
Dr. Matt Chiu teaches courses in music theory and aural skills. Prior to BW, he taught at the University of Illinois, Union College, Eastman School of Music, and Boston University. He is an active organist, and, previously, he directed and accompanied cabarets, musicals, and a circus.
His research uses computational and mathematical methods for studying and distinguishing style. He specializes in early 20th-century tonality and (post-millennial) popular music. Recent presentations and publications include:
- Identifying macroharmonic qualities in video game franchises (with music by Koji Kondo) and Duruflé.
- Using machine learning to identify scale and chord relationships.
- Using microtiming deviations to differentiate punk sub genres.
- Comparing autocorrelation and Fourier transform features for meter identification in Baroque dances.
- Analyzing rhythms in math rock with mathematical models.
- Creating a model for timbral and chord spacing analysis, and comparing it to subject responses.
He currently serves on the editorial board for Music Theory Online. More details and research can be found on his website: mattchiu.com.
Lena Console
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
M.A. in Music, Northwestern University
B.M. in Trumpet Performance, Indiana University
B.S. in Music Theory & Philosophy, Indiana University
lconsole@bw.edu
Lena Console teaches courses in music theory and aural skills, with a focus on introductory musicianship and chromatic harmony. Before joining BW, she taught music theory and aural skills at Northwestern University, and was a Teaching Artist with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Music Partners.
Console is a Ph.D. candidate of Music Theory and Cognition at Northwestern University. Her dissertation focuses on the phenomenology of metric irregularity in popular music, using qualitative methods to excavate their qualia through motional, metaphorical, and affective lenses. Console has presented this research at international, national, and regional conferences, including The Groove Workshop, the AMS-SEM-SMT Joint Meeting, and Music Theory Midwest. In addition to rhythm & meter and popular music, other research interests include music cognition and gender studies.
An active performer, Console plays baroque trumpet with period orchestras throughout the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and Canada, as well as modern trumpet in community jazz ensembles and chamber groups.
Johanna Cox Pennington
Professor of Oboe
M.M., Oboe Performance, Northwestern University
B.M., Oboe Performance, Eastman School of Music
jopennin@bw.edu
An acclaimed performer and teacher, Johanna Cox Pennington joined the faculty at Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in 2023. She won her first concerto competition in her hometown of Rochester, NY at age 17 and was a featured soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. A graduate of Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music, Pennington was chosen for Eastman’s Freiburg Exchange Program which took her to Germany to study with soloist Heinz Holliger at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. Of her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005, the New York Concert Review stated, “…her technique is absolutely first rate, Miss Cox played with beautiful tone, even in the highest register and at the loudest dynamic. She is an oboist that any orchestra would be fortunate to have on its roster.” Prior to her appointment, she served as Associate Prof. of Oboe at Louisiana State University School of Music for eleven years and was a member of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra for seventeen years. She has recorded with the Prairie Winds and the Musical Arts Quintet on Albany Records, and her first solo album featured five newly commissioned works for oboe and English horn in 2018 including a concerto conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Pennington has performed with many notable orchestras including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Symphony. She has taught oboe clinics, given master classes, performed as concerto soloist with orchestra and in recitals at major universities, taking her in recent years to Europe, South America, Asia and throughout the US. “Johanna will have a positive impact on the world of music, on those who study with her, as well as those who hear her perform.” -Eastman School of Music.
Justin Frankeny
Lecturer of Music History
M.M., UNC Chapel Hill
B.M., Baldwin Wallace University
rfranken@bw.edu
Justin Frankeny is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music History at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music for the 2023–24 academic year. Prior to this appointment, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is also working toward his Ph.D. in Musicology.
Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Frankeny received a Bachelor of Music in Composition and Music History and Literature from Baldwin Wallace University and a Master of Arts in Musicology from UNC Chapel Hill. His master’s thesis explored issues of distinction and exclusion in the genre of progressive rock during the early 2000s “prog rock resurgence,” with the music of The Mars Volta as his primary case study. His forthcoming dissertation investigates how composers of the Cuban diaspora navigated the art world of contemporary art music amidst their experiences of migration and the rapidly-changing political and economic climates of the United States and Cuba in the years after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. His research has been supported by the Edward T. Cone Fellowship through the Society for American Music and the Goizueta Foundation Graduate Fellowship at the University of Miami.
Steve Sang Koh
Associate Professor of Violin
D.M.A., University of Toronto
M.M., Northwestern University
B.A., Rice University
Skoh@bw.edu
Dr. Sang Kyun Koh is currently the Associate Professor of Violin at Baldwin Wallace University, Conservatory of Music. Prior to his appointment, Koh served as the Head of Strings and the co-Artistic Director of the New Music Festival at University of Northern Iowa.
An avid chamber, Koh is co-founder of the Interro String Quartet and has been the recipient of several grants from the Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Council for the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Along with his performances with the Interro Quartet, he has shared the stage with violists Leslie Robertson and Teng Li, cellists Antonio Lysy and Brian Manker, violinists Nikki Chooi, Yehonatan Berick, Alexander Kerr, and Adam Barnett-Hart. In addition to these performing activities, he has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as a soloist with the Winona Symphony and the Wartburg Community Symphony.
His research interests range from string pedagogy to jazz to music technology. Published in November 2017, his dissertation, “Spaces in Between: A Swing-Informed Approach to Performing Jazz- and Blues- Influenced Western Art Music for Violin,” examines the challenges performers face when trying to balance interpretation with understandings of composers’ intentions. He is also co-founder of Anima-AI Technologies Inc., a software company specializing in music generating artificial intelligence and the author of patents related to AI-guided audio processing and music generating systems. For his work at Anime-AI, he has been a guest speaker at Accelerator Centre's Founder's Roundtable, participant of Zú Incubation Program, Creative Destruction Lab (Montreal), Future Star Qiji Communicity (Beijing), and has been a finalist at various pitch contests around North America.
Koh received his Bachelor of Arts at Rice University, where he was the recipient of the Herbert & Helen Allen scholarship and the Dick and Mary Ellen Wilson scholarship. After finishing his Bachelor’s degree, he received his Master’s in String Performance and Pedagogy at Northwestern University, where he was the recipient of the Emily Boettcher and Yule Bogue Endowed Fund and the Dick Eickstein Grant. At University of Toronto, he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree as the Palmason Graduate Fellow in Violin and served as an Adjunct Instructor in Violin from 2017 to 2019.
“Spaces in Between: A Swing-Informed Approach to Performing Jazz- and Blues- Influenced Western Art Music for Violin,” published in November 2017.
Kay Lipton
Lecturer of Music History
Ph.D., Historical Musicology, UCLA
M.A., California State Univerrsity
B.M., University of Colorado
Before her move to Ohio, Dr. Kay Lipton taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate music history and performance related courses at colleges and universities in both southern California and in Texas. For the past two years, she has served as an adjunct lecturer in music history in School of Music at Cleveland State University. Dr. Lipton received a bachelor of music degree from the University of Colorado, the master of arts degree from California State University, and the Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from UCLA.
As a researcher, Lipton is best known as an opera historian, with particular focus on late-eighteenth-century opera buffe in Vienna by Mozart’s (mostly Italian) contemporaries. She has devoted special attention to the phenomenon of pasticcio practices in these works, as well as on the multiple performance traditions in them in Vienna versus those in Italy.
Lipton is the author of several articles in the comprehensive The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; other articles appear in journals and books. Additional scholarly endeavors include a number of editorships, notably for the Mozart Society of America, among many others. Engagements outside academia include those as guest lecturer for the nationally renowned Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as for the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra and Opera San Antonio.
As the recipient of several coveted teaching awards, Lipton takes pride in her multivalent approach to teaching and learning, one that is rooted in performance and one that underscores her passionate commitment to facilitating students as they discover how music history can exponentially enhance their experiences as performers, conductors, composers and educators, which reaffirms her belief that music history and performance operate within the same domain.