Dr. Brandon A. Boyd

University of Missouri

Columbia, MO

Dr. Brandon A. Boyd is the Mary M. and Harry L. Smith Endowed Chair. He is the Director of Choral Activities, Graduate Choral Conducting Program, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri, where he conducts MU University Singers, Sankofa Chorale, and Choral Union Symphonic Chorus. In addition to his conducting duties at the university, he teaches graduate courses in choral conducting, choral literature, and choral arranging. 

As a proponent of choral singing to build community, his research interests include organizing choirs for the homeless, identifying the social and physical effects of choral singing on senior citizens, creating authentic field experiences for music therapy and choral music education students. For three years, Dr. Boyd co-directed three choral community partnerships in Florida: The Tallahassee Senior Choir, RAA Middle School Partnership Choir (university students and middle school singers), and the MTC Women's Prison Glee Club (university students singing with women housed in a correctional facility).

As an active composer and arranger, his music is sung regularly by ensembles throughout the United States and abroad. He is also the curator and editor of the "Brandon A. Boyd Choral Series," a choral series with Hinshaw Music Publications helping promote exciting and innovative works composed by both established and new composers and arrangers. His music also appears in the catalogs of Gentry Publications, Hinshaw Music Company, MorningStar, GIA, and Kjos Music Press. In addition, he is the Executive Choral Editor of Gentry Publications (Fred Bock Publishing Group) and the Abbington African American Sacred Music Series (GIA Publications). 

As a global collaborator in the orchestral world, Dr. Boyd has served as chorus master, assistant conductor, and guest pianist with the London Symphony in London, England. He prepared the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Vokalensemble for Maestro Alan Gilbert for multiple productions of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, in Hamburg and Kiel, Germany. In the U.S., he has guest conducted the Nashville Symphony, Missouri Symphony, and the St. Louis Symphony. He has made multiple performances at Carnegie in the capacity of guest conductor, composer, and collaborative pianist. 

Dr. Boyd served as guest faculty at the Universidad Católica Boliviana - San Pablo of the Unidad Academica Regional Tarija to provide conducting workshops, in addition to serving as guest conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, Sociedad Corla Andaluz, Symphonic Orchestra in a presentation of American music at the Historic Casa de la Cultutura de Tarija (Tarija's House of Culture). He also was a guest professor at the Universidad Evangelica in Santa Cruz, Boliviana. The Partners of the Americas sponsored both university partnerships.  

Dr. Boyd served as Santa Fe Desert Chorale’s Composer-in-Residence and Community Engagement Leader for their program Giving Voice to the Voiceless. The Chorale premiered a work commissioned by the SFDC, I Search, during their Summer Justice Concert Series. He served as assistant conductor, pre-concert lecturer, and guest pianist. He set to music a text written by "Poet V," a young participant in the Voces de Libertad program at the Santa Fe County Youth Development Center. His duties also included organizing and conducting the Interfaith Community Shelter Street Choir, thus creating a safe place for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness within the Santa Fe community. Other commissioning partners include Choirs of America Nationals for Top Choirs at Carnegie, Southwestern Adventist University, Florida State University/Tallahassee Community Chorus, New Mexico Music Educators Association, and the University of Nebraska-Kearney. 

He holds two degrees from Florida State University (Ph.D. in choral music education and M.M. in choral conducting) and earned a B.S. in music education (emphasis in piano) from Tennessee State University. He is a proud member of the Phi Mu Alpha Music Fraternity, Inc., Pi Kappa Lambda, American Choral Directors' Association (ACDA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), American Guild of Organists (AGO), and Chorus America. Dr. Boyd also serves as a member of the National ACDA Composition Initiative committee.  

Dr. Erika Tazawa

Wayne State University

Detroit, MI

Dr. Erika Tazawa joined Wayne State University in 2025 as Director of Choral Activities, following faculty appointments at Emory University, Kennesaw State University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has prepared choirs for the Detroit and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras and regularly performs as a keyboardist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

A passionate educator and collaborator, Tazawa has served on the faculty of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and has worked extensively with The Atlanta Opera’s education and new works initiatives as both pianist and music director. A sought-after guest conductor, she frequently leads high school honor choirs and choral festivals, and recently conducted the 2025 Georgia All-State Reading Chorus.

Dr. Tazawa adjudicated State Choral Festivals for MSVMA in the spring of 2026.

Dr. Tazawa holds degrees in piano performance from SUNY Potsdam and a Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting from the University of Georgia.

MMC Executive Board     

Brian Leduc     

Sarah Stockton     

     MMC Planning Committee

     Eric Cadena

     Matthew Callaghan

     Meghan Eldred-Woolsey

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Dr. Nicole Mattfeld

Dr. Brandon Waddles

Dr. Erin Colwitz

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Dr. Brandon Johnson

Dr. Sandra Snow

Dr. Jerry Blackstone

Dr. Kimberly Adams

Dr. David Rayl

Dr. Jonathan Reed

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