From our President, to our Dean, to every one of our Board of Governors, our leadership is dedicated to creating a stimulating, nurturing, and inclusive environment for our students.
President, Longy School of Music of Bard College
Vice President, Bard College
There was one overwhelming reason Karen Zorn accepted the position of President of the Longy School of Music in 2007. The school’s newly adopted mission—“to prepare students to make a difference in the world”—was unlike that of any other conservatory in the world. The mission suggested a fundamentally different approach to music education. And it offered a radically different view of the kind of work that Longy students might seek, create, and engage in after graduation.
Fulfilling Longy’s mission
In pursuit of this mission, Zorn has led Longy through a dramatic transformation. A fearless educational entrepreneur, Zorn has established partnerships, programs, and initiatives that have permanently altered the school’s trajectory and positioned it as a leader in equitable music education.
She executed the pivotal merger with Bard College in 2012 and has since established numerous strategic partnerships with organizations such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, FundaMusical of Venezuela (El Sistema), the Music for Healing and Transition Program, and countless Sistema-inspired programs across the country. Zorn cofounded Take a Stand, a collaboration between Longy, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Bard College, and launched the Master of Arts in Teaching degree program in Los Angeles—the first-ever degree program to be offered in conjunction with a major orchestra.
In 2013, she established the Longy Sistema Side-by-Side program on the school’s Cambridge campus, bringing high quality music education to hundreds of students from under-resourced communities throughout the northeast, and offering hands-on teaching and mentorship opportunities for conservatory musicians. Recognizing the immense impact of this program, Zorn expanded musical education opportunities at the school, opening a Master of Music in Music Education degree program in 2020.
Soon after assuming leadership of Longy, Zorn realized that preparing students to make a difference in the world would require a radically different kind of music education. During Zorn’s tenure at Longy, the school entirely redesigned its curriculum to ignite students’ agency, eschewing traditional requirements to offer practical tools for a variety of careers in music.
Longy has pioneered a new coaching program, empowering each student to create their own individualized path in school and beyond. In 2017, Longy launched the Music as a Healing Art program, which offers students the chance to bring their talent to a diverse array of hospitals, elder care facilities, and transitional housing centers. In 2019, under Zorn’s leadership, Longy spearheaded a multi-year Diversity in Repertoire initiative which requires at least 25% of all repertoire studied and performed at Longy to be written by composers of historically underrepresented identities in classical music. Longy implemented an overhaul of the undergraduate theory curriculum to decenter the Western white male frame. In 2021, Longy piloted the school’s first fully online Master of Music in Music Education degree, expanding access to culturally responsive music education globally.
To provide meaningful professional experience for Longy’s students, Zorn has helped Longy forge numerous partnerships with artistic organizations including A Far Cry, Boston Camerata, Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Opera Collaborative, Castle of Our Skins, Celebrity Series Boston, the Imagine Orchestra, and the New Gallery Concert Series, among many others. She has spearheaded numerous opportunities for Longy students to teach and perform in public schools, community centers, prisons, and other external venues where the traditions of music education can contribute to public life.
Zorn is an active teacher, guest speaker for keynote addresses, and frequent consultant for arts organizations and other non-profits on matters of creative artistry, curricular innovation, and leadership. She appears annually at the Verbier Festival, where she teaches courses on artistic innovation and audience engagement. She has taught of the Banff Artist Residency Program, Carnegie Hall, and has been a member of the faculties of Berklee, MacPhail Center for the Arts, and the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Zorn has held positions on the Boards of the Community Music Center of Boston, The Creativity Foundation, and the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy. In 2014, she was recognized Musical America’s Profiles in Courage.
Prior to her tenure at Longy, Zorn served as Associate Provost at Berklee College of Music, where she forged a global network of partnerships with organizations including the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory, and the Sorbonne Université. She held the roles of Acting Director and Director of Instruction at MacPhail Center for the Arts in Minneapolis.
A Wisconsin native and Boston resident, Zorn is herself a classically trained musician, having been educated as a pianist at Goshen College in Indiana and later receiving a master’s degree in piano performance at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
JUDITH BOSE, Dean
Judith Bose comes to Longy having worked as an independent arts education consultant with decades of experience specializing in curriculum development and the intersection of cultural organizations, schools, teachers and teaching artists. She has worked with WolfBrown arts research firm on various projects, including the first ever evaluation of El Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S.; as Creative Education Director for the Vermont Community Engagement Lab; as Community Engagement Consultant with From the Top; and as a student in the Music for Healing and Transition ProgramTM (MHTP).
An active soprano in the Boston area, Dr. Bose previously served as the Director of Teacher Education and Educational Initiatives at Longy, where she helped to develop an innovative Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Music degree program and led the Teaching Artist Program. Dr. Bose has also taught Teaching Artistry on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. In New York, she was a master music teaching artist at the Lincoln Center Institute and the New York Philharmonic for ten years, and she has worked with numerous schools and cultural organizations both nationally and internationally.
TYLER REECE, Associate Dean of Enrollment and Student Life
REBECCA TEETERS, Assistant Dean of Curriculum Development and Innovation
ANN WELCH, Chief Operating Officer
JOHN GALVIN, Chief Financial Officer
Board of Governors
JO FRANCES MEYER, Chair of the Board of Governors
Jo Frances Meyer joined Puddingstone Consulting and the Connors Family Office in November 2019 as a Director, working closely with Jack Connors and Sharon McNally on a number of strategic business and philanthropic projects. Prior to her current position, she served as Executive Director of Boston Landmarks Orchestra from 2015–2019. She served as Director of Development for Rockport Music from 2011–2014; Senior Development Associate for Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, working with Dr. Paula A. Johnson from 2008–2011. From 1999–2006, Meyer served as Director of Institutional Giving for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Prior to her 20-plus years in philanthropy, Meyer practiced law in the areas of health care law and policy at Mintz, Levin in Boston, and commercial litigation at Peabody & Brown (now Nixon Peabody LLP). A graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government with a Master in Public Administration in 1994, Meyer also holds a law degree from Suffolk University Law School (1982) and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Boston University’s School of Public Communication (1976). In addition to serving on the Longy School of Music Board of Governors, Meyer also serves as a Trustee at the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, and as a member of the Board of Advisors for the American Repertory Theater, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, and Lyric Stage Company.
DR. WILLIAM C. BANFIELD
In the past 25+ years, Dr. William Banfield has produced a body of productive music/ arts scholarship activities, books, compositions, recordings, establishing an active teaching, student and music/ lecture programming development, professional service and creative work, that contributes to contemporary arts leadership. Dr. Banfield was named Longy’s Senior Scholar in Residence in 2022. He has served as Professor of Africana Studies/Music and Society, founding director of the Center for Africana Studies/Liberal Arts and teaching in the dept. of composition and the graduate program Berklee College of Music, now retired (2005-2020). The college named him Professor Emeritus and founding director of Africana Studies/Center. He served as the Endowed Chair Humanities, Fine Arts, professor of Music, director of American Cultural Studies/Jazz, Popular, World Music Studies, University of St. Thomas, MN (1997-2005). Banfield served as assistant professor, African American Studies/Music, Indiana University (1992-1997) where he developed the Undine Smith Moore Collection of Scores and Manuscripts of Black Composers. A native Detroiter, he received his Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, a Master of Theological Studies from Boston University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from the University of Michigan.
WAYMAN CHIN, Dean Emeritus
Wayman Chin joined Longy’s faculty in 1994. From 2008-2020, he served as Dean of the Conservatory and for 13 years, also served as Chair of the Chamber Music Program. In 2007, he was awarded Longy’s George Seaman Award for Excellence in the Art of Teaching. In 2020, he was named Dean Emeritus. Mr. Chin earned a Bachelor of Music degree with honors from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School and a Master of Music degree from Yale University. Pianist Wayman Chin has performed widely throughout the United States, Asia, and the United Kingdom. Devoted to chamber music playing, Mr. Chin has collaborated with artists such as the Pacifica Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, violinist Eric Rosenblith, violist Masumi Rostad, cellist Thomas Kraines, sopranos Nancy Armstrong and Maria Jette and baritone Thomas Meglioranza. For twelve seasons, he was a member of the artist faculty at the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival and for five years, performed and taught at the Stamford International Music Festival in England. He also taught previously at UMass Dartmouth and on the Music Program faculty of the Winter Cycle at the Banff Centre in Canada.
GARTH GREIMANN, Vice Chair
DWIGHT “WIN” QUAYLE, Secretary
WILLIAM C. BANFIELD
+ LEON BOTSTEIN, President, Bard College
GENE D. DAHMEN
HARRIET E. GRIESINGER
DONALD W. SCHROEDER
ROBERT B. STRAUS
JEANNETTE H. TAYLOR
+ TAUN TOAY, Chief Financial Officer, Bard College
+ ANN WELCH, Chief Operating Officer, Longy School of Music of Bard College
+ KAREN ZORN, President, Longy School of Music of Bard College; Vice President, Bard College