Linda Florjancic Mu Phi, Cleveland Alumni received her Bachelor of Music degree from Baldwin-Wallace College (University) with a double major in Music History and Arts Management. She pursued post graduate studies at Bowling Green State University and was selected as the first graduate assistant for the Arts Village.
In 2007, she co-presented "Enhancing the Music Curriculum: Learning in the Dorm" at the College Music Society's Great Lakes Regional Meeting. Linda completed her Master of Music in Music History and Master of Arts in Arts Administration at The University of Akron. Linda was a Communications Intern at Interlochen Center for the Arts where she had the opportunity to host a Nickelodeon camera crew and interview Keith Lockhart, Conductor of the Boston Pops. She was an intern for the Canton Youth Symphony and a Development Intern for The Cleveland Orchestra.
Linda is the principal violist of the Parma Symphony Orchestra and secretary of their Board of Directors. She is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honorary and the League of American Orchestras. She is an active member of Mu Phi Epsilon serving on the International Finance Committee for three terms and is the current secretary for the Cleveland Alumni Chapter. Linda currently works at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, the nation's sixth largest historic home.
President
president@mpefoundation.org
Liana K. Sandin, Beta Pi, Lincoln Alumni, received her BM degree in Vocal Performance from Nebraska Wesleyan University and pursued graduate work in same field at the University of Nebraska's School of Music. A past president of the Lincoln Alumni chapter, and the current Chaplain and Notification Chair, Liana is also District Director for North Central 2.
Active in local music groups, Liana has helped facilitate the merger of two performance clubs, each with over 100 years of history, and is the first president of the resulting newly-formed Musical Arts Review. She sits on the boards of the Nebraska Chamber Players and the Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music. She sang with the Lincoln Choral Artists at Carnegie Hall, and has been a church musician for over 30 years.
Liana is an expert seamstress who travels around the country giving classes and trunk shows featuring Italian designs to both local and national audiences.
As President and Executive Director of The Pearle Francis Finigan Foundation, she selects and manages grants for music and the arts to local educational, humanitarian and religious institutions. Recently funded projects include endowed music scholarships and stained glass installations.
Vice President and Artist Concert Manager
vicepresident@mpefoundation.org
Craig Young Mu Upsilon, Allied Membership, is a business analytics and strategy leader from Atlanta, GA. He grew up in Rhode Island, where he began his schooling as a Double Bassist. He went on to study Double Bass performance and Music Education at The Eastman School of Music where he was elected as the President of the school's Mu Phi Epsilon chapter. Craig has performed with various orchestras throughout the Eastern US, along with performances in England, Austria, and Germany.
Since leaving the professional music world, Craig went on to receive a Bachelor's of Business Administration from Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. Craig has spent the last 13 years working in various capacities for Cox Communications. In his tenure at Cox, Craig has been responsible for creating plans for revenue growth, operational expense management, and leading teams of analysts and sales agents.
In his spare time, Craig enjoys attending local music events as well as Atlanta Symphony concerts as a subscription holder. Craig is also an avid brewer of wines, meads, and beers.
Treasurer
Dr. Sophia Tegart, Allied, has led a varied and award-winning career as a flutist, musicologist, and clinician. A popular performer, she has been soloist with the Spokane Symphony, the Washington-Idaho Symphony, Chehalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Kansas City Civic Orchestra. As a Yamaha Performing Artist, Tegart has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Competitive internationally, she was a finalist in the Mu Phi Epsilon International Competition and was quarter-finalist in the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition.
An avid chamber musician, Tegart has performed at National Flute Association Conventions, the Florida Flute Association Convention, College Music Society conferences, and in collaboration with numerous museums. She co-founded the Cherry Street Duo and the Blue Box Ensemble, and has collaborated with the Portland Percussion Group. Her love of chamber music has also led Dr. Tegart to arrange works for small chamber ensembles, which are currently published by Audible Intelligence Music.
Tegart won orchestral positions with the Oregon Mozart Players, Washington-Idaho Symphony, the Walla Walla Symphony, and the Des Moines Metro Opera. Additionally, she was guest principal flutist in the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, and performed regularly with the Kansas City Symphony and the Portland Festival Symphony. Currently, Tegart is piccoloist with the Colorado Mahlerfest, and second flute and piccolo in Carl Fischer Publications' premiere recording ensemble, the Tradewinds Wind Ensemble.
A highly sought after pedagogue, Dr. Tegart regularly gives master classes, clinics, and lectures throughout the United States. She currently teaches at Young Musicians and Artists (YMA), and has served on the faculty of the Music For All Summer Symposium and Music in May. Prior to her appointment at Washington State University, Tegart served on the faculties of Pacific University, George Fox University, Concordia University-Portland, and the University of Idaho.
Tegart's research interests include nineteenth-century operatic mad scenes, representations of art and literature in music, and zoological elements in early twentieth-century French flute music. For her masters thesis, "An Instrumental Voice: Use of the Flute in Lucia's Mad Scene," she won the Mu Phi Epsilon Musicology Award. Tegart has also presented lectures about ekphrasis in the music of Jessica Rudman, specifically Anne Sexton's Transformations, a retelling of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
Dr. Tegart received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where she held the flute fellowship in the Graduate Woodwind Quintet, after graduating from the University of Oregon with a Master of Arts in Music History and a Master of Music in Flute Performance. An alumna of Washington State University, Tegart received a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Bachelor of Music in Performance.
Secretary
secretary@mpefoundation.org
Dr. Kristín Jónína Taylor is an Icelandic-American pianist who has been enthusiastically received for her performances of Nordic piano works. She has performed widely in the U.S. as well as in Iceland, France, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Serbia, Belgium, Sweden, and Austria.
Dr. Taylor was the Grand Prize Winner of the Naftzger Young Artist Competition and a national finalist in the MTNA Collegiate Competition. She was a soloist with several orchestras and also was featured in the internationally prestigious Reykjavík Arts Festival.
Kristín was the recipient of two Fulbright grants to Iceland, the first for research on Jón Nordal's Piano Concerto, and the second to research the music of Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson. Her debut CD recording The Well-Tempered Pianist: The solo piano works of Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson was released by the Iceland Music Information Centre. Her second album, which is self-titled, was released by Pólarfónía Records. Her third album, Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson: Short Stories for Flute and Piano, was released by Smekkleysa Records in 2014.
Kristín is Assistant Professor of Piano and Keyboard Area Coordinator at University of Nebraska at Omaha. She regularly performs with her husband, Dr. Bryan Stanley, in the Atlantic Piano Duo.
Kristín Jónína Taylor is a Steinway Artist.
grants@mpefoundation.org
Rosemary Ames, Omega Chapter, Boston Alumni, President of Mu Phi Epsilon International Fraternity. Rosemary served the International Executive Board as 2nd Vice President, Collegiate Adviser, for 8 years, 1995-2003. She was fortunate to be able to accompany her husband on business travels, and visit 58 collegiate chapters during her eight years in office at no cost to the fraternity. She was appointed in 2003 as Chairman for the 2008 International Convention in Jacksonville. Her experience on the International Executive Board, assisting in the planning of three previous conventions, including the Centennial, served her well in orchestrating a successful convention in Jacksonville.
Rosemary recently retired from the position of Senior Learning & Development Consultant for Sun Life Financial. She has previously worked as an elementary music teacher in Hawaii, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, and Massachusetts and as a secondary music teacher in Iowa. Rosemary was also a classroom teacher in Colorado and at a military base in Ankara, Turkey.
Rosemary holds a Bachelors of Music Education degree from Drake University, Des Moines, IA and a Master of Science in Learning & Development from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She currently resides in Framingham, Massachusetts with her husband Richard. They enjoy flying to spend time with their far-flung three children and granddaughter.
President of Mu Phi Epsilon
ieb@mpefoundation.org
Zachariah Carlson will begin the 2018-2019 school year as high school choir director at Buffalo High School in Buffalo, Minnesota. During his first 4 years of teaching, his students earned multiple Superior Division I ratings at State Large Group and Solo/Small Ensemble Contest. Most notably, while he taught 7th-12th grade vocal music in the Dassel-Cokato School District his high school choirs earned their first Superior rating at Large Group Contest in 14 years. The same students brought home 24 Superior ratings at Solo/Small Ensemble contest that same year.
While teaching in Iowa, he commissioned a piece by composer David Ross Lawn during the 2015-2016, toured to Chicago (2015) and Los Angeles (2017), and received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Education (2017). His ensembles earned Superior ratings at Large Group and Solo/Small Ensemble State Contests. In the Spring Semester of 2017 his Treble Chorus received a Division I Rating for the first time since 1988 at Large Group Contest. He also led the Bass Clef Chorus to their first State Large Group Contest performance where they also received their first Division I Rating in school history.
He is passionate about instilling a spirit of philanthropy in his students and singers and has raised funds through concert efforts for Music Therapy, and Alzheimer's Disease Research. Carlson was Chancel Choir Director at St. James Lutheran Church in Mason City, Iowa from 2014-2017. He is now the Director of Music at Community United Methodist Church in Monticello, MN. Carlson sings professionally in the Twin Cities with The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists.
In 2014 he received a portion of Mu Phi Epsilon's John and Mary Virginia Foncannon Choral Conducting/Coaching Scholarship which he used to study privately with conductor Tone Bianca Sparre Dahl in Oslo, Norway. During that same time, he studied Norwegian at the International Summer School of the University of Oslo. Carlson was also the 2015 recipient of the Mu Phi Epsilon John and Mary Virginia Foncannon Scholarship for Choral Conducting/Sacred Music and attended the Choral Institute at Oxford University as a Full Conductor where he studied with Dr. James Jordan, and Dr. James Whitbourn. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth where he studied conducting with Dr. Stanley Wold and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Music in Music Education at Michigan State University. Carlson was born and raised on a farm in Northwest Minnesota and his passion for singing stems from his family's long tradition of music making.