Residency Programs
About Us
Staff & Board
Jennifer Raine, D.M.A., Director of Special Programs
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A native of Canada, Jennifer Raine has created and implemented music and theater programs in public schools since 1995. Jennifer is the designer of numerous large-scale research and professional development initiatives for MNMP, including such District 75 partnerships as Everyday Arts for Special Education (2010-15), Communication and Socialization through the Arts (2008-11) and Creative and Integrative Arts Educators (2005-08); and original musical theater creation programs for English Language Learners, special education students, and general education populations such as Blank Page to Stage (2008-12) and Setting the Stage for Success (2006-10). Jennifer creates and writes curriculum for MNMP’s research initiatives, as well as overseeing all aspects of their professional development components. In addition to her extensive and groundbreaking work within the New York City public school system, Jennifer conducts hands-on, multidisciplinary arts workshops for students and teachers throughout North America.
K’idar Miller, Special Programs Coordinator
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Born in North Carolina, K’idar Miller has worked in nonprofits since arriving in New York City in 2008. He holds a A.B. in Psychology from Harvard University.
Sita Frederick, Education Programs Manager
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Sita Frederick is an arts administrator, performer, choreographer and teaching artist. After graduating from Swarthmore College, Frederick performed with Bessie-winning choreographers Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women and Merian Soto, co-founder of Pepatian. In 2003, Frederick and visual artist José Miguel Ortiz co-founded Areytos Performance Works, a multimedia performance company that produces innovative contemporary dance-theatre rooted in Caribbean traditions and the principles of social justice. Recently, she partnered with Good Shepherd Services to co-author a curriculum called “Salsa Scholars: The Legacy of Fania” and provided professional development for their dance instructors. As a teaching artist and coach she has worked with American Dance Legacy Institute, Lincoln Center Institute, DreamYard, Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum In Motion, and Broadway Bound Kids.
Max Freedman, Performance & Community Outreach Manager
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Before joining MNMP, Max was the Connectivity Assistant at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, where he contributed to the creation of a new department at the intersection of audience development, community engagement, and public programming. An actor, playwright, director, and filmmaker, Max holds a B.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
Cierra Jordan, Program Assistant
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Cierra Jordan is a Connecticut native recently returned from a sojourn in Chicago. While there, she worked for Americorps’ City Year Chicago as a Project Leader for the City Heroes program. She graduated from Americorps in 2010, and came back to the East coast to work for MNMP in 2011. She holds a BA in Anthropology from American University, and supports the performing arts through volunteering at her local theater.
Amanda Keil, Development Manager
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Amanda Keil is excited to bring her ten years of development experience to music and arts education fundraising. Prior to joining MNMP, she worked in fields as varied as health care, domestic violence, eldercare, and international development. When not in the office, Amanda sings and leads her own Baroque ensemble, Musica Nuova, and blogs about classical music and culture at thousandfoldecho.com.
Maureen Moynihan, Business Manager
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Maureen may have been born a dancer but she was raised by a corporate internal auditor of a Fortune 500 company, so it is no surprise she ended up in arts management. She started her career working for Steppenwolf Theatre and Mick Leavitt of Fox Theatricals (currently producing musicals on Broadway). While working in Chicago, she met the founders of Blue Man Group and ended up opening and managing their productions for the next 13 years across North America. Maureen is a graduate of Northwestern University with a B.S. in Choreography and Communication Studies.
Earlton Singleton, Chair
Earlton Singleton is an IT professional in a career that has spanned nearly two decades with just two firms. He is a Senior Vice President/Principal of Technology at a major financial services company. In this capacity he has worked with and led teams that have designed, developed and implemented capital markets/Investment banking technology used globally. Most recently, he has led technology operational risk functions, broadly, for both capital markets technology and enterprise technology. A founding Board-Chair for InnerAct Productions, Earlton served six-terms for this non-profit theatrical arts organization committed to opening opportunities in theatre for artists and technical professionals of color. He holds a B.A. from New York University College of Arts and Sciences, with a dual-major in Computer Science and Math, and a dual-minor in French and Spanish.
Daniel Gould
Daniel Gould has shown a lifelong commitment to music and entrepreneurship. Born and raised in Seattle, WA, Daniel learned piano, saxophone, and bass, and made his first professional stage appearance with his high school big band at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1994. Since then he has been in a variety of groups from funk, to Latin, to rock. He received his B.A. in Music, Science and Technology from Stanford University in 1999 and founded a startup called SphereMedia to provide market research to the music industry via personalized radio. From there, he went to MusicMatch, where he was Vice President of Web Services and built one of the first profitable online radio subscription services, which was later acquired by Yahoo! In 2002, Daniel moved back to Seattle and opened Vent Studios, where he specialized in hiphop recording and production. In 2005, he launched Wax Orchard, an independent record label distributed by Koch Entertainment. Daniel graduated from Columbia Law School in 2008. While there, he was Co-President of the Entertainment and Sports Law Society, and published an article on copyright termination in the Journal of Law and the Arts. During his first summer at law school, Daniel worked for the chair of the AIPLA Copyright Committee analyzing and summarizing recent copyright cases for a copyright desk reference which was published in 2009. Today, Daniel is an associate in the Media & Entertainment Practice of Greenberg Traurig’s New York office. Daniel represents clients in the United States broadcast, cable television, and online sectors, with an emphasis on distribution and licensing agreements.
Ruth Mueller-Maerki, Secretary
Before moving to the New York area in 1980, Ruth Mueller-Maerki taught elementary and high school in her native Switzerland. After raising her three children she first obtained a masters degree in music education and subsequently taught pre-school music in Westchester, and later received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in classical composition from the Manhattan School of Music. Ruth has been engaged in various volunteer activities in and around New York city. For 12 years she served as the head usher at the Cathedral St. John the Divine where she is now active as a docent. She served on the board of Hoff-Barthelson Music School and on the vestry of the Congregation of St. Saviour at the cathedral.
Charles Nordlander
Charles Nordlander is currently Vice President of Development & Programming for the History Channel, where he oversees a team of Executive Producers responsible for the creation of original series and specials for the network. Additionally, he is charged with creating and implementing innovative programming strategies that expand the brand across multiple platforms including history.com. Prior to joining History, Nordlander served as Vice President of Development for Food Network, where he developed and launched a slate of new series that reinvented Food’s primetime schedule. Earlier, Nordlander served as Director of Programming for A&E and was a founding partner in Glow in the Dark, a NY-based production company. He began his television career as Head Writer for the PBS children’s series, Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
While having no formal music education or training, Nordlander has had a passionate, life-long interest in music that redefines the boundaries of what music can be. His collection of more than 5,000 CDs has long since outgrown the boundaries of his NYC-sized apartment.
Christy Turner, Treasurer
Christy Turner is a financial advisor for Wells Fargo Advisors. Christy has over 20 years of financial, accounting, and investment management experience. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst and previously worked as a mutual fund portfolio manager and equity analyst at American Century Investments for over 13 years. Prior to that, she trained and worked as a Certified Public Accountant and auditor for KPMG. Christy holds an MBA with an emphasis in Finance from the University of North Carolina and a BS in Business Administration (Accounting) from the University of Central Florida. In addition to serving on the board of Manhattan New Music Project, she is a non-profit committee member for the Financial Women’s Association of New York, a member of the global women’s network 85 Broads, and a high school mentor with iMentor.org.
John Clark
Horn player, arranger, and composer, John Clark has performed all over the world with a tremendous diversity of musicians, in a variety of musical arenas: jazz, pop, Broadway, classical, and commercial studio work. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied horn, composition, improvisation, and piano, Mr. Clark established his jazz credentials with a series of recordings with his own band, the most recent being the album I Will on the Postcards label (nominated for Record of the Year by the National Association of Independent Record Dealers in 1998.) The list of artists with whom he has recorded (many of them Grammy winners) or performed is enormous, and includes Miles Davis, Hank Jones, David Sanchez, Chick Corea, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Sean P-Diddy Combs, Carly Simon, Billy Joel, Sting, Linda Ronstadt, Leonard Bernstein, the Boston Symphony, among many others. The recipient of a composition grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mr. Clark’s work has been performed and recorded by the Gil Evans Orchestra, McCoy Tyner Big Band, Paul Winter Consort the Imani Winds, the Aspen Wind Quintet, and the Pugh-Taylor Project, among others. Mr. Clark is also the recipient of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences award for Most Valuable Player in the Recording Field, as well as the Downbeat
Critics’ Poll. He is a Conn-Selmer artist and has conducted many workshops and master classes.
Alec Hanley Bemis
Alec Hanley Bemis’s writing has appeared in LA Weekly, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Spin, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. In 2001, he co-founded Brassland, a record label that documents the work of a growing community of musicians, including The National and Nico Muhly. Currently he continues to run Brassland, consults for the UK-based music company All Tomorrow’s Parties, and acts as general manager at contemporary classical label Cantaloupe Music. In the past, he has taught in New York University’s graduate journalism program, produced projects for new media design firm Funny Garbage, and written for Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve. He graduated from Yale University with an honors degree in American intellectual and cultural history.
David Taylor
David Taylor has played a pioneering role in the development of the bass trombone, commissioning many works for the instrument. Taylor first played with the American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski in 1967 and, at the same time, began playing in jazz and big bands in New York. Following the American Symphony came concerts with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez and membership in the bands of Gil Evans, Chuck Israels, George Gruntz, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis and Bob Mintzer. His bass trombone began to be heard on dozens of recordings with major jazz and popular artists including Duke Ellington, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones and Quincy Jones. In 1979, David Taylor embarked on a period of commissioning music for the bass trombone and in the years following gave premieres of significant works including compositions by Charles Wourinen, Alan Hovhaness, Frederic Rzewski, David Liebman and George Perle. In 1982, he was awarded the Most Valuable Player Award on bass trombone given by the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS)–the first award given to a bass trombonist by the New York Chapter. He was to win that award for five consecutive years, the maximum allowed time. In 1987, he was awarded the New York NARAS’ Most Valuable Player Virtuoso Award, an honor no other bass trombonist has received before or since. His first full solo recital was given, at the age of 40, at Carnegie Hall in 1984. Two more New York recitals followed, each with significant new premieres, as well as his first solo album, David Taylor-Bass Trombone. His best selling recording, the Pugh-Taylor Project, produced in conjunction with tenor trombonist Jim Pugh, continues to garner recognition for its originality, sound, and recording technique.
Santiago Dellepiane
Santiago Dellepiane is a Vice President with Compass Lexecon. For over ten years he has worked on a large variety of economic, business valuation, damages assessment, and strategy consulting engagements for clients in the United States, Latin America and Europe. Santiago performs valuations and assists in the development and provision of expert testimony for regulatory proceedings, international arbitration and litigation. Before joining Compass Lexecon, he was a Principal at LECG’s New York office, Santiago also worked for LECG in Washington, DC and Buenos Aires, Argentina. During 2003 and 2004, Santiago worked for Nextel-Sprint as a strategy consultant, developing a performance management framework for support functions.
Santiago holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from CEMA University in Argentina, and is currently completing a Masters degree in Media Studies at The New School University. During 2009, he was part of The Lower Manhattan Project, a task force between the New School and the U.S. Department of Energy, tasked with analyzing drastic climate change scenarios and their relationship with economic crises.
Santiago’s interest in arts began with film; during college years he studied scriptwriting and then shot a documentary and a short drama film. More recently, he studied photography at ICP in New York. Several magazines in Argentina have published his photographs and articles, most of which feature the life of artists in New York City.
Liz Crow
Elizabeth Crow is an attorney practicing in New York. Before law school, she worked with several non-profit boards of directors on a variety of governance and legal compliance projects. She is the former Assistant to the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the former executive assistant to the Director and Board of Trustees of The Phillips Collection. She also worked in the music industry as account manager for SoundExchange disseminating digital music royalties to artists and copyright holders. In May 2009, Liz graduated cum laude from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, and thereafter became licensed to practice in New York, Maryland and the District of Columbia. In addition to surviving law school, Liz also endured nine years of classical piano instruction, and she is an avid music lover.
Olivia Lee, Vice Chair
Olivia Lee started playing the piano at the age of three eventually adding guitar, bass, cello and drums to the mix; and enjoys both performing (occasionally) and teaching. Currently, she volunteers with various mentoring and educational nonprofit organizations including teaching at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. She has also worked extensively with Habitat for Humanity, including coordinating and securing financing for multiple projects. Olivia was most recently in finance, where her area of focus was corporate fixed income securities. Currently she is dedicated to nonprofit work full-time. Olivia graduated from Columbia University with an undergraduate degree in Economics and Math and has a graduate degree from NYU Stern.
Staff
