Justin's involvement with music began in Southern California in 1989 with the study of piano and then the alto saxophone. Through the next nine years, he began to play the clarinet, flute, oboe, and English horn in some of the truly elite educational ensembles. Justin was the principal oboist of a Downbeat Student Music Award winning wind ensemble and the lead alto saxophonist for the Downbeat Student Music Award winning jazz ensemble of Buchanan High School, in Clovis, CA. Affiliation with these groups led to performances for the International Association of Jazz Educators Convention, the California Band Directors Association, the Bands of America Festival and an invitation to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Justin was selected as an oboist to the Fresno Youth Philharmonic, and garnered several selections to state and regional honor groups as oboist, clarinetist, and saxophonist.  During this period, he participated in jazz programs at the University of Oregon, the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, and the Idyllwild School for the Arts, playing lead alto saxophone in the premiere ensembles of the latter two. His sextet, assembled at Idyllwild, was chosen to return to Idyllwild and perform as the opening and closing act each day for the Idyllwild Jazz in the Pines Festival in 1998.

    As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, Justin continued to perform in a big band setting and was recognized (as a jazz saxophonist) with a Garrigues Foundation Scholarship to fund private study with any teacher he might choose and to cover the travel costs to attend lessons. At Swarthmore, Justin began to sing informally, joining two a cappella groups and arranging for both. He also began to play the guitar and to write and perform more popular/rock/folk-oriented songs. It was midway through a program in Political Science when he decided that he would greatly prefer Music as his field of choice, and at that time Justin began genuine study of the academic side of music, including composition. Swarthmore’s Department of Music and Dance awarded him the Boyd Barnard Prize in Music, indicating their determination that Justin was the most outstanding Junior music student. There Justin studied composition primarily under Gerald Levinson and composed my first completed works, a string quartet, a song cycle on newspaper texts, and a short piece for two pianos. Justin received a BA with High Honors from Swarthmore College in 2003.

    In Fall 2005 Justin returned to school, entering the M.M. program in Music Composition/Theory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The department appointed him as a Part-Time Instructor/Graduate Assistant throughout the entirety of my program, from August 2005 through December 2007. Justin studied composition with Virko Baley and Jorge Villavicencio-Grossmann. Beyond his compositional studies, Justin played as the baritone saxophonist and later the lead alto saxophonist for UNLV’s Jazz Ensemble I and was selected to the Liberace Quartet, UNLV’s scholarship jazz quartet. The program provided Justin with the opportunity to have private lessons with many other composers, including Erica Muhl, Steven Stucky, Paul Moravec, Paul Chihara, Ian Krouse, Dan Welcher, Fredrick Kaufman, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Vincent Plush, Paul Basler and members of the Alta Voz Composers Consortium. In March 2007, Justin was selected as a participant in the inaugural Nevada Encounters of New Music Composition Festival and his Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, a setting of Sandburg texts, was premiered on the opening concert. Other works completed during his time in the M.M. program include: On the Death of…, Fanfare for a Hero,  So Not Over(ture), Wind the Clock, Nacht! In the Broken Cabaret, Bar Talk, String:Tone=½, and I, Tri.


Teaching Experience:

    Part-Time Instructor/Graduate Assistant in the Department of Music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (August 2005-December 2007) -- Independently taught undergraduate music courses in music history (Rock and Roll History), music theory (Fundamentals of Music) and music composition (Fundamentals of Composition). Responsible for preparation and evaluation of all coursework.

    Theory Tutor for DMA Music Education student (September 2007 - ongoing) -- Helped to prepare Boston University DMA student for qualifying examination in music theory. Topics included Figured Bass, Tonal Harmony, and Harmonic Analysis from the Baroque through the early Romantic Period. (She passed.)