Clinicians

Rodney Dorsey is a Professor of Music at the Florida State University College of Music, where he conducts the FSU Wind Orchestra and guides the graduate wind conducting program.

 Dr. Dorsey comes to FSU from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he conducted the IU Wind Ensemble and taught graduate conducting courses. Prior to his tenure at the Jacobs School, Dorsey served on the faculties of the University of Oregon,

 the University of Michigan, DePaul University, and Northwestern University.  He also gained extensive experience teaching in public schools in Florida and Georgia.

 Dorsey studied conducting with Dr. Mallory Thompson, Mr. John P. Paynter, and Dr.

James Croft. He was a clarinet student of Mr. Fred Ormand and Dr. Frank Kowalsky. 

During his conducting career, he has led performances at several prominent events, including the American Bandmasters Association Convention, College Band Directors

National Conference North/Northwest Regional Conference, and the Bands of America National Festival. He is active as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in the United States. International engagements include Hungary, Canada, and Bulgaria.

 His commitment to the community has been demonstrated by his participation on the board of directors for Music for All and the Midwest Clinic. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Clinic. Other professional memberships include the College

Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, Florida

Bandmasters Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma (honorary), Phi Mu Alpha

Sinfonia, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Dorsey is also an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. Most recently, Dorsey was named a Yamaha

Master Educator.

Alexander Kaminsky was appointed Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at VanderCook College of Music in 2019 after a highly successful tenure at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Previous to that, Kaminsky led the band programs at Buchholz High School, Lincoln High School, Auburndale High School, and Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School, all of which excelled under his direction.  He holds degrees from the University of Florida and Indiana University, is active as an adjudicator, and is in demand as a guest conductor/clinician across the country.

Throughout his 30-year career as a high school band director, Kaminsky’s ensembles consistently earned Superior ratings at all levels of evaluation. In addition to earning straight Superior ratings at the Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA) State Concert Band Assessment for an unprecedented 21 years (the last 11 years with both his first and second bands), he is the only director in the history of the FBA to have had three concert bands from one school earn straight Superior ratings at State, which he achieved three times (2009, 2018, and 2019).

Kaminsky’s high school bands performed at the Midwest Clinic (2005, 2009, 2014, and 2018), ABA National Convention (2014), CBDNA/NBA Southern Division Conference (2004 and 2014), FMEA State Conference (2014), Music for All National Concert Band Festival (2002 and 2012), and the National Wind Band Festival at Carnegie Hall (2009 and 2018). In 2018, the Stoneman Douglas Wind Symphony was named a Mark of Excellence National Wind Band Honors winner as one of only ten 6A bands in the nation. His marching bands consistently placed in the Florida Marching Band State Championship Finals, winning several FMBC State Championships (including 4 of his last 6 years as a high school band director), as well as being named a finalist band at BOA regional competitions.

Kaminsky has presented his clinic “How Can I Get My Band to Sound Like That” at various conferences and workshops, and his hands-on rehearsal demonstrations for the annual “How To Fix It” series at the FMEA Professional Development Conference received high acclaim with over 900 attendees in 2019.  He has been awarded the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence numerous times and has been recognized with several achievement awards for education, including Florida’s 2019 FMEA Secondary Music Educator of the Year Award, FBA Oliver Hobbs Award, FBA Andrew J. Crew Award, National Honor Roll’s Outstanding American Teacher, Nobel Educator of Distinction, Teacher of the Year, and is listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.

Kaminsky is a Conn-Selmer Educational Clinician, an elected member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association and the American School Band Directors’ Association, and also holds memberships in CBDNA, NBA, and Phi Beta Mu. He has served on many state and national committees, and currently serves on the ABA Sousa/Ostwald Award Committee and the ABA School Bands Task Force, and is the NBA National Student Chapters Advisor. Kaminsky is a National Board Certified Teacher and has been featured in several publications including The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music, Halftime Magazine, School Band & Orchestra Magazine’s “50 Directors Who Make A Difference,” Home Magazine’s “12 Exceptional Educators,” and most recently, Inspiring a Love of Music published by GIA Publications.

DON ZENTZ is in his fortieth year of teaching instrumental music at all levels in education. Currently the Director of Jazz Studies at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts (high school in Jacksonville, FL), Don has long been recognized as a leader in the area of jazz education since being hired onto the jazz faculty at the University of North Florida by program founder Rich Matteson in 1990. His jazz ensembles have performed at national conferences that include The Midwest Clinic, Jazz Educators Network, Western International Band Clinic, and the International Association of Jazz Educators. Under his direction, the UNF Jazz Ensemble won the National Collegiate Jazz Festival, took top honors at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival, and appeared on the international stage for the first time at the major jazz festivals in Europe. His high school and collegiate jazz ensembles have received eleven DownBeat Student Music Award citations. Over the past nine years at Douglas Anderson, Don’s top jazz ensemble won the 2022 & 2023 National Jazz Festival (jazz ensemble and combo divisions), 2021 Basically Basie Heritage Festival, and 2017 Swing Central national jazz band competitions. The fifty plus guest artists that have performed with Don’s jazz bands over the years truly reads like a “who’s who” in jazz. These legends include Herbie Hancock, Arturo Sandoval, Terry Gibbs, Ellis Marsalis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Eddie Daniels, Joe Lovano, Ernie Watts, and Maria Schneider.

Don enjoys much activity as a clinician, adjudicator, and performer in both traditional and jazz idioms. He has directed the All-State Jazz Bands of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Maine with All-District/County honor band directing too numerous to list. He serves on the Jazz Committee of the Florida Bandmasters Association and leads the jazz adjudication recertification sessions twice per year. He has been an FBA adjudicator for over thirty years and also adjudicates for Festival Disney and Music USA. Don was a per service saxophonist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra for over twenty years and remains a top call player throughout the southeastern United States, playing many of the off-Broadway musicals that come into Florida.

He has been a Keilwerth Saxophones performing artist since 1995. Throughout the 1990’s, Don was a member of the southeastern unit of The Fabulous Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, playing lead alto saxophone. He served two terms as president of the Florida Unit of IAJE and was responsible for creating and implementing the State Jazz Workshop. UNF named Don an Outstanding Professor in 1996 and DownBeat Magazine awarded him their Jazz Education Achievement Award in 1999. Don also joined a select group of Jacksonville area jazz legends by being named the 2022 inductee into the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Hall of Fame for his musicianship and educational contributions to Florida’s First Coast region over four decades. That same year, the National Jazz Festival selected Don for their Jazz Educator of the Year Award in recognition of his professional standard of excellence, expertise, and a career centered on student achievement at the highest level.

Don and his wife Laurie have been married for thirty-nine years. They met in college at Valdosta State University. Laurie is a middle school band director and the 2016 St. Johns County Teacher of the Year who went on to be named a top five semi-finalist for Florida Teacher of the Year. They have two daughters, Danielle and Andrea. Both are teachers. Teaching is the Zentz family business!

J.B. Scott earned his B.A. degree in music as the first graduate of the acclaimed jazz program at the University of North Florida, under the tutelage of the legendary Rich Matteson. Scott is currently an Associate Professor at the University of North Florida’s School of Music where he is Director of Jazz Studies, Directs the award winning UNF Jazz Ensemble 1 and is Artistic Director for the UNF Great American Jazz Series. Scott is much in demand as a professional trumpet artist and clinician and is a Warburton Signature Trumpet Artist. As a professional player and leader, Scott has performed with such artists as The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Eddie Palmieri, Paquito D’Rivera, Ira Sullivan, Rufus Reed, Ed Calle, Arturo Sandoval and was musical director for the world-famous Dukes of Dixieland. Scott has performed on many festivals including the Macieo Jazz Festival, (Brazil), the Elkhart Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The Pescara Jazz Festival (Italy) and has performed and presented clinics for IAJE, FMEA/FMENC, Chicago Midwest, JEN (Jazz Educators Network) in St. Louis, and directed the Florida All-State Jazz Band. Partnering with respected vocalist Lisa Kelly in 1997, Scott and Kelly have performed and presented clinics internationally for major festivals, jazz clubs and jazz societies, as featured soloists with big bands, and with their own big band and small groups. Together they have co-produced five successful CD recordings and both are members of the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Hall of Fame. 

Born and raised in Colorado, Keith Farmer has been a music educator in the state for over 25 years. A graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder with a BME and VanderCook College of Music with a MME, Keith gained his first teaching experience in the rural community of Elizabeth, bringing the music department into a new building and helping to hone the skills of those students.

Following this time, Keith moved firmly into the Denver metro area as the first band director at Rock Canyon High School and Rocky Heights Middle School. After setting a precedence of excellence in this school, Keith moved onto Grandview High School in 2005 as the Director of Bands, a position he has held since that time.

At Grandview, Keith has enjoyed superior ratings for both his concert bands and jazz ensembles. His Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble I have both performed at the CMEA conference among many other national and international engagements. As a catalyst for positive change, Keith has implemented new programs including a Wolf Pride Marching Band designed to foster student leadership skills. In addition, his leadership has been recognized as the Coordinator of the Performing Arts Department from 2009-2022 and the Grandview Teacher of the Year in 2016.

In addition to his duties in school, Keith is engaged with national and local music education organizations in a variety of roles. He has served as the instrumental council chair for the Colorado Music Educators Association and is currently President of the American School Band Directors Association. Keith is also the co-director for Symphony Winds of the Colorado Honor Band Association.

Todd Dixon started teaching in 1996 and has recently retired as Director of Bands and Fine Arts Department Chair at Wylie High School in Wylie, Texas. Mr. Dixon taught in Keller ISD and Mansfield ISD prior to his appointment at Wylie High School in 2007. Concert bands under the direction of Mr. Dixon have earned consistent first division ratings in the Texas UIL Concert & Sightreading and UIL Marching Contest since 1996,

and have been awarded Best in Class and Outstanding Instrumental Ensemble at all festivals they have attended. Groups under his direction have advanced multiple times to the Area and State finals level of TMEA State Honor Band selection (5x), and UIL State Marching Championships (7x). The Wylie High School Wind Symphony under the direction of Mr. Dixon has performed multiple concerts at the Morton H. Meyerson

Symphony Center in Dallas, the Eisemann Center in Richardson, Clowes Hall at Butler University, Lincoln Center, and four different performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

The Wind Symphony has performed three time at the Music For All National Festival (2008, 2013, 2020), and performed at the 2017 Midwest Clinic, International Band and Orchestra Conference. In addition, the Wylie High School Marching Band performed in the Dublin Ireland St. Patricks Day Parade in 2022 and the program as recognized as the Outstanding Texas Band Program in 2023 by the American School Band Directors Association.

Mr. Dixon received his Bachelors degree in Music Education from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a Masters degree in Educational Leadership from Texas A&M. 

Commerce. Mr. Dixon is a member of the Texas Bandmasters Association, Texas Music

Educators Association, Texas Music Adjudicators Association, Phi Beta Mu, American School Band Directors Association and served 8 years as the TMEA Region 25 Band Chair, 8 years as TMEA Region 25 President and 8 years as TMEA Area C Audition Chairman.

Mr. Dixon currently resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife of 29 years and is father to three amazing young adults; Jessica (flute), Maria (bassoon) and Mak (percussion).

Mr. Russell Balusek is a 1998 graduate of East Bernard High School.  After high school, he attended Wharton County Junior College before transferring to Stephen F. Austin State University where he earned his bachelor's degree in Music Education.  He studied trombone under Dr. Deb Scott.  After his graduation, Mr. Balusek was the Junior High Director in Sealy for 6 years before becoming the Director of Bands for Sealy ISD.  

In 2016, Mr. Balusek and his family moved to Edna where he has spent the last 6 1/2 years as Director of Bands for Edna ISD.  The bands have earned numerous sweepstakes trophies and been Area Finalist for marching band multiple times.  In 2023, the Edna High School band was a State Semifinalist in the TMEA Honor Band competition.

He lives with his beautiful wife Briana and children Addison and Preston.  He is a member of the Victoria Jazz Ensemble, Texas Music Educators Association, Association of Texas Small School Bands, American School Band Directors Association, and the Texas Music Adjudicators Association.  He is an avid fan of the Houston Astros and a live music aficionado.