2026-27 Guest Clinicians

Dr. Courtney Snyder is Associate Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan where she conducts the University Concert Band, teaches undergraduate and graduate instrumental conducting, and assists in administrating the Michigan Bands program. She also is the Music Director of the Michigan Youth Symphonic Band.

Previously, Snyder served as the Assistant Director of Bands and Director of Athletic Bands at the University of Nebraska-Omaha where she conducted the “Maverick” Marching Band, conducted the Concert Band, served as Associate Conductor of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and taught courses in conducting, music education, and brass methods. While in Omaha, Snyder also served as Music Director for the Nebraska Wind Symphony, Omaha’s oldest community band. Ensembles under her direction have been invited to play at state, regional conferences and international conferences. Prior to teaching at the collegiate level, Snyder taught high school and middle school band and orchestra in the Michigan public schools, the last four years of which she served as Director of Bands at Ypsilanti High School.

Dr. Snyder is an active guest conductor and clinician, conducting and teaching both nationally and internationally. She has presented at national and international conferences including the Midwest Clinic, World Association of Symphonic Band Ensembles, College Band Directors National Association, College Music Society, and Women Band Directors International. Her current projects include improvisation in the large concert ensemble, conducting pedagogy, band music of South and Central America, and promoting equity of women and BIPOC composers and conductors. She is a past president of Women Band Directors International and a Conn-Selmer clinician.

Snyder is published in Music Educators Journal, The Instrumentalist, several volumes of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, School Band & Orchestra Magazine, The Woman Conductor, and Association of Concert Bands Journal. Her chapter “Trailblazers: Five Pioneering Female Band Directors Recount Their Journeys Over the Last 50 Years” in the book The Horizon Leans Forward…Stories of Courage, Strength, and Triumph of Underrepresented Communities in the Wind Band Field was published in December 2020. She received the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance DEI Breaking Ground Award, Tau Beta Sigma’s Paula Crider Award, Women Band Directors International’s Silver Baton Award, National Band Association’s Citation of Merit, and earned 2nd Place in the 2018 American Prize in Conducting, Band/Wind Ensemble Division Competition. Dr. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Baylor University, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Matthew Schlomer serves as the Director of Bands at the University of Wyoming where he oversees the band program, conducts the Wind Symphony, and teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting.

Dr. Schlomer is an international artist whose creativity flourishes across many genres. His diverse background as a saxophonist, composer, arranger, dancer, actor, and an award-winning visual artist informs his unique approach to performance and concert programming. He avidly pursues collaborations and has created works with writers, chefs, actors, poets, rap artists, singers, filmmakers, choreographers and visual artists. As an advocate of new music, he regularly commissions and premieres works that explore the intersections of different art forms and promotes underrepresented composers.

Before his appointment at the University of Wyoming, Schlomer was a conductor at the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. There he founded the Composer's Sandbox, a program for composers that fosters experimentation and creativity; and the Sound Garden Project, a chamber music incubation program that reimagines the performers’ and audience’s experiences with classical music. Under his leadership, ensembles have performed with luminaries such as Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, John Bruce Yeh, Tim McAllister, Otis Murphy, Emil Khudyev, Linda Strommen, Vincent DiMartino, John Aley, and Gerry Pagano to name a few. Past positions have included conducting residencies with the Traverse City Dance Project and the experimental percussion group Clocks in Motion, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Luther College, Edgewood College, and he has over 12 years experience in public and private schools grades 5-12.

Schlomer is an active guest conductor and passionate educator who presents his innovative pedagogy to national and international audiences. Conducting engagements include the World Youth Wind Ensemble at Interlochen Arts Camp, Singapore American School Music Festival, Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, Italy, the Baldwin Wallace Festival at Carnegie Hall, and the ECMEA Honor Band in Buffalo, New York. He won the 2018 American Prize for his live performance of Michael Colgrass’ “Winds of Nagual,” the 2022 Sutton Foster Award for Best Musical Direction with “Pippin,” and a major grant from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council to strengthen communities through the arts. He was also a 2020 finalist for the National Association for Music Education’s George N.Parks Award for Music Education. He is a board member of the International Music Project that promotes international musical exchanges between the United States and major European conservatories.

Dr. Schlomer earned masters and doctoral degrees in conducting with a minor concentration in dance from the University of Wisconsin, a bachelor degree in music education from the University of Colorado at Boulder with an emphasis in Arts Administration, and a gold medal in saxophone from Bordeaux Regional Conservatory in France. While at UW-Madison he studied conducting with Scott Teeple and twice received the Richard Church Memorial Conducting Award. His studies in movement theory and dance with Kate Corby and Mary Brennan inspire his ongoing research into the interaction between the body and mind. He is a member of the College Band Directors National Association, the National Association for Music Education, and the National Band Association.