Andrew Boysen Jr. is presently a professor in the music department at the University of New Hampshire, where he conducts the wind symphony and teaches conducting and composition. Under his leadership, the UNH wind symphony has released seven recordings and been invited to perform at regional conventions of the College Band Directors National Association and National Association for Music Education. Previously, Boysen taught at Indiana State University and Cary-Grove (IL) High School and was the music director and conductor of the Deerfield Community Concert Band. He remains active as a guest conductor and clinician, appearing with high school, university, and festival ensembles around the world.

Boysen earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in wind conducting at the Eastman School of Music, where he served as conductor of the Eastman Wind Orchestra and assistant conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. He received his Master of Music degree in wind conducting from Northwestern University in 1993 and his Bachelor of Music degree in music education and music composition from the University of Iowa in 1991.

He maintains an active schedule as a composer, receiving commissions from festival, university, and high school concert bands across the United States. Boysen won the International Horn Society Composition Contest in 2000, the University of Iowa Honors Composition Prize in 1991 and has twice won the Claude T. Smith Memorial Band Composition Contest, in 1991 and 1994. Boysen has several published works with the Neil A. Kjos Music Company, Wingert-Jones Music, Alfred Music, Masters Music, and C. Alan Publications, including pieces for band, orchestra, clarinet and piano, and brass choir. Recordings of his music appear on the Sony, R-Kal, Mark, St. Olaf and Elf labels.

Lyndsay Boysen is currently an Instructor of Music at Southern New Hampshire University where she teaches courses in music history, music theory and writing. Boysen has also served as an adjunct faculty member in music education at the University of New Hampshire where she supervised student teachers and spent 15 years teaching high school band, music theory and music history in both MA and NH. Most recently, Boysen completed an Integrative Health and Nutrition Coaching program from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in NYC and is passionate about providing health coaching and professional development resources that empower teachers to prioritize their health and happiness. 

Boysen received her Master of Music in Wind Conducting from the University of Kansas where she studied with John Lynch, Scott Weiss, and David Clemmer. While at KU, Boysen served as associate conductor of the KU Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, Concert Band, and the Helianthus New Music Ensemble. She also served as a graduate teaching assistant with KU Marching Jayhawks. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of New Hampshire.  

Boysen currently serves as the NHMEA Professional Development and Conference Chairperson. She has served on the executive board of the Massachusetts Music Educators Association (MMEA) and the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association (MICCA) and was Chairperson of the MMEA-WD, Massachusetts Music Educators Association. Boysen remains active as a guest conductor and clinician, appearing with high school and festival ensembles and conventions across the United States.

Ken is the past president of the New Hampshire Band Directors' Association and is on the board of the New Hampshire Music Educators' Association where he is in his 21st year as Chairperson for the NH Jazz All-State Music Festival.          

Ken has been teaching middle and high school bands in the Timberlane schools in Plaistow, NH since 1992. He was chosen to receive the first Outstanding Young Band Director award by the New Hampshire Band Directors' Association in 1995. Ken has adjudicated for and conducted the Maine Jazz All State Jazz Bands and Jazz Combo. He has conducted the Maine District II Middle School Concert Band and Jazz Band as well as the Southern Maine Sixth Grade Festival Band. In 2009, he also conducted the Massachusetts Northeast Middle School Honor Band and jazz band and also the NH Middle School South Central Honors Concert Band.  

In addition, he has adjudicated for the New Hampshire All-State, Jazz All-State, and Solo and Ensemble music festivals. Ken has presented workshops for the All-Eastern Music Festival (Baltimore), the New Hampshire and Rhode Island music educators’ conventions, The University of NH, Keene State College, as well as for the New England Band Director Institute.  He has taught percussion, concert band, jazz band, and jazz improvisation at UNH’s Summer Youth Music School for 27 years. 

Pat Cunningham currently serves as the principal clarinetist of the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra, a position she has held for 40 years. She has been a featured soloist with the Philharmonic three times as well as several performances with ensembles in Iowa. She has also performed with the Great Waters Festival Orchestra, New England Symphony Orchestra, Nashua Symphony Orchestra, Granite State Orchestra, New England Wind Symphony, and the North End (Boston) Marching Band.

Pat earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of Music – Woodwind Performance from Boston University. Principal clarinet teachers were Ethan Sloane, Jack Graham, Karl Holvik and Steve Colton. Additional graduate work was completed at the University of New Hampshire, Central Connecticut State University, University of Hartford (CT), University of Massachusetts, University of Iowa, and the University of Miami. 

As an educator, Pat was a band director in Iowa for five years before moving to New Hampshire. Since 1986, she taught Instrumental Music in the Merrimack, NH School District with the last twenty-four years at the high school level where she directed the Concert, Marching and Jazz Bands. These ensembles received many top ratings at festivals over the years. Pat has served as an NHMEA adjudicator for All-State auditions and Large Group Festival. She retired from education in 2022 after teaching for 41 years. The New Hampshire Band Directors’ Association honored Pat as “New Hampshire Band Director of the Year” in 2014. She was also recognized by Merrimack High School as “Teacher of the Year” in 2011. Former students have also nominated her several times for “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.”  Pat has also received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for teaching. Pat lives in Auburn, NH with her husband, Gregg, who is a percussionist with the NH Philharmonic.

As a teacher and conductor, Lisa Linde directs the Newton South High School Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Lab Jazz Ensemble, and four levels of Jazz Improv courses. Under her direction, Newton South ensembles consistently receive state, regional, and national recognition. The Newton South Jazz Ensemble regularly receives top ratings at MAJE state festivals and the Berklee HS Jazz Festival. Nationally, the Newton South Jazz Ensemble has been accepted into the 2018, 2021 and 2025 Essentially Ellington HS Jazz Festival as well as being selected to the Charles Mingus HS Jazz Festival for the past eight years.

Lisa is a passionate advocate for gender equality in jazz and is the founder of the nonprofit, Jazzhers, an organization committed to shaping the future of jazz by helping young musicians who identify as female and nonbinary to become connected to and feel empowered within the jazz community.During the summer she conducted at South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA as well as SYMS at the University of New Hampshire. 

Lisa received her undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and her master’s degree in Wind Ensemble Conducting from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Frank Battisti. In addition to teaching she currently serves the larger music community as a frequent adjudicator, clinician and speaker. Ms. Linde was the 2022 recipient of the MICCA Hall of Fame award for teaching excellence and the 2023 recipient of the National Federation of State High Schools Outstanding Music Educator Award in Massachusetts as well as a 2024 and 2025 Grammy Quarterfinalist. 

Peter began his working life with his grandfather on a farm, spending weekends and summers taking care of animals and tossing hay bales. His adult life started as an architectural engineer and builder before he discovered a love for working with adolescents, leading him to return to college in his late 20s to study special education.

His sound career began in the ’90s, hauling and setting up equipment with his late friend Ken LaRoche from the world music ensemble Do’a. Since those humble beginnings, he has provided live sound and recordings for numerous folk musicians, including John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, Cosy Sheridan & Charlie Koch, Jonathan Edwards, Livingston Taylor, and many others. For three summers, he toured the East Coast doing live sound for an 8-piece Celtic band from Asturias, Spain. He’s also done sound and recordings for various local schools, choruses, bands, and theater performances, including the Zenith Ensemble, Monadnock Children’s Choir, Monadnock Chorus, Peterborough Players, Raylynmor Opera, and the Firelight Theater. He’s provided sound for good causes such as the annual Granny D Walk and Bernie in his early days. He has recorded, mixed, mastered, and produced several CDs and other digital audio and video recordings, including numerous projects for the KSC Music Department. Since 2015, he has been mentoring KSC Music Technology interns, and in the spring of 2024, he began teaching at KSC.

He’s a board member and the sound engineer for the Monadnock Folklore Society, which hosts concerts, traditional English and contra dances, songwriting and music workshops, fiddle lessons, and scholarships for aspiring traditional musicians. He has been a builder—at least part-time—for most of his adult life and is currently doing a deep energy retrofit and remodel of his house, where his father and his sons grew up. You can find him dancing and running sound most Monday nights at the Nelson Contra Dance, just 20 minutes northeast of KSC.

Adam Mejaour enjoys being immersed in the world of music from almost every angle. By day, he is the head technician and repair department manager at David French Music Company in Westborough, MA, specializing in wind instrument repair. He has been enjoying his time working alongside the French family since 2010. There, he also doubles as a music educator, teaching a thriving private studio of local trumpet students that have ranged from 10 to 76 years of age. With his remaining time, he enjoys an active freelance trumpet playing career, performing in idioms across the musical spectrum. Whether in chamber ensembles, pit orchestras, jazz bands or wind ensembles, Adam “Hot Lips” Mejaour finds himself at home. 

He earned his Bachelor’s in Music Education and Trumpet Performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015. This is also where his current group, Amity Street Brass Quintet was initially founded and graciously guided by music department faculty: Greg Spiridopoulos (trombone), John Bottomley (tuba), Laura Klock (horn), and Eric Berlin (trumpet).

If he’s not doing any of the above things, you’ll likely catch him cooking some amazing meals at home, hanging with his two cats Simba and Bagheera, out enjoying a nice hike, or kayaking.

Dr. Brian Messier is Director of Bands and Senior Liaison for Hopkins Center Ensembles at Dartmouth College, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and Marching Band and teaches courses in conducting, musical leadership, and arts entrepreneurship. Since arriving at Dartmouth in 2019, Messier has founded and led the Mexican Repertoire Initiative at Dartmouth—a musical, cultural, and diplomatic project sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The initiative champions works by Mexican composers, advances equity in the arts, and fosters international collaboration through commissions, exchanges, tours, and annual symposia.

In spring 2023, Messier led the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble on tour in Mexico as part of the U.S.–Mexico Bicentennial of Diplomatic Relations, with support from both nations' cultural ministries. Most recently, the ensemble was selected by blind audition to perform a full program of Mexican repertoire at the 2024 College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) Eastern Division Conference. In the coming year, Messier will lead the world premiere of a new Symphony for Band by seminal Mexican composer Arturo Márquez—a landmark event in the wind band repertoire and a milestone for the Mexican Repertoire Initiative.

Beyond Dartmouth, Messier is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Valley Winds, a professional wind ensemble based in Massachusetts and winner of The American Prize in 2016 and 2023. His conducting has been recognized nationally, including with The American Prize in Conducting (Community Division), and he is sought after as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator across the United States and Mexico.

Messier's broader artistic work includes transcriptions and premieres of major works, including Pivot by Anna Clyne—performed by "The President's Own" United States Marine Band—and the upcoming transcription and premiere of Antrópolis by Gabriela Ortiz. He also founded Valley Winds Publishing to disseminate new repertoire, with plans to launch a Mexican Repertoire Series in partnership with a major publisher.

Messier earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Conducting from the University of Minnesota, studying with Craig Kirchhoff. He also holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts (M.M.) and Ithaca College (B.M.) in Wind Conducting and Music Education, respectively.

Dr. Heidi Welch is the Director of Music Education and serves as the advisor to the NAfME Collegiate chapter at Vermont State University @ Castleton in Castleton, Vermont. Her work at the University includes teaching undergraduate courses in Music Education, facilitating and supervising field experience and student teacher placements, and directing the Spartan Spirit Band. 

She currently serves as NAfME Collegiate Coordinator for the Vermont Music Educators Association and the Eastern Division Representative for the NAfME Collegiate Advisory Council, has served as President of NH Music Educators Association, and is a member of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY). She also served as recording secretary for NH Band Directors Association for many years. 

She is the 2013 NH Teacher of the Year and one of four finalists for the 2013 National Teacher of the Year. She is an active adjudicator, clinician, and guest conductor throughout New England. Prior to joining VTSU-Castleton in 2019, she was the sole music director at Hillsboro-Deering HS in Hillsboro, NH for twenty years teaching band, chorus, guitar, music theory, and other elective courses. Prior to that, she taught K-5 general music, beginning band and elementary chorus in Claremont, NH.