Administration & Faculty
Administration
Phil Sims, Director and Theory/Composition Faculty
Phil Sims studied music at the undergraduate and graduate level at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He has held academic appointments to teach theory, musicianship, composition, and electronic music at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester, Mercer University, and Emory University. His compositions have been performed and presented throughout the country and in Europe, in both academic and community venues, most recently at the Schwartz Center on the Emory University campus, the Ferst Center at Georgia Tech, and the Atlanta Ballet’s Centre for Dance Education. In recent years, Phil’s creative work has mainly focused on the creation of albums and sound design scores using a mix of acoustic and virtual instruments. His intellectual and academic essays have focused on theoretical and pedagogical issues ranging from integrated and experiential instruction to sociopolitical topics like musical rhetoric, the politics of beauty, modes of listening, the apparent impact of art as commodity, and the practice of aesthetic apartheid within academic departments and curricula.
Diana Orozco, Director and Piano Faculty
Diana studied music and music education at the Oberlin College-Conservatory, one of the country’s leading centers for music education. She was inspired to attend Oberlin by her first and only pre-collegiate piano teacher Elizabeth Sabo, who had graduated from Oberlin in the 1940s. While at Oberlin, Diana studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics with Herbert Henke, a training which still profoundly shapes her philosophy and methods of teaching music and piano. During junior high and high school, Diana was also a serious trumpet player. At Oberlin, she studied trumpet with James Darling (former trumpet the Cleveland Symphony) and Tony Plog, (former trumpet with the LA Philharmonic and Summit Brass), and Jean Moorehead (Singapore Symphony). Diana also played trumpet in the orchestra under the direction of Robert Spano, who is now the director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Since leaving Oberlin, Diana has pursued courses in music at the Eastman School of Music, sociology and community building at Florida State University, and arts management through on-line courses at University of Massachusetts in Boston.