Clinicians

APSU Honor Orchestra Festival
Sept. 26-28, 2013

Pamela Wilensky 

Pamela Wilensky has been a String Specialist for Memphis City Schools for 14 years, teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels. She is the Fine Arts Department Chair and Director of Orchestras at Central High School and at John P. Freeman Optional School. She is a graduate of Appalachian State University with a Bachelor of Music Education. She has had extensive Suzuki Teacher Training and has taught in the University of Memphis Suzuki Program since 1995 where she is also a member of the Memphis Suzuki Institute faculty. She is also an active performer in Memphis and with the Germantown and Jackson, TN Symphony Orchestras. She is a co-director of the Memphis Music Camp. Pamela is a member of WTSBOA, the American String Teachers Association, and the Suzuki Association of the Americas, and has been the State Orchestra Chair for TNMEA. She has been associated with the Memphis Youth Symphony Program as a parent, teacher and board member since 1995. She has been a guest conductor for the Memphis City Schools All-City String Festival, Jackson Symphony Music Camp and the Quad State String Festival at Murray State University. 

Gregory Wolynec

Gregory Wolynec is the Director of Bands and Orchestral Studies at Austin Peay State University.  As a Professor of Music he directs the Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra, teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting and teaches courses in orchestration and instrumental music education.  He is also the music director and a cofounder of the Gateway Chamber Ensemble, an ensemble based around APSU’s outstanding performance faculty along with professional players from the Southeast and Mid-West, which specializes in the performance of masterworks of the past and present for fewer than twenty players. The ensemble’s debut CD, including Strauss’ Serenade in Eb and Mozart’s landmark ‘Gran Partita’ Serenade, will be released in February 2010 by Summit Records in SACD format.   

 Dr. Wolynec was the recipient of the 2006 Socrates Award for Excellence in Teaching, a campus-wide award.  Under his direction the APSU Wind Ensemble has recorded two CDs, including the recently released Aubade, performed at the College Band Directors National Association Southern Division Conference and the Tennessee Music Educators Association Annual Conference and been active in premiering new works.  Composers such as Libby Larsen, Lee Hoiby, Anthony Plog and Jeffrey Wood have praised performances under his direction.  Graduates of his masters program in instrumental conducting have gone on to pursue doctoral degrees at major institutions, teach actively in the public schools of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as hold collegiate teaching positions.

 Dr. Wolynec received his MM and DMA degrees in Instrumental Conducting from Michigan State University and a BM in Music Education and Clarinet Performance from SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music.  Dr. Wolynec has taken additional studies in conducting at the Prague Conservatory, Czech Republic.  His conducting teachers have included John Whitwell and Timothy Topolewski.  Dr. Wolynec completed his doctoral dissertation on classical harmoniemusik as the recipient of both a Fulbright Grant to Prague, Czech Republic and a Michigan State University Graduate Merit Fellowship.  His research was carried out throughout the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and France. 

 Prior to coming to Austin Peay Dr. Wolynec taught at Castleton State College in Vermont and in the public schools of New York, where his ensembles were routinely awarded Gold ratings at New York State Major Ensemble Festivals.  Dr. Wolynec has been an active clinician and guest conductor of bands and orchestras, including all-state and all-region ensembles, in New York, New England, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas.

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