2024 Boston Conservatory Reeds Competition

Monica Ellis
Guest Artist

Bassoonist Monica Ellis is a founding member of the twice Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds, which in their 25th season continues to dazzle audiences with their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, and commitment to outreach, new works, and collaborations.

Ellis’s strong work ethic was instilled early on by her mother and father, the late jazz saxophonist Clarence Oden. She is executive director and tour manager for Imani Winds, co-artistic director for the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and treasurer for the Imani Winds Foundation.

A self-proclaimed “band kid,” growing up in her beloved city of Pittsburgh, Ellis played clarinet, saxophone, and piano. After being introduced to the bassoon in middle school, she began studying with Mark Pancerev, of the Pittsburgh Symphony and went on to receive her Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, studying with George Sakakeeny. While at Oberlin, her desire to connect with others flourished through her participation in the Panama Project, a month-long camp for young Panamanian musicians. She received her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and Professional Studies Certificate from Manhattan School of Music in the Orchestral Performance Program, studying with Frank Morelli at both institutions.

Recording credits include nine albums with Imani Winds on the labels Bright Shiny Things, Koch International Classics, EOne, and EMI Classics. Ellis can also be heard on Edward Simon’s Sorrows and Triumphs, Chick Corea’s The Continents, Wayne Shorter Quartet’s Without a Net, Mohammed Fairouz’s Native Informant, Jeff Scott’s Urban Classical Music Project, Brubeck Brothers Quartet’s Classified, Steve Coleman’s Ascension to Light, and Perspectives Ensemble’s Montsalvatge Madrigal.

A passionate teacher, she is on the faculty of Curtis Institute of Music and Manhattan School of Music and has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Chicago, Mannes School of Music and the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program. She is a frequent commentator on critical issues of race, gender, and entrepreneurship in classical music and serves on the advisory boards for Orchestra of St. Luke’s Education Committee and Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and Symposium for Women Bassoonists of the Americas. She also is a board member of Concert Artists Guild and the International Double Reed Society.

Carrie Koffman
Guest Artist

Carrie Koffman is associate professor of saxophone at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford and lecturer of saxophone at the Yale School of Music. Prior to this, she held positions as assistant professor of saxophone at Penn State University, assistant professor of saxophone at the University of New Mexico, and lecturer at Boston University. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in 26 states, one federal district, 14 countries, and on five continents. Her recording projects include the CD’s Carillon Sky, Dialogues and Dragon Rhyme. One review in Fanfare Magazine calls her playing “suave, subtly nuanced, and technically secure in its every gesture,” while another refers to her “melting tone and touching sensitivity.” She also has an ongoing recording and performing series entitled Pink Ink that is dedicated to promoting the music of living women composers. Committed to new music, its commissions and premieres include 52 compositions.

Koffman performs in a contemporary chamber music duo, The Irrelevants, with violist Tim Deighton. Their “excellent playing” of several new works in a New York recital was noted in The Strad. She also recently completed tours of Italy, Cyprus, and the United States as tenor saxophonist in the Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet. Additionally, she appears frequently as a soloist, chamber musician, and clinician.

In addition to traditional performance spaces, Koffman enjoys bringing live music to unexpected places. She recently hiked the Camino de Santiago across northern Spain, sharing impromptu performances in 33 different cathedrals and churches along the historic medieval route. In this way, she was able to reach people from all over the world in contemplative spaces while they made their own pilgrimages.

Her saxophone students have placed in over 120 different performance competitions including winning 22 university concerto competitions at all five of the universities where she has taught. Koffman holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from the University of North Texas. Koffman is a certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher and teaches Yoga for Performers. She is also a Conn-Selmer artist/clinician, and performs exclusively on Selmer Paris saxophones.

Andrew van der Paardt
Guest Artist

Andrew van der Paardt is an active freelance oboist in the Greater Boston area. In addition to Phoenix Orchestra, he holds a position with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra as English horn and is an active sub with orchestras such as the Boston Pops, Portland Symphony in Maine, and Orchestra of Indian Hill. Additionally, he has performed with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, New World Symphony, and Fresno Philharmonic, among others.

In 2017, van der Paardt completed his bachelor’s degree at Boston Conservatory, where he studied with the Boston Symphony’s English hornist Robert Sheena. In 2015, he was the winner of the Boston Woodwind Society’s Ralph Gomberg Oboe Merit Award Competition and the Boston Conservatory Concerto Competition. He attended the Music Academy of the West as an oboe fellow in 2016, studying with Eugene Izotov, Cynthia DeAlmeida, Robert Walters, and Sherry Sylar.

In 2019, van der Paardt completed his master’s degree from the New England Conservatory (NEC), where he studied with the Boston Symphony’s principal oboist John Ferrillo and was awarded the Boston Foundation’s Laura Ahlbeck Full-Tuition Scholarship. During his time at NEC, he was a finalist for positions in orchestras such as the Nashville Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony.

Directly following his graduation from NEC in 2019, he attended the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) as an oboe fellow, where he was featured as an English horn soloist with the TMC Orchestra and studied with John Ferrillo, Robert Sheena, and Mark McEwen. In the spring of 2020, he joined the San Antonio Symphony as acting English horn.

Tzuying Huang
Guest Artist

Tzuying Huang, a native of Taipei, Taiwan, serves as the bass clarinetist for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, a position she has held since her appointment in 2015 under the direction of then music director David Robertson. Prior to her role with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, she held the clarinet/bass clarinet position with the Kansas City Symphony. She has performed as a guest bass clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. In addition, Huang has participated in various summer music festivals, including the Lakes Area Music Festival, the Britt Music Festival, and the Colorado Music Festival. Huang also joined the Brevard Music Center Summer Festival as a clarinet faculty member in the summer of 2024. 

As an active soloist and chamber musician, Huang made her debut appearances at the International Clarinet Association Convention as a featured performer in the summer of 2023 in Denver, Colorado. Beyond her orchestral commitments, she is the founder and artistic director of the Ariel Concert Series, a chamber music series based in St. Louis that stages monthly concerts. She also collaborates regularly with the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis, Chamber Projects St. Louis, the World Chess Hall of Fame Concert Series, and the Missouri Chamber Music Festival. In February 2023, Huang cofounded the Meridian Clarinet Quartet with three other professional clarinetists, a group committed to commissioning compositions for the clarinet quartet and conducting master classes and concerts throughout the United States.

In addition to her performance career, Huang is a dedicated educator with two decades of teaching experience. She finds joy in working with the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony's education and community programs. Furthermore, she has conducted master classes in Taiwan and various locations across the United States.

Huang earned her bachelor’s degree from the National Taipei University of Education. In 2007, she relocated to the United States to study with James Campbell at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where she earned her master’s degree and performance diploma. Her primary teachers include James Campbell, Joaquin Valdepeñas, Burt Hara, Nathan Williams, Wei-Ling Bill Chen, and Pei-Lin Lee.

As a Buffet Crampon performing artist and D’Addario Woodwinds Artist, Huang exclusively plays on D’Addario Reserve bass clarinet reeds, Buffet Crampon clarinets, and bass clarinets.

Jan Halloran
Instructor of Clarinet

Jan Halloran joined the Conservatory in 2017 as an instructor of clarinet and chamber music. She holds the position of principal clarinet with Boston Lyric Opera and regularly appears with many of Boston’s preeminent ensembles, including Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Boston Philharmonic, and Emmanuel Music. In addition, she is highly in demand as an orchestral musician throughout New England. She has been a member of the Portland Symphony Orchestra's clarinet section since 1993, spends summers with Opera North, Boston Midsummer Opera, and Monadnock Music, and performs with the Rhode Island Philharmonic.   

As a chamber musician, Halloran was a founding member of the New England Reed Trio, with whom she performed, recorded, and commissioned dozens of new works for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. As part of their mission to enhance the reed trio repertoire and share it with audiences, the trio appeared frequently on WGBH Radio, where they introduced their commissioned works as well as prize winners from their annual composition competition. She has also been a guest artist with the Walden Chamber Players, Radius Ensemble, South Coast Chamber Music Society, and Classicopia. She has been on the faculty of Dartmouth College since 2007, and also maintains a private teaching studio.   

Halloran holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, and earned her Master of Music degree from Boston University. Her primary teachers were Thomas Thompson, Michael Webster, and Thomas Martin.

Amanda Hardy 
Assistant Professor of Oboe

Amanda Hardy is an assistant professor of oboe at Boston Conservatory.

She became principal oboe of the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Maine) in November 2013, where she currently occupies the Clinton Graffam chair. As a recipient of the Gillet Scholarship and Tourjée Alumni Scholarship Award, Hardy studied with Boston Symphony Orchestra principal oboist John Ferrillo at New England Conservatory (NEC).

Hardy was the winner of the 2010 Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award competition and has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops in Symphony Hall (2009), the Portland Symphony, the NEC Bach Ensemble, the Drake Symphony Orchestra, and the Des Moines Youth Symphony at the age of 16. In 2006, she won the grand prize in Iowa’s Bill Riley Talent Search, giving her statewide televised recognition. Recently, Hardy has been guest principal oboe with the Boston Pops, Boston Philharmonic, A Far Cry chamber orchestra, Emmanuel Music, and the Des Moines Symphony, and she frequently plays with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. 

Hardy is on the faculty of Boston Conservatory and the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and she also teaches at Northeastern University; in addition, she has several years of private teaching experience on both oboe and piano.

Hardy holds a B.M. in oboe performance with a piano minor from Drake University and an M.M. and G.D. from NEC. Previous festivals include the MasterWorks Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and Tanglewood Music Center in 2010 and 2011, where she was awarded the Mickey L. Hooten Memorial Award both summers. Her teachers include John Ferrillo, Marilyn Zupnik, Anne Gabriele, and Jay Light, with additional summer studies with Elaine Douvas and Richard Woodhams.

Matthew M. Marsit
Chair of Instrumental Studies

Matthew M. Marsit is an active conductor and clarinetist who has led ensembles and performed as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician throughout the United States. He became chair of instrumental studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2018, and also serves as artistic director of the Charles River Wind Ensemble. Marsit has previously held conducting positions at Dartmouth College, Ithaca College, Cornell University, Drexel University, Symphony Nova, Chestnut Hill Orchestra, Bucks County Youth Ensembles, Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary, and Eastern U.S. Music Camp.

A champion for new music and advancing the wind ensemble repertoire, Marsit has led premiere performances of works by Christopher Marshall, Louis Andriessen, Daniel Basford, Christopher Theofanidis, Richard Marriott, Michael Gandolfi, Matthew Herman, Edward Green, and Thomas Miller, among others.

As a clarinetist, Marsit has performed with many ensembles including the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Baltimore Symphony, Fairmont Chamber Orchestra, and Cornell University’s Ensemble X, and has made solo appearances with the Cleveland State University Wind Ensemble, Keene State College Concert Band, Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, Handel Society of Dartmouth College, Cornell University Jazz Ensemble, Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary, Drexel University Symphony Orchestra, and Chestnut Hill Orchestra. Marsit has served as clarinet faculty at Plymouth State University and Cornell University.

An advocate for the use of music as a vehicle for service, Marsit has led ensembles on service missions that collect and donate instruments to schools, as well as performing concerts and workshops to benefit struggling arts programs. His work at Dartmouth College allowed him to complete outreach projects with rural schools in New Hampshire and Vermont. This work included stimulating interest in performing arts programs like the highly successful Dartmouth Youth Wind Ensemble, where members of the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble mentor and perform alongside middle school students throughout the region. In 2014, Marsit led the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble on their first international service and performance tour to San José, Costa Rica. This tour partnered with the National Institute of Music in Costa Rica and the University of Costa Rica, as well as several Sistema Nacional de Educación Musical Schools throughout the country. Students were allowed to share and exchange with young students in low-income communities. Following the first tour in 2014, the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble returned again in 2017.

A native of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Marsit first completed his studies in music at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he graduated summa cum laude. He studied clarinet performance under the tutelage of Anthony Gigliotti and Ronald Reuben, and conducting with Luis Biava and Arthur Chodoroff. Additionally, Marsit has studied conducting with some of the world’s most prominent instructors, including Mark Davis Scatterday at the Eastman School of Music, Timothy Reynish at the Royal Northern College of Music in the United Kingdom, and Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy. Marsit completed a M.M. in conducting from Boston Conservatory in 2012.

Rane Moore​ 
Assistant Professor of Clarinet

Rane Moore​ joined the Conservatory faculty in 2019 as an assistant professor of clarinet. She is highly regarded for her thoughtful, provocative interpretations of both standard and contemporary repertoire. Devoted to the new music communities of the East Coast and beyond, Moore is a founding member of the Talea Ensemble, which regularly gives premieres of new works at major venues and festivals around the world. Moore has recently joined the Fischoff Gold Medal–winning wind quintet, the City of Tomorrow, and is also a member of Boston’s Callithumpian Consort and Sound Icon. She is the principal clarinetist for the Boston Philharmonic and Boston Landmarks Orchestra. Moore is also a regularly invited collaborator with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Boston Musica Viva, Emmanuel Music, A Far Cry, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.

Moore’s latest festival performances include events at the Tanglewood Music Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, Wien Modern, Warsaw in Autumn, ECLAT in Stuttgart, Darmstadt International Music Festival, Resonant Bodies Festival in New York, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Project Gruppe Neue Musik in Bremen, Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, Ojai Music Festival, Cervantino Festival in Mexico, Time of Music in Finland, Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemäßer Musik, Transit Festival in Belgium, Time Spans, Contempuls 5 in Prague, Sacrum Profanum in Krakow, June in Buffalo, the Village Vanguard, Newport Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Jazz à la Villette in Paris, Monadnock Music, Rockport Music, Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Town Hall Concerts in Seattle, and Trinity Wall Street in New York.

Moore is on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory and is the co-artistic director of Winsor Music, a chamber music series and musical outreach organization in the Boston area. She has recordings on over a dozen labels including Tzadik, Pi, Wergo, Kairos, and ECM records.

Margaret Phillips
Associate Professor of Bassoon

Margaret Phillips joined the Conservatory in 2014 and is an associate professor teaching bassoon and contrabassoon. In addition to private lessons, she also teaches reed making, holds a bassoon studio class, and coaches woodwind chamber music ensembles. Phillips is on the faculty at Berklee College of Music and Boston University as well.

She has been a highly sought-after freelance bassoonist and contrabassoonist in Boston and the New England area for over 25 years. She has performed with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops since 1992 and has traveled extensively with both, performing under some of the world's finest conductors. As a performer with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Phillips has premiered and recorded hundreds of new orchestral works, including Grammy-nominated performances. She is a member of the Boston Philharmonic, the Portland Symphony, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Odyssey Opera of Boston. Her award-winning chamber group, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, is well reviewed for its programming and polished performances. She has also performed in equity theater and recorded with artists as diverse as Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Danilo Pérez.

Phillips received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied bassoon with L. Hugh Cooper and contrabassoon with Lyell Lindsey of the Detroit Symphony. She studied in Amsterdam with renowned Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra contrabassoonist Guus Drall. Phillips went on to receive her master’s degree from Boston University, where she studied with Boston Symphony assistant principal bassoonist Matthew Ruggiero and contrabassoonist Richard Plaster.

Robert Sheena
Associate Professor of Oboe

Robert Sheena joined the Conservatory to teach oboe and English horn in 2000 and is an associate professor of oboe. He is also on the oboe and English horn faculty of Boston University’s School of Music and the Tanglewood Institute, and he teaches and coaches the oboe fellowship students of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center every summer. 

Sheena is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s English horn player, having joined the orchestra in 1994. In that role, he exclusively plays all English horn solos and parts, and he has also played first oboe, second oboe, and oboe d’amore with the orchestra. From 1987 to 1991, he was assistant principal oboe and English horn with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and he served in the same role from 1991 to 1994 with the San Antonio Symphony. He makes frequent trips to Japan to perform, having played with the Super World Orchestra, the Affinis Music Festival, and Seiji Ozawa’s Saito Kinen Orchestra. Sheena is also very active in chamber music in the Greater Boston area, annually joining Boston Symphony Orchestra colleagues and often the Boston Symphony Chamber Players as a guest artist. 

He received his Bachelor of Music degree (with honors) from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983 and a Master of Music degree (with honors) from Northwestern University’s School of Music in 1984. His teachers have included many of the greatest oboists of the previous generation: Ray Still, John Mack, Grover Schiltz, William Banovetz, and Marc Lifschey.

Philipp A. Stäudlin 
Assistant Professor of Saxophone

Philipp A. Stäudlin joined the Conservatory in 2016 and is an assistant professor of saxophone in both the standard degree and contemporary music programs. Stäudlin is an award-winning virtuoso saxophonist who has performed hundreds of concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. His characteristic tonal qualities, deep sense of phrasing, and superb technical skills make him one of the most unique voices in today’s classical saxophone world.

A native of Friedrichshafen, Germany, Stäudlin has appeared as a soloist with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Sound Icon ensemble, White Rabbit Ensemble (former ensemble in residence at Harvard University), Niederrheinische Sinfoniker, Callithumpian Consort, Bielefelder Philharmoniker, Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, Tufts University Orchestra, Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Providence Singers. He has also performed with the Harvard Group for New Music, EQ ensemble, ECCE ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Steamboat Switzerland, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble White Rabbit, Ludovico Ensemble, IGNM Basel, Alea III, Back Bay Chorale, and many others.

A graduate of Musikhochschule Basel, Stäudlin received a soloist diploma, having studied with Marcus Weiss and Iwan Roth. He was awarded a full scholarship two years in a row from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study with Kenneth Radnofsky at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, where he received an artist diploma as well as the Victor Rosenbaum Medal. 

Stäudlin currently has 15 CD recordings available on the New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Suspicious Motives, New Focus, Navona, Newport Classics, Enja, and Ars Musici labels. He is a member of the Sound Icon, Callithumpian Consort, and EQ ensembles. Stäudlin has premiered more than 100 works. 

He lives with his wife, pianist Yoko Hagino, and their daughter in Melrose, Massachusetts.

YaoGuang Zhai 
Associate Professor of Clarinet

YaoGuang Zhai is principal clarinet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, appointed by Maestra Marin Alsop. Prior to that, he was the associate principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for five years, appointed by Maestro Peter Oundjian, and served as principal clarinet of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for two years under Chinese conductor Maestro Long Yu.

A native of TaiYuan, China, YaoGuang began his musical career at the age of three as a violinist, switching to the clarinet seven years later. In 1999, he entered the China Central Conservatory and then came to the United States in 2003, attending the Idyllwild Arts Academy as a full scholarship student. He continued to study at the Curtis Institute of Music and graduated in 2009. That year, he represented the Curtis Institute as solo and chamber music clarinetist, touring the United States. His solo performance was chosen to be included on Curtis Institute’s CD of the year. During his study, YaoGuang won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award, and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition. 

In addition to solo appearances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, YaoGuang has performed with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen), and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.

YaoGuang also serves as a clarinet faculty member at the Interlochen Summer Music Camp, the Curtis Institute Summer Music Camp, the Master-Players Summer Music Festival, and the National Youth Orchestra of China. He is a Buffet Crampon Clarinet and Vandoren artist.