Rufus Ferguson is a multi-genre keyboardist raised in Flint, Michigan and based in Detroit, Michigan. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz piano from Western Michigan University under the mentorship of Roger Jones, Jeremy Siskind and Matthew Fries. He began his musical journey at a young age as a gospel pianist and organist and later began playing jazz piano at age 13. His commitment to being well-versed in multiple genres of music has afforded him many unique opportunities such as playing with Grammy-nominated and award-winning artists and groups of all genres.
Rufus is an experienced performer who has traveled the world sharing the stage with such artists as The Temptations, The Velveletes, Bishop Marvin Sapp, Rodney Whitaker, Dwight Adams, Brandon Williams, Wycliffe Gordon and so many more. Rufus is currently featured on Grammy Nominated producer Brandon Wiliams upcoming album alongside pianist Taylor Eigsti and Robert Glasper. He is also an experienced arranger, composer and teacher, specifically in the jazz and gospel music genres. His compositions and arrangements have been showcased by his 9-piece ensemble at the 2018 Gilmore Keyboard Festival and his orchestral arrangements have been performed by the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra as well as the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra. Rufus has served as class piano instructor at Western Michigan University where he also directed the University Jazz Lab Band. He has also served as Assistant Professor of Jazz and Popular Music at Albion College.
Andrea Zlatec Floden, pianist, is a life long resident of Flint and has been playing and studying the piano since the age of five. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Music at MCC, teaching class piano, music appreciation and accompanying students for twenty-five years.
Professor Floden is the past President of St. Cecilia Society, plus a fifty year and honorary member. She has been active in the community as a soloist and accompanist (for almost everything). Professor Floden is a life member of the Flint Federation of Musicians, the Michigan and National Federations of Music Clubs, too. She continues to serve as a private instructor and accompanist, at the Flint School of Performing Arts.
Townes Osborn Miller is Professor of Music and Coordinator at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, and she also serves as the Adjunct Flute Instructor and Director of the Flute Choir at Saginaw Valley State University. She is the woodwinds coach for the Saginaw Bay Youth Symphony Orchestra and maintains a private studio. She is proud to be a Gemeinhardt Teaching Artist.
Dr. Miller tours internationally with the International Flute Orchestra and the Metropolitan Flute Orchestra, with whom she will be performing in 2022 in Provence, the Italian Riviera, and the Baltics. She will also participate in a three-day residency and concert at the New England Conservatory, Jordan Hall, in Boston. Just before the pandemic began in February 2020, Dr. Miller premiered a piece she commissioned for Flute, Mallet Percussion and Piano, by Bill Withem, Dragonfly. In 2019, Dr. Miller premiered a flute/organ piece written for her and Nicholas Schmelter by Moonyeen Albrecht, Psalms for Flute and Organ (set 2). In 2018, Dr. Miller performed on a world premiere piece for flute choir, Three Lyric Escapades, by Bruce Frazier, at the National Flute Association Convention. She gives recitals regularly throughout Michigan and in January of 2020, performed at Western Carolina University, North Carolina. She looks forward to taking the stage again with guest artist Dr. Brittnee Seimon, mezzo-soprano, and Dr. Carl Angelo, piano. Dr. Miller was the Artist in Residence for the St. Paul's Music in the Heart of the City concert series in Flint for their 2019-2020 season.
An active clinician and adjudicator, Dr. Miller has presented Flute 101: Tips and Tricks to Ensure a Better Flute Section and Recommended Solo and Ensemble Literature for Flute at the annual Michigan Music Conference. Her presentation for flute was also accepted into the 75th Midwest Clinic conference for Decemb! er 2021. She has adjudicated for the Flint Institute of Music, MSBOA, and the Southeast Michigan Flute Association among others, throughout the United States.
Dr. Miller serves as the Volunteer Coordinator for the National Flute Association Conventions every year. These conventions attract nearly 3,000 flutists from all over the world. Dr. Miller also serves on the Board of Trustee’s for the Flint Institute of Music, chairs the Patron Development committee and serves on the Executive Board. She is a past member of the Flint Cultural Center Corporation board. Dr. Miller received her DMA with honors, from the University of Kansas and her MA and BA from Western Carolina University. Her primary professors were Dr. Eldred Spell and David Fedele.
Matthew Packer received his Bachelor of Music Education degree in 1987 and his Master of Music degree in 1995 from Central Michigan University. While at CMU, he studied voice with Timothy Caldwell and Dr. Jeffrey Foote, choral music with Dr. Nina Nash-Robertson, piano with Dr. Forrest Robinson, and composition with Dr. David Gillingham. His doctoral work was done at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies in Orange Park, Florida, and he attended seminary at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio.
Matt has been a professional church musician since 1983. He taught elementary music for LakeVille Schools and has taught part-time at Mid-Michigan Community College and the University of Michigan-Flint. In addition to his responsibilities at MCC, Matt is the music director for Flushing United Methodist Church, the Flint Male Chorus, Swartz Creek Center Stage Community Theater, and choral accompanist at Swartz Creek High School. He is active as a singer and pianist at senior care facilities, sacred and civic functions and also performs as half of the duo, Brother 2 Brother.
Mary Procopio, Associate Professor and Music Coordinator, has served as Director of Instrumental Studies at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan since 2006, where she teaches classes in world music, music history, music appreciation, and directs the college concert band and chamber ensembles. An active performer, adjudicator, and clinician, Dr. Procopio received her doctorate in flute performance with a concentration in ethnomusicology, an M.A. degree in ethnomusicology/musicology, and an M.M. in flute performance from Michigan State University, and her B.M. degree in music education and performance from the Crane School of Music (Potsdam College, NY). Her doctoral dissertation focuses on Haitian classical music that is inspired by traditional and ceremonial music, and examines how music, nationalism and identity intersect in Haitian culture. Her master’s thesis examines the causes for ambivalence felt by many Haitians towards Vodou, and the ways in which Haitian composers and educators are challenging those ambivalent feelings, working to bring together social classes and communities, and educating Haitian and non-Haitians about Haitian indigenous culture.
Dr. Procopio has received numerous fellowships and grants to conduct research in Haiti and the United States, and was the recipient of a Title VI Foreign Language Areas Studies (FLAS) fellowship to study Haitian Creole. She has presented papers, lecture recitals and performances throughout the United States, Canada and Haiti at regional, national and international conferences for the Society for Ethnomusicology, KOSANBA, The Haitian Studies Association, the College Music Society, The American Folklore Society and the Midwest Popular Association. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Haitian Studies Association, and has served on the Advisory Board for Instrumental Change, Inc. In 2004 Dr. Procopio was invited to give a four-day residency at Marshall University in West Virginia, where she was also a guest artist for the Marshall Fluteworks Festival. She has been a guest lecturer at Olivet College and a guest clinician at the Red Cedar Band Festival. In 2004 she received the Geoffrey Gilbert Memorial Teaching Award from the Florida Flute Association, and was awarded the first annual Best Graduate Student Presenter Prize from the Great Lakes regional chapter of the College Music Society. Dr. Procopio has taught at Michigan State University, the University of Michigan—Flint, the Flint School of Performing Arts, the Leocardie and Alexandre Kenscoff Cultural Center, Ecole de Musique St. Trinité and Ecole de Musique Dessaix Baptiste (Haiti), the Limonest Conservatoire (France), and St. Croix (Virgin Islands).
Currently, Dr.Procopio performs with and is artistic director of Z.A.M.A. (Zanmi Ansanm Mizik Ayisyen), which promotes the music of Haitian composers, and the London Trio, which was selected to participate in the Michigan Arts and Humanities Touring Program and performed twice at the East Lansing Arts Festival. Dr. Procopio was selected to perform in the National Flute Association Professional Flute Choir in 1998. She has performed with the Orchestre Philharmonique Sainte Trinite (Haiti), Chamber Orchestra of Northern New York, Champlain Valley Symphony Orchestra (VT), Jackson Symphony Orchestra (MI), and the Limonest Wind Band and Dream America Orchestra (France).
Dr. Procopio’s articles “Crossing Borders: Solo and Chamber Music for Flute by Haitian Composers” and “When East Meets West: Takemitsu’s Itinerant for Flute Solo” were published in the National Flute Association’s Flutist Quarterly in the fall of 2006 and winter 2006 respectively. In 2007, she released the CD Belle Ayiti: Mizik Savant Ayisyen (Beautiful Haiti: Haitian Classical Music) which features music for solo flute, flute and piano, and flute and strings by Haitian composers. She is a member of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Haitian Studies Association, KOSANBA (the scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou), National Flute Association, College Music Society, American Folklore Society, and the American Musicological Society.
In her spare time, Dr. Procopio breeds and shows sporthorse Haflinger horses throughout the Midwest and East coast. Her current music-related projects include recording a second CD of Haitian classical music, publishing music by Haitian composers that is currently unavailable (except in manuscript form), and acquiring instruments and musical supplies for music schools in Haiti.
Holly Richardson, Adjunct Professor in Music, graduated from MCC in 1986, and finished her BME at U of M-Flint. Catherine McMichael was Professor Richardson’s piano coach at U of M. She earned a MA from Marygrove College in 1994. Professor Richardson has an additional 21 hours of graduate credit from WMU and Vandercook College of Music in Chicago. She has been part of the Music Faculty at MCC since 1998, she also is employed full time at Flint Community Schools and is an adjunct professor at Ferris State University. Professor Richardson performs locally with the High Heeled PianoTrio, and for charity events and area churches.
Frank Yon has been deeply involved in the musical life of the Flint area since arriving in the seventies as a music educator for the Montrose Community Schools. A graduate of Central Michigan University, with a masters in music from Michigan State University, he was a jazz soloist in the CMU Swingin’ Chips and 1st trumpet in the CMU Wind Ensemble. Using his many experiences in playing jazz all the way through high school and college he established the Montrose Middle School Jazz Ensemble, winning top honors in competitions with AA high schools. They have also been the featured band at the MSBOA Convention in Ann Arbor. He has played trumpet for every kind of ensemble including the Shrine Circus, Christmas at Whiting Orchestra, fifteen years in the Flint Symphony Orchestra, Holiday on Ice, and the Star Theater Orchestra for twelve years. While with the Star Theater Orchestra he got to play for many entertainers such as Helen O’Connell, Louie Bellson, Milton Berle, Rosemary Clooney, Jim Nabors, Mark Hamill, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and many more.
His Montrose High School Jazz Ensemble competed to top honors locally as well as in Toronto, Virginia Beach, Chicago, and New York City. Mr. Yon was director of the Mott Community College Jim Lee Fine Arts Camp for several years as well as an adjunct professor at MCC for the past 25 years. He presently directs the jazz ensemble and jazz combo.
Timothy Schmalz is an educator, composer, multi instrumentalist, and conductor whose studies and career in music have brought him from Maryland, to Boston, to Los Angeles, and now to Flint. Tim spent 8 years in Los Angeles working in the media music industry, and worked on many prominent projects for which he composed original or additional music. Some of the projects include Supergirl, Playmobil, Smallfoot, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Sonic: the Hedgehog. His original work can be heard in various branding campaigns and documentaries for companies like Acura, Coachella/Goldenvoice, Audi, Nurburgring, and many others. His studies include Berklee College of Music, UCLA, and competitive workshops like the ASCAP film scoring workshop, and the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive. Since becoming a Michigander, Tim has embarked on a forthcoming collaboration and album release with members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Now a proud part of the Mott Community College music technology department, Tim hopes to share his experience and expertise on a wide range of subjects for his students.
