Steven Dennis Bodner
Director, Symphonic Winds-email:sbodner@williams.edu

Steven Dennis Bodner is in his seventh year as Music Director of the Symphonic Winds at Williams College, where he also teaches classical saxophone, coaches chamber music, and teaches classes in music fundamentals and aural skills acquisition. He earned a B.A. in philosophy and a B.M. in saxophone performance from Miami (OH) University in 1997, and a M.M. in wind ensemble conducting with academic honors and distinction in performance from New England Conservatory in 1999. He is presently a candidate for his Ph.D. in Music Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he conducted the Youth Wind Ensemble for four years and was Interim Director of Bands, 2002-2003. He has taught at the Hartwick College (2002) and South Shore Conservatory (2003) Summer Music Festivals, as well as in the New England Conservatory Preparatory School (1999-2004); in demand as a guest conductor and clinician, Steven has guest conducted ensembles in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia, and he has adjudicated the Maine High School Band Festival. An advocate for the creation and performance of new music, he has commissioned and premiered numerous works both for wind ensemble and for saxophone. His interpretations have received praise from composers such as Shih-Hui Chen, Stephen Dankner, John Frantzen, Nancy Galbraith, Michael Gandolfi, David Maslanka, Michael Weinstein, and Pulitzer Prize winner Karel Husa. His primary conducting teachers include Frank Battisti, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., Gary Speck, and Gunther Schuller.

Also active as a saxophonist, Steven frequently performs with both the Williams Chamber Players and the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra. Along with pianist Doris Stevenson, he premiered Plum Blossoms by Shih-Hui Chen in April 2005. His primary saxophone teachers were Michèle Gingras and Kenneth Radnofsky.