Artistic and Administrative Director, Dillon C. Downey, is the proud founder of the Denton Community Youth Choirs. He is the inaugural music specialist at Sandbrock Ranch Elementary School in Denton ISD. Mr. Downey gets to teach other music teachers at the Midwestern State University Kodály Institute, where he teaches pedagogy. He also serves as the Vice-President of the Kodály Educators of Texas and is the editor for the KET journal, The Encounter. He has taught students from infants through adults and college students professionally for seven years in classroom, private, and rehearsal settings.

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Mr. Downey is an alumnus of the prestigious Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY), where he earned Master of Music degrees in Music Education and Music Performance and Literature (Tenor Trombone). At Eastman, he taught aural musicianship and trombone methods. He earned the Advanced Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy at Eastman. His undergraduate degrees in Music Education an Orchestral Performance (Tenor Trombone) are from the University of North Texas, where he graduated summa cum laude and as a Distinguished Honors Scholar. 

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He has presented at universities around the country as well as at state, national, and international conferences. His research interests are in curriculum design, community building in music education, and brass pedagogy and wellness. As a performer, he has performed in world-famous concert halls, such as Carnegie Hall, The Meyerson Center, an the Wiener Konzerthaus. As a soloist, he has performed throughout the United States and in Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic. He has performed for many of the world's leading brass players and chamber ensembles, including the Canadian Brass, the Army Brass Quintet, and members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony, the Buffalo Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Fort Worth Symphony.