Connected communities create meaningful music. Meaningful music connects communities.
Dillon C. Downey, M.M. (he/him/his)
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. The Organization of of American Kodály Educators recognized Mr. Downey as the 2023 Outstanding Emerging Educator at the national conference in Jacksonville, FL.
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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 and 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, and 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.
Jimin Seo, M.M.
Jimin Seo is an active performer, conductor, répétiteur and collaborative pianist. As a conductor, she has conducted various major works, while continuing to be a proponent of new compositions throughout her studies. In 2015, she was a finalist in the ACDA Graduate Student Conducting Competition held in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a collaborative pianist, she has played a number of recitals, concerts, masterclasses, choral performances, and opera productions. Her participation in CCM Opera Bootcamp both as a conducting fellow and a pianist helped her to build her musicianship, language, coaching and conducting skills, where she started growing an interest in opera. She joined Indianapolis Opera as a resident artist in 2018. Seo earned her bachelor of music in conducting, with minors in organ and voice, and was awarded high honors at graduation from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. She holds a master of music in choral conducting, collaborative piano, and orchestral conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, and currently is pursuing her doctor of musical arts in orchestral conducting/collaborative piano at the University of North Texas.