Jeremy Francisco

Jeremy Francisco, clarinetist, conductor, and award-winning teacher, has taught in three Seventh-day Adventist academies and assisted in the music program at Atlantic Union College. He has also served as a programming director for music at a National Public Radio station.

Francisco completed a B.Mus. in music education at Southern Adventist University in 1994, with clarinet as his primary performance area. From 1992 until he graduated, he served as assistant director of the SAU symphony orchestra, where he helped prepare scores and conducted in several concerts.

While studying at SAU, he was responsible for all of the music programming from 1991 to 1994 at NPR90 in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. While working there, he organized and computerized the station\'s music library.

Francisco\'s first full-time teaching position was at Madison Academy in Tennessee, where immediately following his graduation from SAU he directed the concert band, two choirs, and handbell choir for four years. Beginning in 1995, he founded and directed the Cumberland Youth Ensemble in Nashville for three years. In his final year with the group, they toured to Jamaica and performed for Sir Howard Cooke, Governor-General of that country.

During this time, Francisco began working with SAU as music director and principal conductor in the Chamber Music Program, an annual four-day summer activity at the university he and his wife, Ellen, organized in 1998 that continues to the present. That fall, he began teaching music at South Lancaster Academy in Massachusetts and in December graduated with an M.Mus. in orchestral conducting and clarinet performance at Belmont University in Nashville.

While teaching music at SLA for the next three years, Francisco was woodwind instructor in the AUC Thayer Performing Arts Center, giving private lessons in clarinet, flute, and saxophone to beginning through undergraduate students in the college music program. He also founded Voce, an advanced youth chamber choir that performs challenging choral literature.

In 2001, he accepted a position at Mile High Academy in Denver, Colorado, where he directed music ensembles and taught pre-school classroom music. He also started another chamber choir in Denver, which in 2001 was invited to participate in the Northstar Choral Festival held at Carnegie Hall. He was awarded the Beyond Award, teacher award of the year at MHA, in 2002. He is currently completing a doctorate in choral conducting at the University of Northern Colorado.

Beginning in 1998, Francisco served as a guest conductor and/or clinician in a number of festivals and special events nationally. He was named Music Director of the Eastern Tennesee Orchestra in Ooltewah, Tennesee. His ensembles have toured in the U.S. and Jamaica, Mexico, and Germany.

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Sources: Jeremy Francisco vita, online sources.