Directors

Dr. Ken Dye

Director of Bands, Professor of Music

e-mail: kdye@nd.edu

Dr. Ken Dye, is Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the University of Notre Dame. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, where he holds a Doctorate in Music Education and a MBA in Marketing. He has also earned degrees of Master of Arts in Music from California State University and Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California.

As a composer/arranger, Ken Dye serves as a staff writer for several publishers and served as composer/arranger for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Band and pops arranger for the Dallas Symphony. His writing activities have produced over 1200 works for Band and orchestra performed throughout the U.S. and overseas.

The Notre Dame Band has also performed Concerts in the Sydney Opera House, Beijing Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall as well as toured Europe, Asia, and Brazil. For 2012 , the Concert Band will embark on a tour of the “Olympic Capitals of Europe” featuring a century of Olympic music.

The Concert Band has performed Concerts in the Sydney Opera House and for Mozart’s 250th birthday in the Mozarteum, in Salzburg Austria. In 2006 the Notre Dame Band performed with the Band “Chicago” at Notre Dame Stadium.

Dye also serves as a concurrent professor of Computer Applications developing the course “Music through Technology” and teaches music from a business perspective in a course entitled “The Business of Music”. Most recently Dye’s research has involved the musical history of the Olympics and is incorporated in a new course and will start a new course: “Music and the Olympics: A Soundtrack for Competition, Ceremony, and Celebration”.

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Larry Dwyer

Assistant Director of Bands, Director of Jazz Studies

e-mail: ldwyer@nd.edu

Mr. Dwyer is a graduate of Notre Dame, where he was Outstanding Bandsman (1966), trombone soloist all four years with the concert band, and twice named “Best Trombonist” at the Collegiate Jazz Festival. He earned his Masters degree in music education and did doctoral studies at the University of Illinois.

Dwyer has been principal trombonist of the South Bend Symphony Pops Orchestra, pianist with his own jazz trio, and has performed with such jazz greats as Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Sonny Stitt, and Sarah Vaughan. Among his jazz band compositions are a religious trilogy: The Old Beelzebub Blues, Lord Save the Sinner, and The Abha Kingdom. His orchestral arrangements of the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and others have been performed and recorded by the South Bend Symphony, Houston Pops, Utah Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonic. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Mr. Dwyer taught band and jazz band in the South Bend public schools, and was director of jazz studies at Concordia University in Montreal.

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Sam Sanchez

Assistant Band Director

e-mail: sanchez.16@nd.edu

Sam Sanchez is an Assistant Director with the Notre Dame Band Program.  He became an assistant director following four years of undergraduate study in Percussion performance and 2 years of graduate study in Musicology. Mr. Sanchez is responsible designing all of the halftime drills for the Notre Dame Band.  He also serves as the percussion coordinator, shares the conducting responsibilities of the concert bands and basketball bands, specializes in areas of music technology and sound recording and organizes the percussion ensembles and winter drumline program. Mr. Sanchez is the recipient of the 1997 Outstanding Band Member Award from the Notre Dame Band.

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René Rosas

Assistant Band Director

e-mail: rrosas@nd.edu

Mr. René Rosas joins the Notre Dame Band Staff from Naperville, IL where he taught the bands and general music courses at St. Raphael Catholic School and the band at Ss. Peter and Paul School. Although he resides in the South Bend community he will commute to Illinois as he continues his duties as the Assistant Conductor of the Naperville Municipal Band.

A graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso with the Bachelor of Music Education degree, Mr. Rosas began a successful teaching career at Andress High School in the El Paso Independent School District. His marching band was a four year consecutive Grand Champion at the New Mexico State University Tournament of Bands and the band program received six consecutive Texas Sweepstakes Awards. He then earned the Master of Science in Music Education degree from the University of Illinois where he served as a teaching assistant for the University Bands. Mr. Rosas also served as the Assistant Director of Bands/Marching Band Director at the University of Florida and Illinois State University.

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Matt Merten

Assistant Band Director

e-mail: mmerten@nd.edu

Matt Merten is a graduate of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota where he earned a degree in Music Education and Trombone Performance. After teaching in the public schools of Saint Cloud and Albany (MN), he earned a Master of Music in Trombone Performance and Literature from the University of Notre Dame. He has performed with the St. Cloud Amadeus Orchestra (MN), Minnesota Center Chorale, and Regis Philbin’s Pop Orchestra. At Notre Dame he directs the New Orleans Brass Band, Trumpet Ensemble, Trombone Choir, co-directs the Brass Ensemble, Jazz Bands and teaches applied trombone lessons.

Mr. Merten is very active in music technology at Notre Dame. In addition to teaching portions of the Music Through Technology Course, he offers private instruction in multi-track recording and software synthesizers. He is also responsible for the production of the Band’s audio recordings.

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Alison Thigpen Redar

Assistant Band Director

e-mail: athigpen@nd.edu

Alison Thigpen Redar is a graduate of The University of Georgia where she earned a degree in Music Education. She earned her Masters in Music Education from the University of South Carolina. While at South Carolina, Mrs. Redar served as a graduate assistant with the band program and co-conducted the University Band and Basketball Band, and assisted with the Carolina Marching Band. At Notre Dame, Mrs. Redar directs the Symphonic Band and University Band, oversees the Bandlink program, and is responsible for much of the band’s graphic design and publicity. Mrs. Redar also teaches applied clarinet lessons and Instrumental Techniques, conducts the Clarinet Choir, and serves as an instructor for the Music and the Olympics and the Business of Music classes.

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