New Faculty for 2023-24

Daniel Cook is delighted to be joining the Ithaca College community as Director of Bands. He comes to IC from the University of North Texas faculty, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble, teaches courses in wind band literature, graduate and undergraduate conducting, and serves as Director of Athletic Bands. In this capacity, he is proud to lead the 435-member Green Brigade Marching Band. Cook earned Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in Conducting from Northwestern University, where he studied with Mallory Thompson. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree from the University of Georgia.

Cook’s ensemble performances have received acclaim, most recently by such composers as Bryant, Daugherty, Del Tredici, Gotkovsky, Higdon, and Schwantner. Ensembles under his direction have performed at the Florida and Texas state music conferences, as well as at the Music for All National Concert Band Festival. The UNT Wind Ensemble has won first-place recognition for the collegiate American Prize in Wind Ensemble Performance. In addition to his work at UNT, Cook is honored to have held educational positions with the Dallas Brass Band and Santa Clara Vanguard and is published in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series.

Ryan received his B.S. from Ithaca College in Theatre Arts Management and a certificate program through Harvard Business School online. Ryan brings both commercial and not-for-profit perspectives to his teaching and mentorship. He has worked in marketing at Roundabout Theatre Company, as a Project Coordinator at The Pekoe Group, a boutique theatrical advertising agency whose clients include Six and Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, and has an extensive tenure at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts working in guest relations.

Currently serving as Assistant Professor of Lighting Design at Michigan Tech, Sara Gosses’ courses include Lighting Design, Theatrical Lighting Visualization and Documentation, Advanced Lighting Design, Vectorworks, and Introduction to Theatre.

Sara is also a freelance lighting designer and designs for a variety of types of live performance and events in venues ranging from the Clark Theater at Lincoln Center to the VW Dome at MoMA PS1 and the Studebaker Theater (CHI) to houses on Governors Island (NY). With a love for new works, she has designed lighting for over 35 world premieres.

Sara designs lighting for store windows and has lit Saks Fifth Avenue’s collaborations with brands such as Off-White, Valentino, Dior, Gucci, Chanel, and Disney.  Sara designed and installed the lighting for the Holiday windows in 2018, 2019, and 2021, which won the PAVE award for “Best Windows of the Year.”

She received her B.A. from Hope College and her M.F.A. from Northwestern University

Julia Hamilton is a scholar of music, gender, and race in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. Since 2021, she has held a Core Lectureship in Music Humanities at Columbia University, where she also received her PhD. She has written two publications on abolitionist culture and women’s domestic music-making in the eighteenth century: a 2021 article in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture and a forthcoming essay in A History of Women and Musical Salons (eds. Jacqueline Avila and Rebecca Cypess). Her current book project, “Abolitionism at Home: Women, Music, and Material Culture in Britain, 1780 to 1840,” traces shifting musical approaches to antislavery activism from the eighteenth-century movement to abolish the slave trade to the nineteenth-century movements to abolish slavery and apprenticeship. Julia maintains an active interest in music history pedagogy and is excited to join the faculty at the Ithaca College School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

Ju Hyeon Han, a South Korean born soprano, grew up in New Zealand, completing post-elementary and undergraduate studies there. While in New Zealand, she appeared in numerous concert and oratorio performances, including concerts with the Auckland Philharmonic orchestra, and soprano soloist for Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, Mozart's Requiem and Schubert's Mass in G.

In 2008, she moved to the United States, earning a Master of Music in Vocal Performance and Vocal Pedagogy at New England Conservatory in 2011, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University in 2019. At Stony Brook University, Dr. Han was recognized for her excellence in her studies and exceptional service to the university as a teaching assistant with the 2019 President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students.

While in the United States, Dr. Han has performed in numerous recitals and early music concerts, including at the Steans Institute Ravinia Festival, American Bach Soloists Academy, and the Mostly Modern Festival. She also performed the role of the Female Chorus in Stony Brook Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia in 2017, and Sophia in Paola Prestini’s Sensorium Ex with Vision into Art and the Beth Morrison Projects in 2023.

As an educator, Dr. Han served as an adjunct voice instructor at William Paterson University for four years, where her teaching was recognized with the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences teaching award for adjunct excellence during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Ju Hyeon Han has a special interest in voice rehabilitation, as well as a passion for working with students with disabilities. A strong advocate for fostering inclusivity in higher education, Dr. Han frequently gives consultations and lectures on accessibility and inclusion in higher education to institutions of higher learning in the United States and beyond

Ásta Bennie Hostetter is a costume designer from Washington Heights.

She has been the original costume designer for the world premieres of: The Coast Starlight (Lincoln Center), The Bandaged Place (Roundabout Underground), Usual Girls (Roundabout Underground), Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizon), Porto (WP Theater), Wolves (Lincoln Center), Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons) You Got Older (P73). John (Signature Theater) 

She is a member of The Mad Ones with whom she created:  Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie (Ars Nova) and Miles for Mary (Bushwick Starr, Playwrights Horizon). She is also a member of Target Margin Theater: Reread Another.

She also designs opera and classical work. Recent projects include The Magic Flute (The New School) Taming of the Shrew (Old Globe) with Shana Cooper and Dom Juan (Bard Summerscape) adapted by Ashley Tata. 

She is a founding member of minor theater and has designed: Grimly Handsome, Nomads, The Terrifying, Pathetic.  

In September 2023 she directed Marie It’s Time, minor theater’s punk take on Woyzeck at Here Arts Center. 

Priscilla is a producer, director, choreographer, and educator. A proud Ithaca native, she is the founder and producing artistic director of Walking on Water Productions (WoW), a nonprofit musical theatre company rooted in Tompkins County. After obtaining her MFA in Acting with a directing concentration from Regent University and her BA in Theatre with a dance minor from Brenau University, Priscilla spent nine years in Chicago working as a director, choreographer, education director, teaching artist, on-camera actor, and dancer. Chicago directing credits include The Magic Paintbrush (Theatre Building Chicago), Heidi, Matthew Three Horn, The Wizard of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Pinocchio, Camp Super Friend, and New Girl (Provision Theater); Snoopy! The Musical andRumplestiltskin (Northbrook Theatre); and A Musical Theatre Revue (Trinity Christian College). Ithaca area directing/choreography credits include Godspell, The Fantasticks, Katrina A New Musical, A Virtual Cabaret, parts 2 and 3 of the virtual production of Comfort Food, Now. Here. This., and The World According to Snoopy!!! (WoW); and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Wells College). Additional choreography credits include Alice In Wonderland, Seussical Jr., and Marry Poppins Jr. (Hangar Theatre); Once Upon A Mattress, Mamma Mia!, Bye Bye Birdie, and Matilda (Lansing High School). Priscilla has taught theatre and dance courses at SUNY Cortland, Wells College, Western Carolina University, and Trinity Christian College. She has also taught group fitness and physical education courses at Cornell University and Island Health & Fitness. 

Tristen Jarvis is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, composer, and teaching artist. He has performed and collaborated in a myriad of settings, most notably with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, on tour with hard rock/heavy metal royalty Joan Jett and Halestorm as a supporting act, producing and recording with Grammy-nominated jazz and groove-music drummer Nate Smith, and as a featured performer at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA.  Tristen earned music performance degrees from Ithaca College (B.M.) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (M.M.), as well as an Advanced Certificate in Orchestral Studies with The Orchestra Now at Bard College.  From 2022-2023, Tristen was fortunate to serve as the Interim Double Bass instructor at his alma mater, Ithaca College. 

Described by Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC) as an “impressive conductor…outstanding in his attention to detail and his command of the big picture”, Hong Kong-born conductor Ho-Yin Kwok is a three-time winner of The American Prize, 2021, winner of 2017-2018 Vincent C. LaGuardia, Jr. Conducting Competition and 2021 International Conductors Workshop and Competition. As Director of Orchestral Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, Kwok also serves as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

As a rising conductor, Kwok has established a professional reputation in the state of Minnesota. He has served as Assistant Conductor of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and cover conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra. Kwok previously served as Assistant Conductor of Collegium Musicum Hong Kong and performed in esteemed venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Musikverein in Vienna. His engagements in the 2022-2023 season include a guest conducting appearance with the New World Symphony at the Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall at Miami Beach, Florida.

An avid music educator, Kwok has served as Director of the Duluth Superior Youth Symphony and Visiting Director of Orchestra at the University of Minnesota Duluth. His other educational guest conducting engagements include the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, Southeastern Minnesota Youth Orchestras, Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras, University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Music Clinic, and Foster Music Camp. He has served as adjudicator for concerto competitions such as those of Minnesota Orchestra Young People's Symphony Concert Association and University of Louisville.

Kwok is a first prize winner of The American Prize in opera conducting. He had served as Music Director of the Opera Theatre at University of Minnesota Twin-Cities. He enjoys conducting operas of a wide range of periods and styles, from Mozart's Idomeneo to Puccini's La Bohéme, Britten's Albert Herring, and Menotti’s The Consul. He has collaborated professionally with Arbeit Opera Theatre and Lyric Opera of the North. In the 2021-22 season, Kwok gave one of the first performances of Laura Kaminsky’s new opera, Hometown to the World.

Known for his passion in diversifying the orchestral concert repertoire, Kwok has been involved in multiple initiatives and special projects. With the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, he created the annual Foreground Composers Series, a year-round celebration and in-depth research on an underrepresented composer. This ongoing project has featured composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ruth Gipps, along with many other neglected composers. Kwok is also a panel member of …And we were heard, a national initiative to promote contemporary music and composers of underrepresented backgrounds. Kwok has appeared as conductor for the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. 

Kwok studied conducting at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities and the University of Iowa. His principal teachers are Mark Russell Smith and William LaRue Jones. He has also studied with Gerard Schwarz, Kevin Noe, Cristian Măcelaru, Giancarlo Guerrero, Kathy Saltzman Romey, Grant Cooper, José-Luis Novo and Eric Garcia.

I am thrilled to join the IC community and take part in its mission!

With a deep belief in the power of collaborative music making, Guillaume Pirard has become a highly respected artist and educator of his generation.

As co-concertmaster and founding member of The Knights, Mr. Pirard toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe with performances at the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Muziverein in Vienna, and major festival appearances at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Skaneateles, the Festival-de-Paques in Aix-en-Provence and the Salzburg Festpiele. He has recorded with the ensemble on SONY Classical and Warner Music.

Since making his conducting debut with the Orlando Philharmonic, Mr.Pirard has led the New York University and Cornell University Orchestras, Ensemble X, OpusIthaca, the Philharmonic of Moravia, the Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra, the Lviv Philharmonic, the Mannes School of Music Opera and the Mannes Orchestra. He served as Assistant Conductor for the Buffalo Philharmonic and Ensemble 21. His passion for conducting is owed to the encouragement of his mentors, Larry Rachleff and JoAnn Falletta.

Following his interest in performance practices, Guillaume studied in Den Haag and Brussels with some of the masters of the romantic, classical and baroque styles such as Vera Beths, Mira Glodeanu and Anner Bylsma. He has played in various period ensembles and chamber music series in Europe and the United-States, such as the Helicon Foundation, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, the Staunton Festival, Les Muffatti and the Context series at Rice University. Mr. Pirard has also performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, A Far Cry, the Sejong Soloists, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and with renowned musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Vijay Iyer, Andy Akiho, and Reinbert De Leeuw to name a few.

Born in Belgium, Mr. Pirard studied at the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music, receiving a First Prize in violin performance at the age of 16. He continued his studies at the Juilliard School with Hyo Kang and Dorothy Delay. He earned a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting from the New School, under the tutelage of David Hayes. Mr. Pirard has served on the faculty at New York University, San Diego State University, and Cornell University.

Seth Soulstein is an actor, playwright, and scholar.  Since earning an MA in Theatre Arts from the University of British Columbia in 2012, and another MA in Theatre Arts from Cornell University in 2015, he has served as a Lecturer in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Wells College; the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies at Ithaca College; and most recently, in the Department of Theatre Arts (now Theatre Studies) at Ithaca College.  His research interests include comedy and humor, laughter, hysteria, depictions of wildness in performance, silent cinema, freak shows, side shows, and other historically weird and marginal sites for performances and their audiences.

His essay “A History of Cult Comedy and the Cultic, Comic Mode” appears as a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema.  Other articles of his on comedy and on pedagogy have been published in the Journal for Cinema and Media Studies, Scope, and alt.theatre.  He has presented his research at the American Society for Theatre Research, the American Comparative Literature Association, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Screen Studies Conference, and is the President-Elect of the Reception Study Society.

Seth is an active member of the Cherry Artists Ensemble, and has performed locally at the Cherry, with Civic Ensemble, and at the Hangar Theatre. He is trained in physical comedy, and spent many, many summers directing youth, clown-based Shakespeare productions in northern Vermont.

Khyle B. Wooten (he/him) leads a unique life in music, maintaining professional activities as a conductor, educator, clinician, researcher, and composer. Prior to his appointment to the music performance faculty at Ithaca College, Wooten served as Assistant Director of Choral Activities at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and priorly held middle and high school teaching positions with charter schools in the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Atlanta, Georgia.

At present, Wooten leads ongoing research on the life and music of Lena McLin and extended choral works of Black women composers, presenting regularly at regional and national conferences. He is an inaugural fellow of the Future of Music Faculty Fellowship with the Cleveland Institute of Music. Additionally, Wooten completed commissions for the Cincinnati Song Initiative, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra MINA String Quartet, and Kairos Opera. Excerpted movements from Wooten’s baritone song cycle, A Journey in Love, are published in the digital anthology, Modern Music for New Singers. His choral recent works include Life and Death (TTBB) and The Dream Keeper (SA). Wooten is the co-founder and conductor of the Sankofa Vocal Collective in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wooten holds degrees in music education and choral conducting from Lincoln University of PA (BS), Georgia State University (MM), and Florida State University (PhD).