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Faculty & Staff

Dr. Jay crowder

Pianist Jay Crowder holds a Doctorate in Piano Performance from the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland; a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and a Bachelor of Music degree from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.  Dr. Crowder has held teaching positions at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Levine School of Music in Washington D.C., and Hochstein School of Music in Rochester, New York.  He is currently the chair of the Department of Music. 

Winner of many piano competitions including the Music Teachers National Association Piano Competition and the National Federation of Music Clubs Piano Competition, Dr. Crowder has recently performed for the District of Columbia Federation of Music Clubs, the Levine School of Music, the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in D.C., the Arkansas Federation of Music Clubs State Convention, the National Society of Arts and Letters, Vermont Public Radio, the Adamant School of Music, the Kennedy Center Open House, the Washington D.C. Mayor’s Awards, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, the Dacor Bacon House-Cloyce K. Huston Musicales, the Washington Arts Club,  KLRE - National Public Radio, the Maryland Handel Festival, and the Northwestern University Alumni Recital Series. 

Musical direction at Montgomery College includes A Year With Frog and Toad, Urinetown, Little Shop of Horrors, Showtune, Oliver, Footloose, The World Goes ’Round, Working, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Hair, Once On This Island, The
Fantasticks, Into the Woods, Big River, Guys and Dolls, and Jesus Christ, Superstar. Dr. Crowder serves as the music director of Overtures, a summer training program for young musical theater actors sponsored by Signature Theater and held at the Kennedy Center.

Musical Theater

Music Direction: Signature Theater – Urinetown  (2006 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Musical Direction); Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Christmas Carol Rag (composer and arranger), and Side Show  (2001 Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Musical Direction);  Studio Theater - A New Brain,  Metro Stage - Starting Here, Starting Now;  Imagination Stage - Twice Upon a Time Atlas Theater – Goodnight Moon.   Associate Conductor:  Kennedy Center - Company, Passion, and Mame.   Keyboard player: Kennedy Center - Martin Guerre, James Joyce’s The Dead, Bounce, The Producers, Phantom of the Opera, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the Dance Theater of Harlem; National Theater - Mamma Mia.  Orchestrator/Arranger:  Kennedy Center - Marvin Hamlisch’s Halloween Bash, Imagination  Stage - Twice Upon a Time, and Atlas Theater - Goodnight Moon.   Music Director of Musical Theatre & Television:  Kennedy Center- The Lion King, The 3 Generations Concert, Legally Blonde, The 2008 Kennedy Center Honors, An Evening of Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Cabaret:  The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, The Smithsonian, Signature Theater, Studio Theater, Source Theater, Metro Stage, the Theater Lab, and the Corcoran Gallery Series.  Upcoming:  Music Direction - Ford’s Theater - The Civil War.   

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