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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. 

He has performed in collaboration with various artists at The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, The Smithsonian, Signature Theater, Studio Theater, Source Theater, Metro Stage, the Theater Lab, the Corcoran Gallery Series, the American Opera Scholarship Society, the Capitol Hill Chorale, and the No Noise Reduction Art Ensemble.

Musical direction credits include Urinetown, (2006 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Musical Direction), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Christmas Carol Rag,  and Side Show (2001 Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Musical Direction) at Signature Theater; A New Brain  at Studio Theater, A Year With Frog and Toad at Roundhouse Theater, and Starting Here, Starting Now at Metro Stage.  Dr. Crowder was recently chosen to be a member of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.  At the Kennedy Center, he has served as Associate Conductor for Company and Passion, two productions staged as part of the 2002 Kennedy Center’s Sondheim Celebration as well as Mame.

Musical direction at Montgomery College includes 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.

As keyboard player, he has played with the Opera House Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the national touring productions of Martin Guerre, James Joyce’s The Dead, Bounce, The Producers, The Phantom of the Opera, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the Dance Theater of Harlem.  He also played for the touring Broadway show, Mamma Mia, at Washington’s National Theater.

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