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Music Faculty
Dr. Thomas Singletary
Director of Instrumental Music
Dr. Thomas Singletary is an active conductor, composer, clinician, and music educator. A rising composer and transcriber for winds, he is highly regarded for his custom music arrangements for high school and collegiate marching bands around the nation. A Georgia native, Singletary holds degrees in Music Education from Florida State University and the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana. He earned a Ph.D. in Music Education and Wind Conducting from Florida State University in 2016, where he served as a teaching assistant for the university bands. He has served as Instrumental Music Director at North Central Texas College since 2019.
Prior to his doctoral studies, Singletary taught music at Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida for seventeen years, where he led a team of teachers committed to musical excellence through concert band, marching band, jazz ensemble, and chamber music. Under his direction, the Eau Gallie Symphonic Band gave highly acclaimed performances at many district, state and national festivals. In recognition of his achievements, Dr. Singletary received the Oliver Hobbs Award from the Florida Bandmasters Association and the Citation of Excellence from the National Band Association. His principal teachers include James Croft, Robert Sheldon, Clifford Madsen, Donald Schleicher, Patrick Dunnigan and Richard Clary.
Shane Studdard
Professor Shane Studdard holds a Bachelor of Music Education from Baylor University and a Master of Music from Southwestern Seminary. He has served as Professor of Music at North Central Texas College since 2001. Since 2012, he has had the position of Professor of Vocal Studies, and his principal duty is conductor and music director of the North Central Texas College Singers and the College Vocal Ensemble. Professor Studdard teaches Applied Voice, Music Appreciation, and has many times been the musical director for the summer musicals at NCTC. His wife, Robin, is Director of Libraries at NCTC. They have four beautiful daughters, four fantastic sons-in-law, and eight gorgeous grandchildren. Shane and Robin enjoy cooking together, and traveling together – Colorado, Chicago, and Italy being their favorite destinations. He is a long-standing member of Texas Choral Directors Association, Texas Music Directors Association and American Choral Directors Association.
Adjunct Faculty
Dr. Candace Neal
Candace Neal completed her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in December 2014, under the tutelage of Bernhard Scully. She also holds a Master of Music in Horn Performance from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with Laura Klock, and a Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance from Boston University with Eric Ruske.
As a freelancer, she has performed with numerous ensembles from local community orchestras to jazz bands to chamber music. You will find her playing with various ensembles around Dallas and beyond, including her newly formed chamber ensemble, Rivermist. Dr. Neal is committed to supporting new music for horn. In 2011 she was a recipient of the International Horn Society’s Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Fund. This grant helped fund a recital featuring four new works for horn. In 2018, Height Difference, her trombone and horn duo, commissioned new works for the ensemble for a premiere at the 2019 International Women’s Brass Conference.
Dr. Neal maintains an active studio with students in the Dallas and Richardson Independent School Districts, and she teaches horn at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. She has led masterclasses at universities and workshops around the country, some recent events have been at Texas Christian University, University of Georgia, and the University of Illinois.
Since being trained as a yoga instructor at Corepower Yoga (E-RYT 200 Hour) in 2011, Dr. Neal has incorporated yoga techniques, including breathing and physical practice to her studio lessons. She is currently pursuing a 300-hour training program, and completing training to become a Prenatal and Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist (PCES). These trainings will continue to inform her teaching, but also inform her yoga for musicians research project. When not performing, teaching, or studying, she is spending time with her husband, baby boy, and dog.
Linda Jenkins
Flute
Linda Jenkins is an avid collaborative musician based in Denton, Texas. Specializing in contemporary music, Linda frequently works with local composers as a soloist and chamber musician. She can be heard playing with the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra and NOVA Contemporary Ensemble, as well as various smaller groups in the Dallas metroplex. In 2018, Linda commissioned and premiered a recital of works for solo flute and piccolo in collaboration with the Oregon Composers Forum. She was also the resident flute and piccolo player for the TaiHei Ensemble, a chamber group dedicated to premiering non-Western inspired contemporary works.
In 2019 she was named first prizewinner of Atlanta Flute Club’s Carl D. Hall piccolo competition. Linda has been a guest performer at the biennial Oregon Bach Festival’s Composer Symposium, SEAMUS, University of Oregon’s Musicking conference, Greater Portland Flute Society’s Spring Flute Fair, National Flute Association, and has performed in master classes for Bonita Boyd, Carol Wincenc, Jim Walker, Elizabeth Rowe, and many other notable flutists.
Linda has a B.M. from Bowling Green State University and a M.M. from the University of Oregon where she studied with Dr. Conor Nelson and Professor Molly Barth respectively. She recently completed a Graduate Artist Certificate with Professor Terri Sundberg at the University of North Texas and is beginning Doctoral studies in Fall 2020.
Thomas Oakley
A versatile and adventurous musician, Thomas Oakley has combined his many musical talents as an aspiring artist in the Western classical tradition while fusing his other interests in Rock, Jazz, and Serbo-Croatian music. Oakley holds bachelor’s degrees in Music Education and Music Performance from the University of Wyoming where he studied tuba with Alan Harvey and Charles D. Ortega. He also holds a Master of Music Performance from the University of North Texas under the guidance of Professors Donald C. Little and Dr. Jeff Baker.
As a performer, Professor Oakley has had a large variety of performance experiences, appearing with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra and the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and in his time at UW, the popular rock group Kansas with the University of Wyoming Symphony. Along with his orchestral experience, Oakley has experimented with rock, jazz, and Serbo-Croatian music by performing as the “bass” voice of various local groups in Laramie, Wyoming. He has performed with Angel Adams and The Suits, Electric Ghosts, The Dog Scribes, and Mako Brass.
Oakley was part of the Grand Avenue Brass, a traveling brass quintet that promotes the importance of music education and chamber music groups. He furthered his studies in tuba and chamber ensemble playing with Sam Pilafian and the Boston brass during their summer intensives held at UW. Oakley is an active freelance musician in the DFW area, and he regularly appears with the North Central Texas Winds and the New Philharmonic of Irving.
Dr. Lacey Hays
Trumpet
Dr. Lacey Hays, founding member and director of DFW Brass, is an active freelance musician and clinician throughout North Texas and Oklahoma and has performed throughout the world, including Europe, North, Central, and South America. Comfortable with varying styles, Dr. Hays has performed as a soloist with the Sofia Philharmonic in Bulgaria, with Johnny Mathis numerous times, for Broadway Tours such as An American in Paris, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, and Matilida, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Verdi Opera House in Italy, and the Classical Music Festival in Austria.
Sergio hernandez Felix
Native of Mexico, a bilingual guitarist, SERGIO HERNANDEZ, began to show his musical aptitude at a young age. He started his formal training at age 15, under the direction of Raul Molano. Sergio rapidly excelled in his craft in guitar and in 2010, began private guitar studies with Dr. Jonathan Dotson from UT Rio Grande Valley.
Sergio has received numerous prizes, including the first place at the University of Texas Pan-American guitar competition. He is a recipient of many scholarships, including Carrion De Los Condes Classical Guitar Workshop Scholarship, UWM Chancellor’s Award Scholarship, Agah Classical Guitar Endowment Scholarship and Maria Aurora Arrese Scholarship Endowment. He has been an active participant in Festival Internacional de Guitarra de Mexico and Carrion De Los Condes Classical Guitar Workshop over the year and in 2014, gave a concert at the US Embassy in Vienna, Austria.
Sergio received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education with a focus on classical guitar at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Quantz and Dr. Jonathan Dotson. Sergio holds a Master’s Degree in Classical Guitar Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he studied with Cuban Guitar virtuoso Rene Izquierdo.
Dr. Vanessa Davis
Vanessa Davis is a professional clarinetist and teacher. She has appeared as a clarinetist in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, the Finger Lakes and Upstate New York, and the Boston area. She is a clarinetist in the Lone Star Wind Orchestra and the Mesquite Symphony, and she has appeared with the Texarkana Symphony, Allen Philharmonic, McKinney Philharmonic, and Sherman Symphony.
As a teacher, Dr. Davis helps students reach their goals through careful planning, guided practice, and consistency, all key concepts for musicians at any level of music learning. Her students have won awards and scholarships, attending some of the most prestigious music schools in the country. Dr. Davis is an active university professor, and she teaches at McLennan College, Texas A&M - Commerce, North Central Texas College, Dallas College, and Laredo College and as a Clarinet Specialist in select and competitive Texas school programs.
Dr. Davis is passionate about educating and preparing her students for the future that awaits them outside of school, encouraging her students to look outside the box to create a career that supports their passion and interest in all ways. As a result, her students use the transferable skills from their music degrees to gain employment as performers, teachers, music therapists, arts administrators, in music finance and business, and other areas to create a custom career that suits their areas of interest and individual strengths.
Dr. Davis is an active member of the clarinet and music community and their organizations. She currently serves Chair of the International Clarinet Association College and Pre-Professional Engagement Committee and contributes to the journal of the same organization, The Clarinet as an Audio and Book Review Writer. She has contributed to both the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors Journal, the Symposium Journal, and The Instrumentalist. Dr. Davis is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist and a D’Addario Woodwind Artist. She holds a Doctorate in Clarinet Performance from the University of North Texas where she studied with Kimberly Cole Luevano. She has studied clarinet with Richard MacDowell, Elizabeth Gunlogson, and David Seiler.
Dr. Andre Acevedo
Dr. Andre Acevedo is an active jazz musician and teacher in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He has a variety of performance experiences, such as with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus band, many local productions of Broadway musicals, cruise ships, and the American “Elvis Live: National Tour!”
Dr. Acevedo earned his undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies from the University of North Florida, where he studied with legendary saxophonist Bunky Green. Andre continued his studies at the University of Memphis as the graduate teaching assistant for the jazz department while earning a Master's in Jazz and Studio Music. During his time at Memphis as a teaching assistant, Andre fell in love with music education and decided to pursue a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in hopes of gaining the knowledge and experience to one day be a college music professor. He holds a DMA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he played lead tenor with the Latin Jazz Ensemble and the U of I Concert Jazz Band. Andre is both a performer and researcher, and his dissertation focused on using jazz solo transcriptions as pedagogical solutions for undergraduate jazz saxophonists. Dr. Acevedo teaches saxophone lessons, masterclasses, and clinics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with a successful studio of over fifty students.