Music Archives - The College of Idhao

By Henry Miller

Luis Fisher

BIO Mr. Luis Fisher is the Director of Athletic Bands in charge of the Coyote Marching Band and Basketball Pep Band. Over the many decades of his performing and teaching careers, Mr. Fisher has performed in ensembles on all of the low brass instruments, including the euphonium and contrabass bugles, and held teaching positions in four states. He has traveled all over the United States and beyond as a member of three drum and bugle corps and the United States Air Force. As a band director, his entire career has been dedicated to either rebuilding band programs that were on the verge of being disbanded or started completely new programs. Over the course of his career his ensembles have received “excellent” ratings at music performance assessments and they have produced numerous All County and All State honor band musicians. Mr. Fisher has been very active in the marching arts during his career. He has performed with the Florida Wave, Colts, and CorpsVets (now known as Atlanta CV) Drum & Bugle Corps. He has also been a marching arts adjudicator serving as an Equipment Analysis and Visual judge with the Arizona Marching Band Association and Winter Guard Arizona. Mr. Fisher has received a Grammy Award in Music Education nomination and is the recipient of the prestigious Golden Apple Award for excellence in education. He is a long time member of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and its state-affiliated component associations. EDUCATION MAT, Trevecca Nazarene University BSM, University of North Alabama PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Thomas Posen

BIO I am a music theorist, pianist, educator, and composer-producer living in Boise, Idaho (USA) where I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at the College of Idaho. I teach courses on music theory, composition, music technology and production, and composition. My research explores the history of music theory, compositional processes—especially Beethoven’s and Deadmau5’s—and electronic dance music. In addition, I regularly analyze, compose, and produce electronic dance music. For more information, visit: https://www.thomasposen.com/. EDUCATION B.A., University of New Mexico B.M., M.M. and Ph.D., McGill University

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Paul Moulton

BIO As a musicologist, Paul Moulton teaches a wide range of historical courses. In his research, he often approaches historical musicology from an ethnomusicological point of view, and he is particularly interested in the way music affects the lives of individuals. He is a prominent scholar in the field of Celtic Music, with additional interests in music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Scottish, Irish, and Navajo music. He has presented research at regional, national, and international conferences, and he has published several articles in scholarly journals and books. Paul joined the faculty in 2007. Moulton cares deeply about his students and their success in life, not just as a musician, and he believes an understanding of music in history and culture encourages personal reflection about life and our humanity. He believes that these studies can especially broaden and enrich our capacity to feel and empathize with others. In addition to his academic career, he and his wife have five wonderful children, and in his spare time he likes to run, hike, garden, read, and serve in his church and in the community. EDUCATION Ph. D., Florida State University M. A., Florida State University B.A., Brigham Young University

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Robert Laport

BIO Dr. Robert Laport is an Assistant Professor of Biology & Director of the Harold M. Tucker Herbarium (CIC) in the Department of Biology. As a plant evolutionary ecologist his research primarily focuses on questions at the intersection of evolution, ecology, and the origins of biodiversity. Using field studies, population genetics, molecular systematics, and greenhouse experiments student researchers in his lab group focus on questions such as: How does new biodiversity arise? What ecological interactions determine where species occur? and What factors determine species co-occurrence? Before coming to the College of Idaho, Dr. Laport was an Assistant Professor of Biology and Curator of the herbarium at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. He also has teaching experience at the University of Colorado-Denver and the Rochester Institute of Technology, and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. EDUCATION Ph.D., Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Rochester M.Sc., Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Rochester B.S., Biology, Oregon State University SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH Find more information, including publications, at the Laport Lab, available at https://robertlaport.com/.

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Philip Kettler

BIO Philip Kettler is the newly appointed Principal Cellist of the Boise Philharmonic. A passionate chamber musician, he is also the cellist of the Langroise Trio, with whom he serves as Artist-in-Residence at The College of Idaho. He began his positions in Boise after three seasons with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, where he served as Second Cellist and the orchestra’s youngest member. Philip has also performed with the Indianapolis Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra, and previously held principal positions in orchestras including the Terre Haute Symphony, Carmel Symphony, and Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. Highlights of Philip’s upcoming 2025-2026 season include Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Boise Philharmonic, a solo recital at the New Hampshire Center for the Arts, and the position of the Acting Principal Cellist of the Britt Festival. In recent seasons, he has been featured as a soloist and chamber musician in concert series across the state of Idaho and in Washington DC, Tennessee, Maryland, Colorado, and Ohio, among others. In the summer, Philip is the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra, and has spent previous summers performing with the National Repertory Orchestra and at the music festivals of Aspen, Bowdoin, and Aix-en-Provence (France). Philip is a dedicated educator, serving as Lecturer of Music at The College of Idaho and maintaining a competitive private studio in Boise. Other teaching engagements have included Northwest Nazarene University, the Sun Valley Music Festival, and regular masterclass across the United States. Philip is a candidate for the Doctor of Music degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of music, where he also earned his Master of Music degree. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, and a Performer’s Certificate from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His principal teachers include Eric Kim, Felix Wang, and Dmitry Ferschtman, and he has performed in masterclasses for Johannes Moser, Alisa Weilerstein, and Zuill Bailey. Philip performs on a cello made in Rome by David Tecchler in 1723, generously on loan by Mrs. Esther Simplot. EDUCATION Doctor of Music candidate, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Master of Music, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Performance Certificate, Conservatorium van Amsterdam (The Netherlands) Bachelor of Music, Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music

Explore More

By Henry Miller

David Johnson

BIO David Johnson won a position in the viola section of the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic as a high school senior. Awarded a scholarship to attend Butler University (Indianapolis), he transferred after two years to Indiana University, where he completed, with high distinction, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees in viola performance. While a student at Indiana, he performed a series of concerts in New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall with the Indiana University Doctoral String Quartet. After graduating from college, David was appointed Principal Viola of the Iceland Symphony, where he was featured as soloist numerous times with pianist Debra Gold on the Iceland National Radio. David then returned to the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, serving as Principal Violist for 9 years. While there, he was a founding member of the Freimann String Quartet and the Northeastern Indiana Chamber Music Festival. David was also appointed Assistant Principal Violist of the Grant Park Symphony in Chicago for 12 years, soloing with that orchestra in 1994. In 1992, David joined the newly formed Langroise Trio, Artist in Residence at The College of Idaho, and is the principal violist of the Boise Philharmonic. He has performed concertos by J.C. Bach, J.S. Bach, Bartok, Berlioz, Mozart, Ranjbaran, Stamitz, Vaughn-Williams, and Walton with such orchestras as the Grant Park Symphony, Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, Atheneum Orchestra (Indianapolis), and the Boise Philharmonic, In addition, he has been a member of the South Bend Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Owensboro Symphony, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, and the Northwest Indiana Symphony. He has been a member of the Sun Valley Orchestra and taught at the Sun Valley Summer Music Workshops, and since 2007 has served as the Artistic Director of the Sun Valley Symphony Summer Workshops. EDUCATION B.M., Indiana University M.M., Indiana University

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Andrew Gades

Andrew Gades joined The College of Idaho faculty in 2014. In the Music Department he taught a wide range of courses including standard music theory and aural skills courses, courses on film and game soundtracks, sacred music, counterpoint, musical form, music technology, classes exploring the intersection of music and gender, and applied lessons in composition and organ. Influenced by liberal arts ideals and the unique needs of music departments at liberal arts colleges, Dr. Gades redesigned the music theory curriculum at the College of Idaho. His innovative approach has become a model for several institutions, both public and private, across the country. Dr. Gades began work in the Dean’s Office in 2019 as an associate dean and then stepped into the Interim Dean position in 2024. He is also an active member of regional and national music theory societies having served as president of the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory and is currently the chair of the Society for Music Theory’s IT committee. EDUCATION Ph.D., Music Theory, Florida State University, 2013 M.M., Music Theory, University of Nebraska, 2009 B.M., Organ Performance with Highest Distinction, 2007 SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH “Desequencing the Music Theory Core: A Liberal Arts Model,” Engaging Students: Essays in Music Theory Pedagogy 7 (September 2020). https://doi.org/10.18061/es.v7i0.7360. “Motivic Coherence in Joan Tower’s Purple Rhapsody.” In Analyzing the Music of Living Composers, edited by Jack Boss, Brad Osborn, Tim Page, and Stephen Rodgers, 27–50. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. “What’s in a Title? Setting, Narrator, and Mimesis in Del Tredici’s ‘A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight.’” Mosaic: Journal of Music Research 1, 2011. SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS Houston, Seth and Andrew Gades. “Essential Metrics—and a Framework—for Strategic Benchmarking” (Association for Institutional Research Forum, May 22, 2025). Gades, Andrew and Sara Bakker. “Does Music Theory Matter?”, Public Music Theory Poster Exhibit, Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, November 8, 2024). Gades, Andrew and Sara Bakker. “Is Music Theory Useful? Discussing Data-Informed Decisions for Music Theory Curricula” (discussion session, Pedagogy into Practice, May 30, 2024). Moffett, Berint and Andrew Gades. “A Tangled Web: A Classic Tale of Narrative Function and Agency in the Music of The Princess Bride” (paper presentation, Music and the Moving Image XVII, May 30, 2021). Gades, Andrew, Megan Lavengood, and Crystal Peebles. “Diversifying the Theory Curriculum: How to Open Multiple Pathways through the Theory Core” (panel presentation, Pedagogy into Practice, May 23, 2019). “Narrative Reliability and Dynamic Diegesis in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (paper presentation, 49th Annual Meeting of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, April 20, 2019). “Postmodern Pastorals in Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (paper presentation, Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, March 28, 2015; West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, February 28, 2015). “The Flowers of Experience: Musical Narrative and Emergent Meaning in Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (paper presentation, Music Theory Southeast, March 21, 2014). “A Multi-Domain Approach to Musical Narrative in Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (paper presentation, Frederick Loewe Symposium in American Music, University of Redlands, March 10, 2012). “What’s in a Title? Setting, Narrator, and Mimesis in Del Tredici’s ‘A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight’” (paper presentation, Buffalo Graduate Student Symposium on Music, The State University of New York at Buffalo, March 5, 2011). “Coherence and Comprehensibility in Joan Tower’s Purple Rhapsody” (paper presentation, West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, March 5, 2010). PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Interim Dean, The College of Idaho, 2024-current Associate Dean, The College of Idaho, 2019-2024

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Torrance Fung

BIO Torrance Fung is Assistant Professor and Chair of Philosophy & Religious Studies at The College of Idaho. He is interested in the philosophy mind, theory of knowledge, and early modern philosophy. He likes to think about the mind, knowledge, and what philosophers today and in the past have said about these topics. EDUCATION Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Virginia, 2020 B.A.S., Philosophy & Psychology, University of California Davis, 2013 SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH A complete list of Dr. Fung’s publications is available here: Torrance Fung

Explore More

By Henry Miller

Christi Amonson

BIO Christi Amonson serves The College of Idaho as a professor of voice and director of opera and music theatre. An active soprano soloist, Christi has sung with orchestras and opera companies in the US, Italy, China, Brazil and Mexico. She was a winner of the Liederkranz & National Classical Singer competitions, and she was a regional finalist for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As a recitalist, Christi enjoys premiering new music compositions, and she is devoted to researching and performing traditional and lesser-known art song repertoire. She is a long-time member of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and NOA (National Opera Association) and she writes the Music Major Minute column for Classical Singer Magazine. Amonson earned her DMA in voice and theatre at the University of Arizona, MM in voice at the Manhattan School of Music and her BM Mus Ed. at the University of Idaho. While in Arizona, she founded an opera company that performed semi-staged operas with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra. She has since served as opera director for Troy and Augusta universities and a teaching artist for the summer Festival de Ópera de San Luis Potosí in Mexico. Directing students on stage is Christi’s happy place and she looks forward to guiding the C of I singers as they share their stories on stage. EDUCATION DMA in Voice & Theatre, University of Arizona MM in Voice, Manhattan School of Music BM in Music Education, University of Idaho

Explore More

What can we help you find?