Halie Silverman - Brown

Halie Silverman-Brown is currently a Madison freelance player and educator and was formerly principal trumpet of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra and San Juan Symphony. She completed her Bachelors in Trumpet Performance at the Eastman School of Music in 2008 and Masters of Music at Louisiana State University, where she studied with Brian Shaw and was a teaching assistant and performed in orchestras, big bands, and ensembles of all types. Silverman-Brown has performed with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and with the LSU School of Music brass faculty, Spacecoast Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Sanibel Island Ensemble, Miami Players Ensemble, Rocky Mountain Brass Band, The New Sousa Band, Univision, and continues to freelance and perform throughout the country and now the Midwest. Long interested in international trumpet study, Silverman-Brown traveled to Europe in 2007 to work with Ole Edvard Antonsen in Norway and Bruce Rhoten and Bob Platte in Germany. In the summer of 2008, she was invited to attend the Chosen Vale Music Seminar, a workshop featuring renowned trumpeters from around the world. Silverman-Brown has performed Alexander Goedicke’s Concert Etude at Louisiana State University, the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado, with the Symphony of Toys at Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas, and on National Public Radio’s From The Top, a radio show featuring talented young musicians. Her major teachers include James Thompson, Bob Earley, and Michael Hesse. She has also studied with Mark Gould, Ed Caroll, Gabriele Cassone, Stephen Burns, Markus Stockhausen, Thomas Stevens, Tony Plog, and Scott Ramsey. Silverman-Brown has held teaching positions at San Juan Community College in Farmington, NM, North Broward Prep in Coconut Creek, FL, Miami School of the Arts, and is currently a trumpet instructor for the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School district. Members of her studio have studied at Baylor University, The Frost School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Arizona State University, Eastman School of Music, UW Madison, George Washington University and are consistently awarded music scholarships and performance opportunities.

Mr. Douglas J. Brown

Douglas J. Brown, a native of Middleton, Wisconsin, earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. While there, he studied percussion with John Beck, Bill Cahn, and Ruth Cahn. He has performed professionally in and around the Rochester area, as well as in Wisconsin where he was Acting Principal Percussionist of the Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra.

During his time at Eastman, Mr. Brown established a series of music outreach events for inner-city schools, collaborating with the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra. Brown has taught general music at the Urban Choice Charter School in Rochester, New York, as well as Early Childhood Music at the Eastman Community Music School.

In 2008, he began his Masters at Louisiana State University, studying Wind Conducting as a student of Frank Wickes. During his time at LSU, Mr. Brown served as a graduate conducting associate with the Symphonic Band, Symphonic Winds, and the Wind Ensemble, as well as a teaching assistant with the LSU Tiger Marching Band. Mr. Brown was an assistant student conductor with the Eastman Wind Orchestra, Eastman Wind Ensemble, LSU Big Band and Chamber Jazz Ensembles, the LSU Percussion Ensemble, as well as resident conductor for the LSU Horn Choir in their performance at the Southeast Regional Horn Conferences.

Mr. Brown is in his seventh year as Director of Jazz Studies, Percussion Ensemble, Hip Hop Education, and Co-Director of the Middleton High School Band Department. During Brown's tenure, the MHS Jazz Program has hosted world-renowned guest artists who have engaged in music education and provided students with the inspiration to continue making music an important part of their lives. Guest artists have included Ali Jackson and Victor Goines from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Wayne Bergeron, Carl Allen, and Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Allen Vizzutti with whom the band toured Japan.

For the past five years, Mr. Brown’s percussion class has competed at the Percussive Arts Society International Competition in the chamber ensemble division, solo marimba division, rudimental snare competition, and solo timpani division. Students have earned scholarships for world-renowned festivals, colleges, summer music clinics and are earning acceptance into the nation’s top musical institutions.

Mr. Brown has had the opportunity to work with a diverse group of composers and arrangers throughout his conducting and performance tenure, including Joseph Schwantner, Bill Conti, Steven Stucky, John Mackey, Rolf Rudin, Mark Scatterday, Donald Huntsberger, and Frederick Fennell. He has also had the pleasure of working with many solo artists including Bill Cahn, Bob Becker, Nexus Percussion Group, Kroumata Percussion, Brian Shaw, Brett William Dietz, and Halie Silverman.

He most recently attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he worked with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. After the completion of this program, Mr. Brown organized and conducted a high school ensemble performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City and a side-by-side with musicians from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He also attended the Essentially Ellington Band Director Academy in NYC as well as the Hip Hop in the Heartland Summer Institute. In 2019, Mr. Brown participated in the OUSD African American Male Achievement Symposium to engage in transformative schooling discussions for African American Boys k-12.

In 2020, Brown was selected as a Kohl Fellow, Middleton Education Foundation Grant Recipient, Melvin F. Pontious Creative Sparks in Music Education Award winner, Mimic Grant recipient, and was nominated for The Grammy Music Educator Award, Crystal Apple Award and Wisconsin Educator of the Year. As an up and coming Hip Hop Educator, Mr. Brown is serving on several nationally recognized Education Boards in New York City and the Bronx as well as the Hip Hop Round Table for Little Kids Rock a non-profit music curriculum company that reaches over 10,000 schools and the Universal Hip Hop Archive to develop the National Standards for Hip Hop Music Education. In 2021 he will speak at the National Council for the Social Studies Convention on Cross Curricular Teaching in Music and SocialStudies and is currently a guest Lecturer at St. Cloud University. Mr. Brown’s Hip Hop studies and teachings have inspired Middleton High School to now offer both Hip Hop Evolution Courses as well as the Hip Hop Co-Op. Under his direction and vision MHS houses a full state of the art recording studio and Hip Hop Classroom with 15 individual DJ Stations for students to create, record and produce music. In the October 2021 print edition of the School Band and Orchestra Magazine, Brown and Dr. Michael Dando co-authored a publication titled Flipping the Script on Music Education: Hip Hop in the Classroom.

Email: dbrown1@mcpasd.k12.wi.us

Mr. Michael Ver Voort

Michael Ver Voort is in his eighth year of teaching music at Middleton High School. As Co-Director of Bands, Mr. Ver Voort is actively involved in the concert and chamber ensembles, marching band, pep bands, jazz bands, and music production. He also was recognized by the University of Chicago for excellence in teaching and mentorship as an Outstanding Educator in 2018.

During his time at Middleton High School, the Band Department has seen many changes, including an overhaul of concert ensembles, jazz bands, pep bands, marching band, and general music instruction. The program has grown by several hundred members and has welcomed two new full-time band directors to the team.

In addition to four curricular band classes and an orchestra class, Mr. Ver Voort oversees the operations of the band department and is dedicated to the success of each student. During the fall semester, concert ensembles break out into chamber ensembles and spend a considerable amount of time focusing on individual and small group instruction taught by a team of artistic staff who specialize on a specific instrument. Members of MHS Bands participated in over 850 events at the WSMA Solo and Ensemble Festival in 2019 and will be sending many qualifying events to the state level festival this spring. Mr. Ver Voort instructs the award-winning clarinet choir as well as other chamber wind groups.

Outside of the high school, Mr.Ver Voort maintains a small trumpet studio, containing students that have been accepted into the National Trumpet Competition, earned scholarships for festivals, colleges, and summer music clinics. He also performs with several local ensembles on trumpet, tuba, trombone, and clarinet.

“Coach Mike” also serves as an assistant coach for the school’s men’s swim team. This past year the team took second place at the WIAA State Conference.

Email: mvervoort@mcpasd.k12.wi.us