The staff and faculty of the North Florida Music Camp are made up of University of North Florida Faculty, Guest Faculty, and qualified college music students.

Guests

Mr. Kenneth Boyd
Mr. Kenneth Boyd is in his third year as Director of Bands at West Orange High School in Winter Garden, Florida. Prior to teaching at West Orange, Mr. Boyd was director of Bands at Olympia High School and Memorial Middle School. Mr. Boyd also served as Associate Director of Bands at University High School with Dr. Jim Smisek and Mr. Rhett Cox. He earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Central Florida where he studied education and conducting with Dr. Richard Greenwood and Trumpet with Dr. John Almeida. The instrumental music program at West Orange High School features numerous performing ensembles. The Warrior Marching Band is comprised of 240 of the most talented students at West Orange. The members of the Warrior Marching Band also comprise three concert bands, three jazz bands, numerous percussion ensembles, Odyssey Winter Guard, and the Indoor Drum Line. Ensembles led by Mr. Boyd have consistently earned Superior Ratings at District and State Music Performance Assessments. Mr. Boyd was the 2007 recipient of the Kessler Award for excellence in teaching fine arts. Mr. Boyd’s professional affiliations include the Florida Bandmasters Association, the Florida Music Educators Association, the International Trumpet Guild, and Phi Mu Alpha. He is currently Chair of the Performing Arts Department at West Orange and the coordinator for the Orange County All-County Symphonic Band.

Ralph Ford
Ralph Ford (b. 1963) is Director of Bands and Professor of Music at Troy University (AL). A native of Panama City, Florida, he has served on the university faculty in numerous areas of expertise since 1986, working mainly as the assistant director, arranger and theory instructor. Since 2001, Professor Ford has been the conductor of the Troy University Symphony Band and Chamber Winds, as well as the director of the nationally renowned “Sound of the South” Marching Band. His compositions and arrangements for band have been commissioned and performed by middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional bands worldwide. He currently serves as an exclusive composer-arranger for the Belwin division of Alfred Publications, a position he has enjoyed for over a decade. Currently, he has over 175 publications for concert band, orchestra, jazz ensemble, and marching band available worldwide. Professor Ford has served extensively in the United States and Canada as a composer, arranger, conductor, clinician, technology consultant, and adjudicator. Outside of the field of music education, he has composed, recorded, and produced music, jingles, and 3D graphic designs for radio, television, and video productions. He has won numerous “Addies,” as well as recognition and awards from various agencies and international associations for his creative work in the media field. His active professional memberships include the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters Fraternity, Music Educators National Conference, the National Band Association, the Troy Rotary Club, Phi Mu Alpha, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma, Sigma Alpha Iota, and Delta Chi, among others. Professor Ford has received the Outstanding Artist Award from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. He has participated in articles discussing the incorporation of electronic instruments into the modern wind ensemble and was recently a featured composer in an interview for the series Teaching Music through Performance in Band, Vol. 7. In March 2009, he was elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. He is married to Amanda Ford and they reside in Troy with their daughters, Melanie and Abby.

Asa Jernigan
Asa Jernigan is in his 26th year of teaching and the 7th year as director of bands at Mandarin Middle School. Mr. Jernigan is a native of Waycross, Georgia. He graduated from Waycross High School, and received his Bachelor of Music Education from Troy University where he was a member of “The Sound of the South” marching band. Mr. Jernigan taught two years in Alabama before coming to Florida. He taught at Hilliard Middle Senior High School for five years, Fernandina Beach Middle School for twelve years (where he also assisted with the Fernandina Beach High Schools’ “Mighty Marching Pirates”), and is currently Director of Bands at Mandarin Middle School in Jacksonville, Florida. He is in high demand as clinician and adjudicator throughout the state. He was the recipient of the “Tom Bishop Award,” a three time recipient of the “Five Year Superior Award” (consecutive), as well as “Teacher of the Year” at FBMS. His professional affiliations include FBA, MENC, NFIMA , ASBDA, and was recently inducted into Phi Beta Mu. He has also served as All County Co-Chair for Nassau County, All District Band Co-Chair, District Secretary & District Chairman for FBA District 17, and also served on the FBA State Board for four years. Asa and Laurie, his wife of 18 years, currently reside in St. Johns, Florida.

James Massol
James Massol holds a BM in bassoon and a MM in both bassoon and music history from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, and he is currently a doctoral candidate in bassoon performance and pedagogy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. During the 2007–2008 academic year he studied classical bassoon repertoire and performance practice at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship, for which he received a Konzert Diplom. His primary teachers have been William Winstead, Yoshiyuki Ishikawa, and Albrecht Holder. He has performed with the Colorado Ballet and Kentucky Symphony and has also given recitals in Germany and Italy. In addition to his performing, he is active in research, with articles accepted to the The Double Reed and a new edition of Mozart’s Sonata K. 292 to be published by Accolade in 2010.

Vann Thornton
A native of Wayne County (Jesup), Georgia, Vann Thornton graduated from Wayne County High School in 1977, and received his Bachelor's and Master’s Degree in Music Education from Troy State University. Vann has taught band in Bacon County, (Alma) Georgia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, Dougherty High School (Albany, GA), Tift County Junior High School (Tifton, GA), Tiftarea Academy (Tifton, GA), Lowndes High School, Colquitt County High, served as adjunct faculty at Abraham Baldwin College (Tifton), and is now the Fine Arts Coordinator and Director of Jazz Studies at Tift County High School in Tifton, GA. His Jazz, Marching, & Concert Bands have consistently achieved superior ratings over his 25+ years of teaching. Vann has worked as an adjudicator and as a clinician for concert, marching, and jazz band for many years. Vann has also served as an arranger for the U.S. Air Force’s Tops in Blue worldwide touring group, has written originals and arrangements for many different formats including church choir, orchestra, jazz band, marching band, concert band, rock, R&B, and country artists, and has written the music for a CD he and his wife released in 1999 entitled This Man of Mine. Vann currently writes music for his own internet publishing company, Red Door Music, and performs professionally throughout the south. Vann is married to Marlene Bowen of Tifton, and has five children, Billy Thornton (29), a Jazz Bassist in Jacksonville, FL; SSgt Lynzey Thornton (27), and wife Melissa Buckley (of Sylvester) a C-130 Loadmaster stationed at Dyess AFB in Abilene, TX; Westley (26), an actor and teaching assistant at New York Film Academy in Los Angeles, CA; and Bowen (13), an aspiring young musician as well.

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Learn more about the Department of Music at the University of North Florida.