Our Faculty - Music

Chi-Ju Juliet Lai, clarinet, is an active chamber and orchestral musician, as well as pedagogue.  A native of Taiwan who later resided in Hong Kong, she came to America in 1989 to pursue her musical studies.  She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance from Boston University, a Master's in Music from Yale University, and a Bachelor's in Music from Rice University.  She also attended Interlochen Arts Academy and is an alumna of Blossom Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival.  Her teachers include Thomas Martin, David Shifrin, Deborah Chodacki, Phillip Rehfeldt and David Peck.

Since coming to Boston in 1999, Miss Lai has been an active freelancer and has appeared in performances with many local as well as national and international orchestras, including Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Tyrol Symphony Orchestra in Austria, and local orchestras such as Cape Symphony Orchestra, New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, Glenn Fall Symphony, Gardner Chamber Orchestra, Eastern Connecticut Symphony and ALEA III.  As an avid chamber musician, Miss Lai is a founding member of Boston Octet and Anemoi Quintet.  Previously, she appeared with the United Woodwind Quintet in a concert tour to Japan where she also taught master classes.  She is also a former member of Xanthos Ensemble, a contemporary chamber ensemble.

Miss Lai is currently the clarinetist in Vento Chiaro and the second/assistant clarinetist in Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.  She is a faculty at Phillips Exeter Academy, College of the Holy Cross and Bridgewater State University.  As a member of Vento Chiaro, she is also an artist-in-residence at Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) and at The Rivers School Conservatory.

David Vess is a New England-based composer, conductor and musician. His music has been characterized by a sensitivity to sonority and unrelenting energy. The Brockton Enterprise described the premiere of his work, Ignite, as "a real barnburner." Vess' music has been commissioned and performed in the US, Canada, Italy and Japan. David is a fierce advocate for new music, having conducted numerous premieres in the Boston area. He made his operatic debut by conducting the world premiere of Greg Nahabedian's chamber opera ‘War is a Racket’. He has served as music director at Opera @ the Smith, in Lexington, NC as well as having served for 3 years as a guest conductor for the Boston Conservatory's Contemporary Ensemble, leading them in an concert of new works by student composers. As a tubist, David enjoys a varied stylistic career. He studied with renowned soloist Øystein Baadsvik at the Canadian Music Festival Le Domaine Forget. He is the principal tubist of the Brockton Symphony Orchestra. Originally from Asheville, North Carolina, David holds degrees from the Boston Conservatory and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He is on staff at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. When not doing something music related, David enjoys learning about the Alexander Technique, hiking in NH and reading David Mitchell. He lives in Foxborough, MA.

Dr. Jerome Mouffe is on faculty at Bridgewater State University and New England Conservatory of Music. Dr. Mouffe has concertized throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Highlight performances include recitals for Omni Concert Series in San Francisco, Austin Classical Guitar, International Brussels Guitar Festival, Festival del Noreste in Saltillo, Mexico, and Boston GuitarFest, among others. He frequently performs with guitar phenomenon Grisha Goryachev and Pacific Symphony Orchestra principal flute, Benjamin Smolen. Jerome Mouffe has released his debut solo album, Capriccio, on the VGo Recordings label in 2009, and recently released a chamber music album, Bach to Beaser, with Benjamin Smolen. Dr. Mouffe was the first guitarist to receive a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from NEC. In 2017, Dr. Mouffe became the artistic director of the Boston Classical Guitar Society.

Rachel Daly received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in horn performance and Masters of Arts degree from Columbia University, Teachers College in music education. She studied horn under David Jolley, William Brown, Laura Klock and George Lessard. Rachel also studied conducting with Dino Anagnost from the Little Orchestra Society of Lincoln Center.

Specializing in chamber music, Rachel is the founding member and Director of Hornithology Ensemble performing recitals, private and corporate functions. Hornithology Ensemble has received many grants over the last eight years from the Massachusetts Cultural council for school, summer and community programs. Rachel is an active freelancer in the New England area and has performed with many of the area professional orchestras, chamber groups and musical theater orchestra pits.

Rachel, a native of southeastern Massachusetts, is deeply committed to music education, teaching horn and coaching chamber music to area middle and high school students. Her students are regularly selected to participate in the Southeast and Central District Music Festivals, Massachusetts All State Festival, All Eastern Music Festival, Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Worcester Youth Symphony, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and New England Conservatory Preparatory Groups.

Along with a home studio, Rachel teaches at lessons programs for King Philip Regional School and most recently Foxboro Public Schools. She is also a visiting lecturer at Bridgewater State University teaching both horn, Introduction to Western Classical Music and Music Fundamentals along with being a horn instructor at Boston College.

Rachel resides in Foxboro Massachusetts with her husband Glenn and two children.

Elana Lorance received a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Masters of Education degree with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction within the Creative Arts from Lesley University.  In 2001, Ms. Lorance joined the staff of the Norwood Public Schools as an instrumental music teacher, and is responsible for the instrumental program in three elementary schools.  In addition to her school schedule, Ms. Lorance founded and directs an extra-curricular town-wide honor band.  The Norwood Public Schools Fifth Grade Honor Band has received numerous awards and medals at state festivals and has been a featured ensemble at the Massachusetts All-State Music Conference, both in concert and clinic.

Ms. Lorance has studied oboe with UMASS faculty member Fred Cohen, Frank Charnley of the Boston Ballet, and most recently Barbara Lafitte of the Boston Ballet and Boston Pops.  An active free-lance musician in the Greater Boston area, Ms. Lorance is equally comfortable playing musical theater as she is with classical repertoire.  She has played over 75 musicals with area theater companies, and is currently in her ninth season with the Metropolitan Wind Symphony, where she plays principal chair.  Ms. Lorance has been a featured soloist with the Symphony in 2004 and again in 2012.

James Hay has a Graduate Performance Diploma (with Distinction) in Collaborative Piano from Longy School of Music.  Previously, he studied Piano Performance at New England Conservatory of Music.  His piano teachers include Wayman Chin, Yoriko Takahashi, and Gabriel Chodos.  He has performed in Master Classes with Aube Tzerko, Victor Rosenbaum, Joan Panetti and Warren Jones.  He was Music Minister at St. Basil's Chapel in Bridgewater, Organist at Universalist Unitarian Church of Brockton and Studio Accompanist at the Voice Studio of Lin Schuller.  Presently, he is on the faculty as both Part-Time Faculty and Staff Accompanist at Bridgewater State University and as Staff Accompanist at UMass Dartmouth.  He is Accompanist of the Jubilate Chorale, Bridgewater State University Chorale, and UMass Dartmouth Chorale and Organist at First Baptist Church and Pearl Street United Methodist Church in Brockton.  Mr. Hay is the Resident Accompanist for the McClosky Institute of Voice and an accompanist for Mass Theatrica.  He is also the Recital Accompanist for several voice studios in Southeastern Massachusetts.  He has performed at the Music Mansion in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Mr. Hay was a winner of the Longy School of Music Honors Competition in 2006.

Mary Jo Running has been serving as an adjunct professor for Bridgewater State University since 2009. She is currently in her tenth year as director of the Norwell Middle School music program.  Before coming to Norwell, Mrs. Running taught elementary, middle school and high school Band and General Music in the suburbs of Minneapolis, and in Salem (OR), where her groups were consistently awarded for superior performances at local and state festivals.  She received her bachelor’s of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire in 1996 and a master’s in Education (Music Emphasis) from the University of Minnesota in 2006. She is currently the Vice President for the Southeastern Massachusetts School Bandmasters Association, and has served as the Southeast District Junior Jazz Ensemble Manager.

After graduating from UMass Lowell, Roy Campbell toured for two years with the stage orchestra for "Milton Berle's Vaudeville Tour."  He returned to Boston to play for Concerts in Black and White, the Handel Haydn Society, and Boston Pops "Adventures in Music" under Newton Wayland.  He became second trombonist with the Boston Opera Company under Sarah Caldwell and house trombonist for the Colonial Theater.  Roy was also house trombonist for the Cape Cod Melody Tent and performed frequently with the South Shore Music Circus, the North Shore Music Circus, and the Braintree and Saugus Chateau de Ville.  For several years he performed as principal trombonist with the L.A. Opera A La Carte on their New England tours.  Roy is presently principal trombonist with the Cape Cod Symphony.  Other orchestras Roy has been or is a member of are the Simon Symphony, the Indian Hill Symphony, The Nashua Symphony, the Manchester Symphony, and the New Bedford Symphony.  He has conducted shows for Bridgewater State University, Ohio State University at their summer home on the Cape (the Monomoy Theater) at the Harwich Jr. Theater, and Sandwich High.
Roy's teaching positions have included Brown University, Norwood High School, Weymouth High, Dennis/Yarmouth Regional, South Shore Conservatory, and Cape Cod Conservatory.  As pianist, Roy is accompanist for Leslie Loosli, a frequent soprano recitalist and formerly a performer of opera in New York.

Vocalist and conductor, Ed Milham currently serves on the faculties of Bridgewater State University and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, teaching various general studies courses, voice class and studio voice.

An active concertizer, he has performed as a vocalist with LiveARTS, the Franklin Performing Arts Company, the Lowell Opera Company, the Merrimack Valley Broadway Ensemble, the Savoyard Light Opera Company, the Newport Music Festival and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.  As a conductor, he has served as director of Swanhurst Chorus, and Interim Director of the Bridgewater State University Alumni Choir, has worked as music director in several area churches, and has taught conducting clinics for the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network.  He has toured in Russia and Eastern Europe, and Scotland and England.

In addition to his vocal and conducting activities, Mr. Milham is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger.  He plays bass and sings in the rock band The Strattones, gigging regularly around South County, Rhode Island.  A dedicated computer geek, he serves as Technology Consultant and Coordinator of Social Media Activities for the Bridgewater State University Music Department.  He also does extensive work in the field of graphic design and digital printing.

Maryte Bizinkauskas began her operatic vocal training at the Boston Conservatory of Music where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Opera Performance under the guidance of John Moriarty and Iride Pilla.  She acquired her Master of Music in Opera Performance under the tutelage of Boris Goldovsky at the esteemed Curtis Institute of Music and National Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions.  She performed in concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City and went on to apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera.  She has performed leading roles at the Vilnius Opera and Kaunas Music Theater in Lithuania and performed lead roles in German and Canada.  She has been a guest artist with the Kaunas Philharmonic Orchestra, South Jersey Symphony, Brockton Symphony and Boston Bel Canto Opera.

Her most recent performances include an October benefit concert for the Knights of Lithuania New England District Scholarship Fund and a benefit concert for the Baltic-American Society of New England.

Ms. Bizinkauskas teaches Voice Class I and Voice Class II as well as Performance Studies Voice at Bridgewater.  She is also a member of the Bridgewater State University Music Scholarship Committee. 

Ms. Bizinkauskas follows the lead of her father, the late Dr. Peter A. Bizinkauskas, at Bridgewater State University, where he ran the Reading Lab for 20 years.  Her sister, Veronica (Bizinkauskas) Cote is a faculty member of the Aviation Department at Bridgewater.  Her other family members include her mother Veronica, a retired nurse, daughter Vilija, who studies in the Coordinated Program in Nutrition at Framingham State University, Dr. Paul Bizinkauskas of Hyannis, Attorney Peter M. Bizindauskas of Duxbury and the late Andrew Bizinkauskas of Weymouth.