Staff

Russell Steinberg is a Los Angeles-based composer, conductor, pianist, and educator. Fanfare magazine described Trio Accento’s recording of his American contemporary piano trio PALEFACE on Albany Records as “galloping cowboys to folksongs and hymns, film noir and pulp fiction…it all coheres beautifully; and it is fun, too.” The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra recently premiered his new dramatic overture Diminished Resistance. Three commissioning orchestras— the New West Symphony in Los Angeles, the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore—premiered Steinberg’s orchestral tone poem Cosmic Dust, a musical work featured in Science News Magazine for the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. His Daniel Pearl Foundation commission Stories From My Favorite Planet based on Pearl’s Wall Street Journal articles, has received numerous performances and the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey annually programs Steinberg’s Hanukkah fantasy Lights On!

Steinberg is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, an ensemble that attracts students from over 70 LA-area schools and recently (June 2022) performed the Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in Carnegie Hall. Steinberg is passionate about music education. He is a popular preconcert speaker for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and offers lecture series virtually on Zoom. In 2022 as a response to the pandemic, he created Russell’s Classical Consortium, a unique Patreon fan base community of classical music lovers who learn together and participate in online concerts, lectures, and Monday Classical Listening Hangouts.

Steinberg holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University with Pulitzer prize-winning composer Leon Kirchner, an M.M. from the New England Conservatory with Arthur Berger, and a B.A. summa cum laude from UCLA with Elaine Barkin, Roy Travis, and Paul Reale. His early instrumental and composition teachers were Dorothy Compinsky (piano, classical guitar, violin), Kenneth Klauss (composition), Earle C. Voorhies (piano), Salome Arkatov (piano), and Ron Purcell (classical guitar).

Information about Steinberg’s music, lectures, and Patreon is available at www.russellsteinberg.com

Jorge Padrón is a doctoral student at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music where he is working toward his DMA in music teaching and learning with emphases in instrumental conducting, musical theory, and arts leadership. He has taught teacher preparation courses at USC and Pepperdine, was a site conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA program, and directed the district-wide honors orchestra for The Harmony Project.

Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Jorge was the orchestra director at Miami Palmetto Senior High School. He taught orchestra classes along with elective guitar courses, AP Music Theory, and sponsored the high school’s chapter of Mu Alpha Theta (the national mathematics honor society). As a result of his work in the educational community, he was recognized by the Village of Palmetto Bay and the Miami-Dade County School District for his “exemplary public service.” He has also served on the editorial committee of the American String Teacher Journal and is preparing publications for both Action, Criticism, and Theory and the Music Educator Journal.

Jorge has worked in various educational settings, including starting after-school strings classes at local elementary schools in South Florida, beginning a band program at Camino Nuevo High School near downtown Los Angeles, and assisting with mentoring and training music teachers through USC’s Thornton Community Engagement Program. Jorge is also an active clinician and adjudicator for the Florida Orchestra Association, as well as a few other district music festivals in South Florida.

Jorge holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. While at the Frost School, he studied clarinet with Margaret Donaghue, violin with Scott Flavin, and harpsichord with Frank Cooper. At USC Thornton, he currently studies conducting with Larry Livingston and Jacob Sustaita.

Elise Dewsberry Green has had a varied career as a singer, actor, and director in the musical theatre world; as well as bookkeeper, retail store manager, legal secretary, and website designer in the business world. She is currently also the Artistic Director of New Musicals Inc. in North Hollywood, a non-profit organization that works with bookwriters, lyricists, and composers in developing new musicals. Elise is also the wife of LAYO Cello Coach, Stephen Green.

While living in Toronto, Elise served as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Muskoka Festival; the Co-Ordinator of the festival’s annual Musical Theatre Writer’s Colony, the Associate Dramaturge of the Canadian Stage Company; the Resident Dramaturge of the Smile Theatre Company; and was the co-founder of Toronto’s Script Lab. Elise spent many years touring Canada with Nine Months – a one-woman musical which she commissioned from writers Carl Ritchie and Stephen Woodjetts. Elise and Carl also co-wrote Any Body Home?, which was produced by the Cordova Bay Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia, and published by Dramatic Publishing. Elise is also the author and evaluator of the Book Lab and the Outlining Lab, offered online through www.writingmusicaltheatre.com, and publishes a monthly vlog on the craft of musical theatre available at https://nmi.org/elises-video-blog/.