Dr. Amanda Quist is the Director of Choral Activities for the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She directs the graduate program in Choral Conducting and is conductor of the award-winning Frost Chorale. Under her direction, Frost Chorale has been invited to perform with the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, with the Martha Mary Concert Series, in collaboration with professional ensembles Voces8 and Seraphic Fire, and has been featured on wwfm.org, The Classical Network. Dr. Quist created the Seraphic Fire Scholars program, and conducting internship partnerships with the South Florida Master Chorale, and the Miami Children’s Chorus.

Dr. Quist has served as Chorus Master for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Spoleto Festival. Her choral preparations have been highly praised by the New York Times, Charleston City Paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and New York Classical Review. Under Quist’s direction, “The Philadelphia Symphonic Choir acquitted itself admirably in the fiendishly difficult music. The chorus’ energy never flagged in the great fugues, which conclude both the Gloria and the Credo. The latter, so fast and furious, that it left the audience breathless.”

Dr. Quist was previously Chair of the Conducting, Organ, and Sacred Music Department, and Associate Professor of Conducting at Westminster Choir College. She is the recipient of Westminster Choir College of Rider University’s 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, the 2018 Mazzotti Award for Women’s Leadership, and the Carol F. Spinelli Conducting Fellowship. Her ensemble, Westminster Kantorei, won first place in the 2018 American Prize for College & University Choral Performance, has performed at the American Choral Directors Association’s (ACDA) Eastern Division Conference, Boston Early Music Festival, American Handel Festival, and Interkultur. The choir released its first commercial recording in 2017, Lumina, distributed by Naxos. During her work with the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Dr. Quist collaborated with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dresden Staatskapelle. Dr. Quist was Director of the Westminster Vocal Institute, a highly regarded summer program for talented high school students, and Director of Choral Activities at San José State University.

Dr. Quist’s other honors include the James Mulholland National Choral Award and the Audrey Davidson Early Music Award. She regularly conducts high school and collegiate honor choirs across the United States, and Dr. Quist is invited to headline conferences and serve as a guest lecturer in the United States and abroad. She was invited to be a conductor for the ACDA International Exchange Program, clinician for the 2019 ASPIRE International Youth Music Festival in Australia, juror for the Penabur International Choir Festival in Indonesia, and clinician for the Interkultur International Choral Festival. Dr. Quist was a founding member of the committee for the National ACDA Student Mentor program, and serves as the National ACDA Repertoire & Resources Coordinator for Collegiate Activities, and her choral series are published through Walton Music and Gentry Publications.

Dr. Tim Brent is a musician who's work is "beautiful, awe-inpspiring and strikingly original" (Arts Atlanta). The recipient of 9 DownBeat Magazine awards as a vocal jazz educator, pianist, arranger and performer. Tim is the chairperson for the Performing Arts & Industries Department at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus and is active as a composer and performer working regularly as a vocalist and pianist. He has performed and/or recorded with such names as, Bobby McFerrin, Mel Torme, Ingrid Jensen, Brian Lynch, Ed Calle, Dick Oatts as well as latin Grammy award-winner Obie Bermudez.

As a composer Tim's works are best described as "wonderfully energetic" (Charleston Post and Courier). He has had compositions, arrangements and orchestrations premiered by such groups as the Westminster Choir, the West Shore Chorale, State University of New York Pottsdam, Kansas State University and Western Michigan University Gold Company.

As an educator, Tim has held positions as the director of vocal jazz studies at the University of North Texas, The University of the Arts, Northern Illinois University, and Miami Dade College. He was the Eastern Division American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Repertoire and Resources Chair for Commercial/Contemporary music and served on the board as the Higher Education Co-Chair for the New Jersey Association for Jazz Education (NJAJE).

Tim received his bachelors degree in choral music education from Western Michigan University where we studied with iconic vocal jazz educator Steve Zegree. He earned his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Miami where he studied with the legendary jazz educator Larry Lapin.

As a guest clinician and artist, he frequently works with high school and college vocal groups around the country. Tim has presented interest sessions at state music education conventions, the Eastern Division National Association for Music Education (NAfMe) Conference, as well as the National and Southern Division ACDA conferences.

In 2017 Tim released is first solo album On the Sunny Side. This collaboration with 12 talented and gifted artists resulted in ten original, creative and unique interpretations of the jazz standard repertoire.

His music can be found in the Vocal Music Store and is also published by Hal Leonard, GIA Publications, Sheet Music Plus, and MusicSpoke.

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