Music Directors
Of the Vienna Community
Band
Melvin Paul Kessler
Music Director
Melvin Paul Kessler, Lieutenant Commander, USN (Ret.) is a native of Imperial, PA and received a bachelor's degree in trumpet performance from Carnegie Mellon University, a music education certificate and masters degree in trumpet performance from Duquesne University, and a masters degree in conducting from Florida State University.
Currently he is the Musical Director and Principle Conductor for the National Concert Band of America, and maintains a busy schedule as a music consultant, clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator through-out the United States.
At the time of his retirement he was the Director of the U.S. Naval Academy Band, Annapolis, MD. His previous duty stations were; Fleet Bandmaster FLEET FORCES Band, Norfolk, VA, Associate Conductor/Executive Officer U.S. Navy Band, Deputy Director U.S. Navy Music Program, Director Navy Band Mid-South, Assistant Director Atlantic Fleet Band, and as a trumpet instrumentalist and soloist with the U.S. Navy Band, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Kessler was the first member of the U.S. Navy Band in over 40 years to be commissioned a Fleet Bandmaster. In addition to performing with the U.S. Navy Band, he has been a member of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, Fairfax, VA, Principal trumpet with the Tidewater Winds, Norfolk, VA, Principal trumpet with the McKeesport Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh, PA and performed with the Pittsburgh, Maryland and Virginia Symphony Orchestra, as well as Opera Memphis. He has also performed for such notable artists as Barbara Mandrel, Mac Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bob Hope, as well as Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and the Ice Follies.
He has taught in private and public schools and was the Band Director at Waynesburg College, Waynesburg, PA. Mr. Kessler has appeared as a soloist with colleges and secondary schools in Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. He has served as a choir director in Pittsburgh, PA, Burke, VA, Millington, TN, and Annapolis, MD.
Mr. Kessler has appeared as a guest conductor/clinician for county, regional, and state bands in the Mid-Atlantic States. He has also conducted the Florida State University Wind Ensemble, Germantown Symphony Orchestra, Memphis, TN, George Mason University Concert Band, Carnegie Mellon University Wind Ensemble, Robinson High School Band, Fairfax, VA, Kempsville High School Band, Virginia Beach, VA, and Lincoln High School Wind Ensemble, Tallahassee, FL.
He studied conducting at George Mason University with Anthony Maiello and at Florida State University with Dr. James Croft. His trumpet teachers include Anthony Pasquarelli, Carnegie Mellon University and Charles Hois, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
His awards include the Meritorious Service Medal (three gold stars), Navy Commendation Medal (gold star), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (gold star), Meritorious Unit Commendation Medal (five awards), Good Conduct Medal (three awards), and National Defense Service Medal (three awards) and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.
Contact Mr. Kessler by clicking here.
Katherine Wilson
Associate Director
Katherine Wilson is in her second season as the Associate Conductor with the Vienna Community Band. She received her Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and her Master of Music Performance in trombone from the University of Southern Mississippi. She taught high school band in the school systems of Lafayette, Louisiana, and in Atlanta, Georgia. Her performance experience includes jazz and orchestral ensembles including the Atlanta Lyric Theatre Orchestra, the Acadiana Symphony, the Meridian Symphony and The United States Air Force Band of Flight as the bass trombonist and vocalist.
Roger M. Firestone
Composer In Residence
A Washington, DC native, Roger M. Firestone nevertheless grew up from the age of 1 year in St. Paul, Minnesota, and began his musical education there at the age of four, studying piano with Agnes Lisowsky in St. Paul, MN. Mrs. Lisowsky passed away in late 2005 at the age of 99, teaching voice and piano almost to the end.
Dr. Firestone selected the flute as his wind
instrument in elementary school, studying with Shirley
Stettner Jackson and John Nyberg from the fifth grade
into high school. High school was also
where he first studied composition and orchestration,
under band director Fred Daniels, who also provided
instruction on French horn, clarinet, and percussion to
Dr. Firestone. Peter Lisowsky, Agnes' late
husband, also offered advice and guidance in
orchestration principles; Peter was the founder and
long-time conductor of the St. Paul Center Orchestra.
Dr. Firestone performed instrumental music through high school, in college with the Brown University Band, in graduate school with two orchestras and one band at New York University, and there after with such groups as the St. Paul Center Orchestra (under Dr. James Sample, Peter Lisowsky having passed away by that time), the Yu'val Chamber Orchestra in Minneapolis, the St. Thomas College Band (St. Paul), the Ambler (Pa.) Symphony, The Philadelphia Doctors' Symphony, the Lower Merion (Pa.) Symphony, the Merion Musical Society Band, and the Philadelphia JYC Orchestra. While living in St. Paul, during and after graduate school, Dr. Firestone studied privately with Emil Opava, principal flutist of the Minnesota Orchestra (1935-1944 and 1953-69).
After moving to Northern Virginia in 1987, Dr. Firestone served as a temporary replacement with the Mclean Symphony under Dingwall Fleary, and later that year joined the Vienna Community Band in a 3rd Flute chair, playing that year's Father's Day concert "cold."
The development of music scoring software facilitated music arrangement and composition even more than word processing software did for writing, and that led Dr. Firestone to take up composing and orchestration again, in the late 1980s. Early software did not support the number of instruments in a concert band, so he concentrated on material for chamber groups, particularly the wind quintet. Some of these were performed by members of the Vienna Community Band when a wind quintet was organized for a brief period. Others were heard more recently in the form of duets for flute and oboe, also performed by Vienna Community Band musicians.
As later software with the capacity for handling large scores became available, Dr. Firestone turned to works for band. The first of these to be performed by the Vienna Community Band was an arrangement of the third movement of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's concerto for trumpet. A number of other works have followed in recent years, both arrangements of works by other composers not commonly heard in the band setting (such as vocal pieces by Ludwig Lewandowski) and original compositions ("Day of Light, Day of Joy," "Dawson Masonic March," "Hornpipe for Fat Cats").
Dr. Firestone holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Brown University, master's and doctor's degrees from New York University--Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.
Dr. Firestone has served as Musician of Henry Lodge No. 57, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Virginia since 1990, and was appointed General Grand Musician of the General Grand Council of Cryptic Masons, International for the 2002-05 Triennium. He is the author of articles on the relationship between music and Freemasonry, notably "Mozart's Other Masonic Opera," discussing the Masonic elements of Mozart's "Abduction From the Seraglio", which has been widely reprinted.
Dr. Firestone has also performed in the "pit" for a number of musical theater productions (in the Twin Cities, Philadelphia area, and northern Virginia), while his vocal skills have seen him on the "boards" for more than three dozen musicals, dramas, comedies, and two films. He is listed in Marquis' Who's Who in America.