Meet the Conductor: Jonathan May
Jonathan May is currently in his tenth season as Artistic Director of the Florida Young Artists Orchestra. He has worked with young musicians for the past 26 years and has developed orchestras throughout the United States including Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, and Florida. In the summer of 2001 he conducted the Florida Young Artists Orchestra in a successful tour of Italy, which featured performances in Milan, Fiesole and the Academy of Music at Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also led young musicians in concert tours of England, Scotland, Australia and Austria. And he’s just been named artistic director of the Music Academy at Schloss-Ort, in Austria.
An active clinician, he is regularly featured as an All-State conductor, and is a frequent conductor of large regional string festivals. He is an active advocate for arts education and has served on the National Board of the Youth Orchestra Division of the American Symphony Orchestra League. In addition, he has served on the Board of the state chapters of the American String Teacher's Association in Minnesota, Tennessee and Florida.
May maintains a busy teaching schedule. Besides his commitment to developing Flagler County’s youth orchestral program, he is currently developing string programs at Trinity Preparatory School in Orlando, Park-Maitland Elementary School and Daytona Beach Community College. In addition to his exceptional work in the Orlando area, he is also the Music Director of the Central Florida Youth Orchestra in Lake County and the Daytona Beach Youth Orchestra in Daytona Beach. May holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education from Augustana College. He holds a Master of Music degree in violoncello performance from Colorado State University, and has done additional graduate work toward the Doctor of Music Arts degree in orchestra conducting from the University of Washington.
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Jack Jeffe
Flagler Youth Orchestra Violin and Viola Educator
Jack Jeffe was born in Buffalo, New York in 1940. He took up the violin at age 10, and three years later was studying with Fred Ressel, the principal violist of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Jeffe switched to the viola in his sophomore year of high school, majoring in the instrument at Fredonia State Teachers College in New York and performing with the college symphony in an honors recital and earned a Bachelor’s degree in 1963 and a Master’s degree in 1971 in music education.
Jeffe taught band and orchestra instruments for 35 years in Orchard Park Central Schools, a district a few miles southeast from Buffalo. He taught violin and viola lessons in his home most of those years, conducted the Erie County Orchestra and Band three times, was the principal violist of the Orchard Park Symphony (a civic orchestra) for 20 years, and in the 1960s became certified in the Suzuki method of teaching violin. He taught in the Orchard Park Suzuki violin program for many years.
Jeffe retired in 1998 but continued to teach private lessons until he and his wife, Tina, became snowbirds in 2001. The Jeffes live in Plantation Oaks in Flagler Beach, and he has once again developed an active schedule of private students. He is also currently a member of the Choral Arts Society Chamber Orchestra.
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Justin McCulloch
Flagler Youth Orchestra Strings Educator
Justin McCulloch began his life in music at the age of 6 after bugging his parents to give him violin lessons for a year. At the age of 11, McCulloch joined the school music program in South Carolina and was encouraged to play the violin with the advanced ensembles and learn the double bass (because of his big hands) with the rest of the group. Throughout middle and high school he participated in All-State programs on both instruments. McCulloch attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY where he studied with James Van Demark and earned a degree in double bass performance and a Certificate in Music Leadership from the Catherine Filene Shouse Institute for Music Leadership. McCulloch interned with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra during his senior year and helped develop the “Music Educator Award Brunch” in recognition of Rochester’s music teachers.
He received his Masters in Music from Duquesne University after studying with Jeffrey Turner, Principal Bassist of the Pittsburgh Symphony. McCulloch has performed with the Erie Philharmonic, the Canton Symphony, and the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. He currently performs with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and the Southwest Florida Symphony. McCulloch is also an avid chamber music performer and private music teacher in the central Florida area.
McCulloch enjoys reading all types of books, working out and dancing salsa. He is fluent in Spanish and is very active in his church, where he served as a missionary for two years.
