Our Artistic Designers

Dan Trahey, Executive Director, Tuba

Daniel Trahey is a musician, educator, innovator, and social entrepreneur. He co-created Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s “OrchKids” program, and founded the El Sistema-inspired program “Tuned-In” at the Peabody Institute where he teaches creative composition and community engagement. Dan plays Tuba for the Archipelago Project and the Austria based RET Brass Band and has performed worldwide for hundreds of thousands of children, specifically targeting impoverished areas with little access to live performance.  

Dan is a consultant for programs desiring to use music as a vehicle for social change. He has helped start El Sistema-inspired programs in places such as Charlotte, Chicago, Ft.Worth, Innsbruck, Allentown, Waterbury, Alexandria, Kalamazoo, and Miami. Over the past decade, he has developed a vehicle for nurturing youth voice called Collective Composition, facilitating large-scale compositions with organizations around the world. Dan holds a M.M. from Yale and a B.M.E from Peabody.

Garrett Mendez-Artistic Director, Trombone

Garrett Mendez is the Director of the Performing Arts at King School, in Stamford.  Additionally, he is the founding Artistic Director of Project Music, an intensive after-school program for underserved youth. As an active performer, Garrett tours with Archipelago around the world and is currently the bass trombonist with the Bridgeport and Waterbury Symphonies. He has played with prestigious ensembles throughout the Midwest such as the Detroit Chamber Winds and performed with groups including the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Sigmund Romberg Orchestra, and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. An active educator as well as a performer, Garrett has been the Adjunct Professor of Trombone at Albion College in Albion, MI, as well as serving as a sabbatical replacement for Elliot Chasnov’s University of Illinois Trombone Studio in 2005. Garrett has an ABD in Musical Arts from the University of Illinois, and has received Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Trombone Performance and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Armand Hall, Education Director, Reeds

Armand Hall is Executive and Artistic Director of the ROCmusic Collaborative in Rochester, NY. This program is designed to offer access to access instrumental music instruction for students in Rochester. Armand Arrived in Rochester from the University of Memphis, where for six years he was Associate Director of Bands and Coordinator of Instrumental Music Education. Dr. Hall has taught, adjudicated, and been a clinician at the middle school and high school levels, in addition to collegiate teaching, and worked as a teaching artist in El Sistema-inspired community music programs around the country. It was a trip to Acarigua Portuguesa, Venezuela as a guest artist in 2009 with Roberto Zambrano created a paradigm shift in his teaching and purpose; this experience solidified his desire to work in El Sistema-inspired community work. He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Wind Conducting from Michigan State University. As a conductor and clarinetist, Dr. Hall is very interested in the pedagogy “how” and purpose “why” we teach, ready to help anyone explore how to be more passionate and effective in the music we make together.