Axe ’Em, Jacks!
Dr. Alexander Amato
Dr. Alexander Amato joined SFA's School of Music in fall 2014 and his research interests include:
- Schenkerian theory and analysis
- Hindemith's analytical technique
- musical narrative
- theory pedagogy
- the history of music theory from 1600 to 1900
- and analysis of the music of Ottorino Respighi.
He has presented at international, national, and regional conferences.
Amato earned his bachelor's degree in composition and music theory at Michigan State University, his master's in music theory at University of Arizona, and his PhD in Music Theory at University of North Texas.
Carlos Gaviria
Carlos Gaviria, a native of Cali, Colombia, began his musical education at the Conservatorio Antonio Maria Valencia. While in Cali, Gaviria joined the Orquesta Simfónica del Vallés, where he spent three seasons performing as a bass section member.
Gaviria came to the United States on a scholarship to study at the University of North Texas, where he completed his bachelor's and master's degrees in music. While at UNT, he worked as a teaching assistant to the world-renowned bass teacher Jeff Bradetich.
He's currently a member of Symphony of South East Texas and has performed regularly with many ensembles, including the symphony orchestras of San Angelo, Abilene, Irving, Plano, University of North Texas and University of Houston. He also has been a member of festival orchestras, including the American Institute of Musical Studies orchestra in Graz, Austria, and the Texas Music Festival Orchestra.
As a music theorist, Gaviria's areas of research include the music of Alberto Ginastera. He published a thesis on the use of the guitar chord by Ginastera and gave a lecture on the topic at the Latin American Composers Conference in 2009.
Many of his students have been placed in All-State orchestras and have gone on to be accepted into music programs at major American universities.
Gaviria is a dedicated pedagogue and was active as a bass instructor in the Dallas and Houston areas for several years. He has taught at the Abilene Summer Music Festival and at the Bradetich Annual Summer Bass Camps since 2009, and he has presented master classes at UNT and UT Panamerican.
Additionally, Gaviria has taught music theory and ear training classes at the University of North Texas and the University of Houston. He currently resides in Houston, where he maintains a full private teaching studio. Gaviria joined the faculty of SFA's School of Music in 2012.
Dr. Cody Hunter
Dr. Cody Hunter earned his bachelor's degree in music education from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, his master's degree in music from the University of MN-Twin Cities and his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Memphis. His primary bassoon teachers were Dr. Patricia Holland, John Miller, Norbert Nielubowski and Lecolion Washington.
Hunter joined SFA's School of Music in 2022 teaching bassoon and music theory. He also is the bassoonist with the Stone Fort Wind Quintet.
Prior to his appointment at SFA, Hunter served as assistant professor of music and director of fine arts at Mayville State University and lecturer of bassoon at North Dakota State University. Additionally, Hunter taught for East Hardy schools in West Virginia and Harding University in Arkansas.
He has presented at music education conferences in West Virginia and South Dakota on pedagogical aspects of the bassoon and has a webinar available through the National Association for Music Education titled "Bassoon for Band Directors." His article "History and Current Use of Bassoon Speaker Keys" was published in the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors journal in the spring of 2021.
As a bassoonist, Hunter has performed with:
- the Memphis Symphony
- Arkansas Symphony
- Symphony Orchestra Augusta
- Fargo-Moorhead Symphony
- Eroica Ensemble of Memphis
- and served as Principal Bassoon with the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra.
He was a finalist for the 2021 American Prize in professional instrumental performance and the recipient of the Musik Link "International Sounds" fellowship, a program supporting community outreach and engagement through bassoon performance.
An advocate for new bassoon works, Hunter has commissioned and premiered pieces by Alex Manton, Adam Berndt, Lindsey Wiehl and Daniel Baldwin. In addition to performing for the 2021 International Double Reed Society Virtual Symposium, he also premiered the bassoon version of "Crepusculos" by Jose Elizando at the 2022 International Double Reed Society conference in Boulder, Colorado.
As a soloist, Hunter performed the Mozart bassoon concerto with Sinfonietta Memphis in 2017 and Villa-Lobos' Ciranda das Sete Notes with the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra in 2022.
Dr. Samantha Inman
Dr. Samantha Inman earned a bachelor's degree in music with a concentration on music theory and flute performance from Baldwin-Wallace College, a master's degree in music with a concentration in music theory from the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music and a PhD in music theory from University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music.
Prior to joining SFA's School of Music faculty, she taught at the University of North Texas. Her research interests include form, Schenkerian analysis, music theory pedagogy and the music of Haydn and Bach.
She has presented at national and regional conferences including the Society for Music Theory, Pedagogy into Practice, and the Texas Society for Music Theory. Her publications appear in:
- Theory and Practice
- the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy
- BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute
- and Haydn: The Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America.
Dr. Stephen Lias
The music of adventurer-composer Dr. Stephen Lias is regularly performed in concert and recital throughout the United States and abroad by soloists and ensembles including the Arianna Quartet, the Anchorage Symphony, the Oasis Quartet, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, the Ensamble de Trompetas Simón Bolívar, the Boulder Philharmonic and the Russian String Orchestra. His music is published by Alias Press and distributed worldwide exclusively by Theodore Presser. His pieces are regularly featured at major national and international conferences including the International Trumpet Guild, the North American Saxophone Alliance and the International Society for Contemporary Music World Music Days. Lias served for eleven years as Composer in Residence and Music Director at the Texas Shakespeare Festival.
His passion for wilderness and outdoor pursuits has led to a sizable series of works about the national parks of the United States. Lias has served as artist-in-residence at Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Denali, Glacier Bay, Bering Land Bridge and Gates of the Arctic National Parks, and has written over a dozen park-related pieces that have been performed in such far-flung places as Colorado, New Hampshire, Texas, Alaska, Sydney and Taiwan. In 2017, his "All the Songs that Nature Sings" was commissioned by the Boulder Philharmonic with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and performed at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Lias is the creator of The Composers Site (now operated by Vox Novus) and the founder and leader of the annual Composing in the Wilderness program offered by the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival and Alaska Geographic.
Lias received degrees from Messiah College, SFA and Louisiana State University. He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the College Music Society, the Society of Composers, Inc and the American Composers Forum, and is the Texas delegate to the International Society of Contemporary Music. He currently resides in Nacogdoches, where he is professor of composition at SFA. When not composing and teaching, Lias enjoys reading, backpacking, kayaking, skiing, travel and photography.
Showcased works
Dr. Ben Morris
Dr. Ben Morris is a Texas-based composer and jazz pianist whose music tells unconventional stories and crosses genre boundaries. He earned his bachelor's degree in music composition at University of Miami, master's degree at Rice University and his Doctor of Musical Arts in music composition at University of Colorado Boulder.
Morris's creative work and research is inspired by his Norwegian heritage. He lived in Oslo, Norway, on a Fulbright Grant composing a work for extended big band and video and received an American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant to research the influence of folk music on Norwegian jazz.
His debut album, "Pocket Guides," was released in June 2022 on Origin/OA2 Records and takes elements from Norwegian folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music. The album garnered him two Downbeat Awards, an ASCAP Herb Alpert Award, a big band commission from New York Youth Symphony's First Music and an invitation to perform with his quintet at Newport Jazz Festival.
Also a versatile film, theatre and opera composer, Morris scored the documentary films "American River," which premiered at Montclair Film in 2021, and "Saving the Great Swamp: The Battle to Defeat the Jetport," which won best documentary at the 2017 New Jersey Film Festival.
A frequent collaborator with librettist Laura Fuentes, he premiered a 20-minute opera, "Las Auténticas," for the Washington National Opera American Opera Initiative, presented a multimedia opera, "The Fall of Man and Other Tales," at the ATLAS B2 Black Box and is currently working with Fuentes on commissions for Glimmerglass Opera and Art Song Colorado.
Morris seeks opportunities to write for unique ensembles that blur established genre expectations. He has worked with:
- American Composers Orchestra
- Aspen Contemporary Ensemble
- Jazz at Lincoln Center trombonist Vincent Gardner
- Unassisted fold
- NOW Ensemble
- Imani Winds
- Boulder Altitude Directive
- The Living Earth Show
- Playground Ensemble
- and the NDR Big Band.
He has been a composer fellow at music festivals and workshops including:
- Aspen Music Festival
- American Composers Orchestra Jazz Composers Institute
- Red Note Festival
- Sibelius Academy Creative Dialogue
- New Music on the Point
- International Gugak Workshop
- highScore
- Source Song Festival
- and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival.
His concert music has received accolades including an ASCAP Morton Gould Award and the International Society of Bassists Composition Contest Grand Prize.
Showcased works
Dr. Kristen Nelson
Dr. Kirsten Nelson received her Bachelor of Music in bassoon from West Texas State University, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in bassoon and music theory from The University of Georgia. Her bassoon instructors have included Bruce Hammel, Tina Carpenter and William Davis.
While in Georgia, Nelson performed with the Macon Symphony Orchestra, Augusta Symphony Orchestra and South Carolina's Greenville Symphony Orchestra. She also has performed at:
- Texas Music Educators Conventions
- International Double Reed Society Conferences
- and the National Association of Collegiate Wind and Percussion Instructors Symposium.
She joined the SFA faculty in 1997 and has been the principal bassoonist in the SFA Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Stone Fort Wind Quintet. She also has performed with the Longview Symphony Orchestra.
Nelson is a member of the:
- Texas Music Educators Association
- International Double Reed Society
- National Association of Collegiate Wind and Percussion Instructors
- Mu Phi Epsilon
- Pi Kappa Lambda
- and Phi Kappa Phi.
Kayla Roth
Kayla Roth teaches music theory and ear-training courses. Originally from Lufkin, she is a graduate of Lufkin High School.
Roth earned her bachelor's degree in percussion performance at SFA, where she studied percussion with Dr. Scott Harris and music theory with Dr. Kirsten Nelson. She earned her master's degree in music theory from Texas State University, where she studied with Dr. Nico Schuler and Dr. Kevin Mooney. Her independent studies focused on popular music theory and recording techniques, culminating in her thesis, "Son of Beatles: A Historical and Analytical Study of the Music of Electric Light Orchestra," which studied the salient aural traits of the band and analyzed both the theory of the music and technical aspects of the recording processes used.
She has composed and arranged pieces for solo instruments and chamber ensembles. "Loblolly" premiered at the 2017 Tuba-Euphonium Conference of the Rockies, and, after her participation in the 2018 Composing in the Wilderness field course as part of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, "Terrae Borealis" premiered at Federal Hall in New York City. Roth also won second place in the Falcone Festival's 2020 call for compositions with "Modal Suite for Solo Euphonium." She is published with Cimarron Music Press and Atticus Sounds Publications.
Roth grew up playing guitar(s), drum set and singing with her siblings and other local rock bands, and later worked as a pianist, drummer, guitarist and vocalist at audience-driven and all-request in sing-along piano venues across Texas, Florida and Arkansas.
Dr. Jamie Weaver
Dr. Jamie Weaver holds a Bachelor of Music from Brigham Young University and a Master of Music from Texas Christian University, specializing in vocal performance and pedagogy. She earned her PhD in music history, with a secondary area in vocal performance from the University of Oregon.
As the recipient of an International Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship, Weaver conducted her dissertation research in Bologna, Italy, exploring compositional ethics of composers in Florence and in northern Italy during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She continues to perform actively with early music and contemporary music ensembles.
Dr. Jenna Sehmann
Dr. Jenna Sehmann is an assistant professor of oboe and music history. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in oboe performance and pedagogy from the University of Iowa, Master of Music in oboe performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Music in music performance and music industry from Eastern Kentucky University.
Prior to joining SFA in fall 2023, she served as instructor of double reeds and music history at Southeast Missouri State University, an oboe faculty member at Cornell College and oboe faculty member at Mount Mercy University.
Sehmann performs regularly with SFA’s Stone Fort Wind Quintet, principal oboe in the Longview Symphony, and English horn and substitute oboe with the Shreveport Symphony.
Additionally, she has performed with the Quad Cities Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Dubuque Symphony, Paducah Symphony Orchestra, Ottumwa Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Evansville Philharmonic and the Bach Ensemble of St. Thomas. Sehmann has also performed in orchestral and chamber music settings at the Bay View Music Festival, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Marrowstone Music Festival, Taneycomo Festival Orchestra, Trentino Music Festival, and Sault Ste. Marie Opera Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Sehmann is the oboist and director of operations of the Wild Prairie Winds. The mission of the Wild Prairie Winds is to promote the performance, education and accessibility of chamber music through diverse programming and creative concert settings. In addition to performances throughout the Midwest, the group serves as artists-in-residence at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory in Milford, Iowa.
In addition to performing, Sehmann has developed and taught several musicology courses and completed her secondary area studies in musicology (ethnomusicology emphasis) during her doctoral degree. Her research focuses on literary connections and narrative in instrumental music. This research can be found in her doctoral capstone project, which features recordings of works for oboe inspired by literature. This project highlights two of Sehmann’s greatest interests: oboe performance and theatrical literature and performance. Sehmann was named the sole recipient of the 2020 Sigma Alpha Iota Doctoral Grant to further her studies on this subject. Sehmann has taught several workshops designed to help music educators incorporate female composers and musicians into their curriculum, including at the SHE Festival for Women in Music and the Sigma Alpha Iota National Convention.
Sehmann is a nationally recognized and awarded member of Sigma Alpha Iota, honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma, and is the marketing coordinator for the Midsouth Regional Chapter of the International Double Reed Society. She plays on a Howarth XL CocoJazz oboe and Loree English horn.
Chance Moore
Chance Moore is an adjunct faculty member. Moore earned an Associate in Music from Angelina College in 2013, and a Bachelor of Music from Stephen F. Austin State University. While at SFA, he began teaching guitar, ukulele and songwriting through SFA’s Music Preparatory Division.
In 2017, upon receiving an assistantship to work for the music theory and sound recording technology areas, Moore continued his studies at SFA at the graduate level, majoring in music composition and theory. He also began playing guitar for the First United Methodist Church of Nacogdoches and for Abundant Life United Methodist Church.
During his graduate studies, Moore studied abroad for a semester in Australia at the University of Tasmania, where he had the first international premiere of an original work. In spring 2019, he was inducted into the Pi Kappa Lambda national honor society for music. He received a Master of Music in 2019.
Moore moved to Houston in 2019 where he taught music for various private schools and after-school music programs, including Writers in the Round, Xavier Academy, Texas School of Music and Fusion Academy of Sugar Land. While at Fusion Academy, he rebuilt the music program and became department head of electives. He also served as adjunct professor of applied guitar and bass at Lone Star College-North Harris from 2023-25.
In addition to working miscellaneous freelance gigs and private commissions, he routinely played with the contemporary praise band for Christ Church Sugar Land, helping lead worship, play guitar, piano, bass and banjo.
He returned to East Texas in 2025 to teach at Angelina College, SFA and SFA’s Music Prep.
Contact the School of Music
Call: 936.468.4602
Visit: Wright Music Building, Room 150
schoolofmusic@sfasu.edu
Faculty and Staff Directory
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 13043, SFA Station
Nacogdoches, Texas 75962