Brass Camp Faculty
Instructors
Dr. Allyson Keyser, Director
Allyson Keyser is a tenured Professor of Music at SUNY Schenectady County Community College where she instructs the trumpet studio, coaches brass ensembles, teaches core music classes, directs the Wind Ensemble, and is the Brass Department Chair. Dr. Keyser received her B.M.E from Virginia Commonwealth University and her M.M. and D.M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she was the trumpet teaching assistant for five years. In 2017, Dr. Keyser won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to her appointment at SUNY Schenectady, Dr. Keyser taught trumpet, theory, aural skills, and coached brass ensembles at Virginia Commonwealth University as a sabbatical replacement for her former professor, Rex Richardson. She also performed as principal trumpet of the Richmond Brass Consort, Commonwealth Winds, Richmond Symphonic Winds, Richmond Philharmonic, Greene City Brass Quintet, and played regularly with Market Street Brass Quintet. Her past trumpet teachers include Gary Gompers, Rex Richardson, Ed Bach, and Julius Schaikewitz.
Dr. Keyser currently performs as principal trumpet in the Capital Region Wind Ensemble, SUNY Schenectady Concert Brass Quintet, Albany Pro Musica, and often performs with the Albany Symphony, Schenectady Symphony, and Glens Falls Symphony in addition to several local concert bands. She often presents trumpet masterclasses and conducting workshops at schools such as the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, Virginia Commonwealth University, Hartwick College, Skidmore College, NYSSMA, NYSBDA, CASDA conference, as well as to area high schools and middle schools.
During the summer of 2015 Dr. Keyser entertained patrons at the Saratoga Race Course as a bugler for their summer season, including the famous Traver’s Day, and at Belmont Racetrack. She has been featured as a soloist with the Richmond Brass Consort, the Capital Region Wind Ensemble, the Johnstown Civic Band, the Memorial Concert Band of Colonie, the Schenectady Unitarian Society, First Reformed Church of Schenectady, and was featured with Rex Richardson at SUNY Schenectady’s 45th Anniversary Gala. Dr. Keyser performs as an active freelance musician and maintains a trumpet studio of all ages and levels in the Capital Region of New York. Her specialty is working with students who have technical or physical challenges on the instrument, and helping them learn to play with ease so they can fully enjoy making beautiful music.
Jacob DiMirra
Jacob DiMirra is currently an Elementary Band and Orchestra Director in West Hartford Public Schools. Mr. DiMirra is a recent graduate of University of Saint Joseph, where he earned an M.A. in Education with a concentration in Multiple Intelligences Theory. He graduated from University of Hartford’s The Hartt School in May 2020 with a degree in Music Education. During his time at Hartt he studied trumpet with Phil Snededcor. Before attending The Hartt School Mr. DiMirra earned an A.A. degree in Trumpet Performance with Dr. Allyson Keyser at SUNY Schenectady County Community College in Schenectady, New York. While attending SUNY Schenectady he was a regular guest musician with Empire State Youth Orchestra in addition to performing with Capital Region Wind Ensemble and Albany Pro Musica.
Mr. DiMirra serves as the Woodwinds and Brass Coach for Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestra’s Philharmonic and Virtuosi Orchestras. He is also a regular guest soloist and guest conductor at The First Church of Christ in Simsbury, Connecticut and an active free-lance musician. While not teaching or performing, Mr. DiMirra enjoys spending his summers in NY’s Capital Region spending time with family and hiking the Adirondack Mountains.>
Dylan Canterbury
Dylan Canterbury is a trumpeter, composer, and transcriber with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, the Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra, the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra, the Empire Jazz Orchestra, Keith Pray's Big Soul Ensemble, the Phil Allen Concert Jazz Band, and Cliff Brucker and Full Circle, among many others.
He has more than 40 original compositions and transcriptions published by Jazz Lines Publications, where he works as an editor, was the winner of the Anthony Newman Award, and has studied trumpet with Jon Faddis, Jim Rotondi and Ray Vega.
Dylan graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Jazz Studies from SUNY Purchase.
Katy Svatek
Kathryn Svatek is a horn player and private teacher in the Albany area. An active orchestral and chamber player, she regularly performs with Albany Pro Musica, Burnt Hills Oratorio, Broad Street Chorale, Glens Falls Symphony, Capital Region Wind Ensemble, and is third horn in the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra. She is also a member of the Albany-based woodwind quintet, Quintocracy, which seeks to make chamber music accessible to everyone by providing performances to audiences both in and out of the concert hall, and by collaborating with other artists for some of their performances. Quintocracy has been the recipient of multiple grants to fund projects such as Berus in the Woods (premiered May 2022), which combined music with narration and shadow puppets, and the upcoming performances of Nosferatu in the fall of 2022, for which the group will perform a newly composed score (commissioned by Quintocracy) to accompany the silent film.
Equally passionate about teaching and performing, Svatek has been teaching privately for 10 years. She is currently the adjunct horn instructor at SUNY Schenctady, and has maintained a private studio out of her home in Loudonville since 2016. Prior to that, she co-founded Rural Soul Studio in 2012, where she taught private lessons on all band instruments in addition to piano, guitar, and ukelele. She is also certified in First Steps in Music, an early-childhood music education curriculum, and taught preschool music from 2012-2019, as well as infant and toddler classes at Rural Soul.
A native of upstate New York, Svatek earned her Bachelor’s degree in music education from the Crane School of Music, then continued on to her Master’s degree in horn performance at Michigan State University. She currently resides in Loudonville with her family and maintains Svatek Music, her private lessons studio.