Institute People

Thomas Brooks
Co-Director and Professor of Music

B.M. Houghton College
M.M. New England Conservatory
Artist's Diploma, Hartt School of Music

As a conductor and clinician, C. Thomas Brooks has performed throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, including such venues as Carnegie Hall in New York City, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Hall of Five Hundred in Florence.

In 1971 he founded and conducted the Mercyhurst College Choir and Chamber Singers, and in 1972 was named conductor of the Symphonic Singers of Erie, Pennsylvania, posts he held until 1974. In 1974 he moved to the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, where he conducted the Hartt Chorale, the Collegiate Singers, the Hartt Touring Opera Theatre and the University Civic Chorus and Chamber Choir. While in Hartford, Professor Brooks also conducted the Arts in Unison Bel Canto Opera Company, Connecticut Light Opera on the Sound, the America's Youth in Concert Program, and was cofounder and musical director of the New Lyric Theatre.

Gregor Thuswaldner
Co-Director, Co-Editor of Symphilologus

B.A. University of Salzburg, Austria
M.A. University of Vienna, Austria
Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Gregor Thuswaldner co-directs the Salzburg Institute of Gordon College and is Associate Professor of German and Linguistics and a Fellow in Gordon’s Center for Christian Studies. From 2006 until 2012 he chaired the Department of Languages and Linguistics. A native of Salzburg, Austria, he studied German and English at the University of Salzburg, Bowling Green State University, the University of Vienna (Mag. phil.) and received his Ph.D. in Germanic Languages from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Thuswaldner has published three books and numerous articles on Christoph Martin Wieland, Thomas Bernhard, Michael Haneke, Michael Scharang, Stanley Hauerwas, literary theory, linguistics, German and Austrian literature, culture, politics, and religion. His articles and book reviews have also appeared in German, Austrian, and American newspapers, such as Salzburger Nachrichten, Die Furche, Die Zeit, and The Salem News. He also co-edits the Symphilologus Yearbook of the Salzburg Institute. In 2006, he received Gordon’s Distinguished Junior Faculty Award.

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE:

Stan Ford

B.M. Southern Illinois University
M.M. Southern Illinois University
ABD, University of Salzburg

Stan Ford, Professor of Piano at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, equally at home in solo and chamber music and accomplished as well in the fields of musicology and pedagogy, is a native of St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville where he majored in piano performance, chamber music, pedagogy, and music education and graduated with highest distinction in 1982 under the tutelage of Ruth Slenczynska.

As a recitalist, Mr. Ford sets great store by presenting well-conceived, challenging programs, for which he also does in-depth music history research. In addition to regularly being invited to conduct international master classes, Professor Ford balances a very busy teaching schedule with solo and chamber music concerts throughout Europe, North and South America and parts of Asia. He has also become well known through numerous public TV appearances, radio broadcasts and publications as well as performing at famous culture and music festivals including the Bregenz and Salzburg Festivals.