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Adjudicators

Events  /  Heart of Carolina  /  Adjudicators
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Chief Judge

Richard Holmes
Richard Holmes received his Bachelor of Music Education from Winthrop University in 1989 and his Master of Music Education from Appalachian State University in 2000. He is currently in his his twenty-seventh year of teaching. Mr. Holmes is currently the Director of Bands at Southwest Middle School in Charlotte, NC. Some of Mr. Holmes' professional affiliations include, North Carolina Music Educators Association, Music Educators National Conference, American School Band Directors Association, North Carolina Bandmasters Association, South Central District Bandmasters Association. Mr. Holmes is currently serving as Treasurer and Webmaster for the South Central District and as the Immediate Past President for the North Carolina Music Educators Association and is a Past President of the North Carolina Bandmasters Association. Some Mr. Holmes’ personal honors include receiving the 2004 Award of Excellence from the South Central District, being recognized by Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 from nominations of former students. Mr. Holmes has also served as a clinician for several All-County Honor Bands in North Carolina. He has also served as a judge for marching band contests and concert band festivals in North Carolina and Virginia.

Music Effect

Joel Denton

Mr. Joel L. Denton has served as Director of Bands at Ooltewah High School for the past thirty-six years. Under his direction, the Ooltewah Band has achieved a national reputation for musical excellence. For his work at Ooltewah and his leadership for bands in Tennessee and across the nation, Mr. Denton received the Legion of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation at the 2015 Midwest Clinic. He has served as Chair of the Fine Arts at Ooltewah from 1982 to present. He has been selected five times as the Ooltewah Teacher of the Year. The Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts has twice honored him for outstanding teaching. His professional affiliations include NAfME, TNMEA, ETSBOA, Phi Beta Mu, NBA, ASBDA and TNBA. Mr. Denton currently serves as the TN State Chair for the NBA, Past President of the Tennessee Bandmasters Association and is a Past-President of the East Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association. He has served as the State Legislative Delegate and Advocacy Chair for TNMEA and serves on the Tennessee State Department of Education’s Fine Arts Student Growth Committee. He is active as an adjudicator, clinician, and consultant for bands throughout the nation. He has affiliation with Music for All/Bands of America, Drum Corps International, and has presented at regional, state, and national conferences including NAfME, TNMEA, ETSBOA, and several universities. Mr. Denton also works with band prog rams and other organizations on developing leadership and teambuilding skills. To further impact music programs with this training, Music for All has invited Mr. Denton to coordinate and help create a Peer Teaching Division for the National Summer Symposium in the summer of 2017. Mr. Denton and Kerry, his wife of thirty-three years, have two children, Alex, who is the Assistant Director of at Cleveland High School, TN and Caroline, who is a Language Arts/Social Studies teacher in the Metro Nashville Schools.
Ted Mascari
Ted Mascari has been involved in all aspects of percussion since 1980 as a performer, educator and arranger and is considered one of the top marching percussion minds in Upstate New York.

He graduated from Cicero-North Syracuse High School in 1988. Ted holds an AAS from Onondaga Community College and a Bachelor of Science and Music from Syracuse University.  Over the past 25+ years, he has directed and arranged for several marching band and indoor percussion programs in NY, he served most recently as the Director and Music Designer for Victor High School Percussion, a NYSPC/WGI Scholastic A percussion ensemble finalist, from 2006-2014, winning 8 State Championships between indoor and marching band. He has and still is involved with quality programs like ESM, Jordan Elbridge, Oswego, Webster, Mohonasen and Central Square. He is very proud of the many students from these high schools who have gone on to march in top Drum Corps (DCI/DCA), WGI drum lines and go on to teach. He is often sought out for private instruction and consultation.

Ted's drum corps instructional career began in 1993 with the Syracuse Brigadiers, then Rochester Crusaders from 1994-1996. In addition, Ted has served as Percussion Coordinator, Percussion Arranger and Consultant for the Empire Statesmen All Age Drum and Bugle Corps from Rochester, NY, where he served from 1997-2012. He also works with the Kidsgrove Scouts since 2010, DC United Kingdom and 2015 DC Europe Champions as percussion advisor and currently holds the title of Percussion Arranger for the NY Skyliners since 2016. Ted has been strongly influenced through past experiences with Chris Calhoun, Chris Thompson, Joseph Guadagnino, Thom Hannum, and Colin McNutt. 
Ted has a newly appointed position serving as the Judging Coordinator and Education Director for the New York State Percussion Circuit. He is an adjudicator for marching band, indoor percussion and color guard in circuits throughout Pennsylvania, Michigan, Utah, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina Denver and NY. He is also an endorser for, and on the educational team of Innovative Percussion, Ludwig-Musser Percussion and Zildjian Cymbals. Ted Currently lives in Webster, NY with his wife Sara and their twin boys Christian and Mason.

Music Performance - Ensemble

Brad Kerr Green
Brad Green is the music arranger for the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band stationed at Langley AFB in Hampton, VA. His works for concert band are published through Print Music Source. He is the Brass Arranger & Brass Caption Supervisor for the Oregon Crusaders Drum & Bugle corps. 

His compositions and arrangements have been performed by many educational institutions & world class organizations - including Troy University, the University of North Texas Concert Band, Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra Wind Symphony, the Orange County Independent Winds Ensemble, and many high school concert bands, marching bands, indoor winds, and drum and bugle corps across the United States.

Mr. Green has designed high quality soundtracks for many competitive winter guard programs, including Flanagan World Guard, Pride of Cincinnati, and Braddock World Guard.

Mr. Green was a performer, conductor, and supervisor for the Tony Award and Emmy Award winning production Blast! - Original London Cast, Broadway, First National Tour, and The Power of Blast in California. 

After his nearly 5-year period with Blast!, he worked with many world-class drum & bugle corps as a brass instructor/brass caption head, including the Blue Knights, the Santa Clara Vanguard, the Blue Stars, the Madison Scouts, and the Oregon Crusaders.

Brad completed his master's degree from Troy University (AL) and his BA with honors from The New School (NY). 

Music Performance - Individual

Steve Calhoun
Steve Calhoun has been a music educator, clinician, consultant and adjudicator for over 30 years.  He is a graduate of Jacksonville State University, the University of West Georgia and Lincoln Memorial University. His bands have won numerous awards locally, nationally and internationally, and have performed in Ireland, Australia, and twice for President Ronald Regan.  He has judged the finals for DCI, DCA, WGI, BOA, Drum Corps Japan, ISSMA, USSBA, MCBA, KMEA as well as many other local and regional shows.  He has served as judge administrator for the Southeastern Color Guard Circuit, Drum Corps South, and is currently the percussion judge administrator for SAPA, Brass consultant for Atlanta CV Drum and Bugle Corps and Visual designer for Reinhardt College Screaming Eagle Marching Band.

Visual Performance - Ensemble

Sue Nicholson
Sue Nicholson graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Music Education degree. Mrs. Nicholson taught instrumental music for 13 years in Mississippi and 17 years in the Florida panhandle. While in Mississippi, Mrs. Nicholson helped lead the way for the Pearl High School Band to become nationally known at Bands of America competitions, where they consistently were finalists at regional competitions, including 2 time finalists at Grand Nationals. The Pearl Band is the first, and still one of only two Mississippi bands to be named Overall Grand Champions at a Bands of America Regional. Sue and David together received the Phi Beta Mu Most Outstanding Bandmasters award for Mississippi in 1983. Sue was twice on the staff of the Mississippi Lions All-State Band, including the band’s 1982 three-week tour of South Africa, where the Lions Band performed a field show eight straight evenings at the Durban Military Tattoo.

While in Florida, Sue taught band in Okaloosa and Walton Counties, first at Max Bruner Middle School, the feeder program for the nationally acclaimed Fort Walton Beach High School Band. She also started the instrumental music program at the Seaside Neighborhood School, Seaside, FL (one of Florida's first Charter Schools) and taught there 7 years. While at Seaside, Sue received the Enrollment Award at FMEA for having over 70% of the school's enrollment participating in band. The band consistently earned Superior ratings at district FBA music performance evaluations. Her Seaside Jazz Band accompanied contemporary jazz saxophonist Jeff Kashiwa at the Seabreeze Jazz Festival, and Ellis Marsalis at the Seaside Jazz Festival.  

Sue has judged marching bands and winter guards throughout the United States for 31 years, including marching band state championship finals in 8 states. She is a member of Phi Beta Mu, Florida Bandmasters, MENC, Gulf Coast Judges Association, and was a WGI adjudicator in General Effect and Equipment for 28 years. This past Spring, Sue was inducted into the Gulf Coast Judges Association Hall of Fame. 

Sue moved back to Mississippi in February, 2014, where she now works as a representative for Fear Nothing Music Gear, consults and teaches locally with 2 High School Bands, while continuing to judge nationally.  Sue’s top priority is helping with her two grandsons, Daniel and Joseph Kieffer of Tupelo, MS.

Visual Effect

Richard Kemp
Richard has been active in the pageantry activity since 1968. He was a member of the color guard of the Cavaliers Drum & Bugle corps. Upon aging out, he went into instructing and taught many local bands in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, as well as the Cavaliers drum corps. While teaching, he became interested in judging and went through training to become a winter color guard judge. He later expanded into fall marching band judging as well as drum corps adjudicating. He was a national judge for Winter Guard International for thirty years as well as BOA. He is currently on the Judge Liaison Visual team for Drum Corps International. He was a founding member of the Midwest Judges Guild, where he serves as their treasurer. He was the chief judge of the Midwest Color Guard Circuit for 15 years. Richard holds a BS degree from Loyola University of Chicago.

Percussion

Greg Shull
Greg Shull just retired from PurrCussion, the official drumline of the Carolina Panthers, in which he co-founded nearly 10 years ago. 

Greg has judged for the Carolina Indoor Performance Association, Atlantic Indoor Performance Association, Carolina Winter Ensemble Association, North Carolina Bandmasters Association, and many other outdoor marching competitions.  He has also judged multiple rounds of auditions for one of the NFL’s premier dance and cheer squads, the Carolina Panthers TopCats.

For thirteen years, Greg toured the United States teaching percussion and marching camps with Superior Marching Camps Enterprises.  He was the assistant band director at Butler High School for 8 years and has invested many instructional/consultation hours into various band programs throughout the Carolinas.  Greg was a co-founder and director of Constitution, an independent percussion ensemble that competed in Winter Guard International’s “World” classification.

Many years ago (well, not that many), Greg performed with Carolina Thunder, an earlier ensemble that also competed in WGI’s percussion “World” class. He now spends the majority of his time with his lovely wife, Amy and daughter, Reagan. Greg holds a Bachelors of Science degree in business administration, a Master’s in educational leadership, and is working on his doctorate in organizational leadership.

Color Guard

Shannon Proctor-Nystrom

Ms. Shannon Proctor-Nystrom is a graduate of NCSU with a BS in Business Management and a graduate from Meredith College with a teaching license in Dance K-12.  She has been teaching dance and guard for over twenty years with various schools such as Wakefield HS, Cape Fear HS, Corinth Holders HS, South Granville HS, and Scotland HS.  She was a guard performer for many years with groups such as Blessed Sacrament Winter Guard, The Study Winter Guard, Carolina Visual Productions Winter Guard, and Carolina Gold Drum and Bugle Corps.   

Shannon Proctor-Nystrom is in her 14th year working for Wakefield HS in both Dance and Color Guard.  She is the current Caption Head of the Wakefield Color Guard and Winter Guard programs. Throughout her teaching and design, the winter guards have grown to a national level achieving WGI World Championship Finalist positions four times, semi-finalist positions seven times, and being the first Wake County guard to be promoted into Open Class.  Her biggest achievement is showing her love of the activity to  her students who have continued with their guard careers in groups such as Pride of Cincinnati, Blessed Sacrament, First Flight, Amachi, Legacy, Carolina Visual Productions, Carolina Crown, and Carolina Gold.

Drum Major

Matthew Parunak
atthew Parunak is a professional music arranger, visual designer, and trombonist from Chapel Hill, NC. Currently, he serves as music director for Orquesta K'Che Salsa band, bass trombonist for the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Durham Symphony Orchestra, and the assistant band director at Jordan High School in Durham, NC. Matthew also serves as adjunct faculty at Elon University in Music Education, as well as brass staff with the University of North Carolina Marching Tar Heels. Matthew is also the founder of Tobacco Road Trombones, a community trombone ensemble that rehearses and performs in the triangle area.

He received his Bachelor's Degree in Tuba Performance in 2008 and his Master's Degree in Arts and Teaching in 2009, both from UNC-Chapel Hill. From 2009-2012, Matthew was the Director of Bands at Forbush High School and Forbush Middle School, where his marching and concert bands received consistent Superior and Excellence ratings.  As an active arranger and clinician, he has written more than 50 marching band shows for bands across the state of North Carolina, while consulting with many band programs across the state of North Carolina. 

Joanna Ross Hersey, former principal tubist of the United States Coast Guard Band, commissioned Matthew to write an original theme and variations piece for solo tuba and wind ensemble. It was premiered in November of 2016 by the ECU Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Scott Carter.

In his free time, Matthew enjoys traveling with his wife, Sarah, and spending time with their pets Izzy (cat) and Maestro (golden retriever).