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Dr. Shandra Helman
Assistant Lecturer of Music
Telephone: (208) 282-3024
E-mail: helmsha2@isu.edu
Degrees
- B.Mus. 2000, Lawrence University
- M.A. 2004, University of Iowa
- D.M.A. 2008, University of Wisconsin
Joined ISU Faculty in 2008.
Profile
Dr. Helman teaches applied clarinet and saxophone and serves as the Woodwind Coordinator at ISU. She also teaches world music, aural skills, instrument pedagogy, clarinet literature, and advanced music history courses.
Prior to her appointment at ISU, Dr. Helman was employed as adjunct faculty at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, where she taught applied studies in clarinet and mixed woodwind chamber music. She has also served as a guest lecturer and independent study instructor for Single Reed Fundamentals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her original research focuses primarily on the bass clarinet and its ever-expanding amount of published literature. For her final dissertation project at UW-Madison, Dr. Helman assembled an annotated bibliography of original unaccompanied bass clarinet works available through commercial publication as of March 2008. She is currently working on publication of this document.
While in Wisconsin, Dr. Helman collaboratively premiered chamber works by Leslie Thimmig, Joseph Koykkar and Karl Henning. In 2004, she premiered nationally Natalia Mia for solo clarinet by Latin-American composer Maria Contreras and additionally has been featured as a solo guest artist with the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble, UW-Madison Wind Ensemble and UW-Madison Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. She has served as a primary clarinet instructor, clinician, music theory instructor and adjudicator at the UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic since 2005.
Dr. Helman currently serves as Principal Clarinet in the Idaho State Civic Symphony. Her extensive orchestral experience includes performances on clarinet and bass clarinet with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Opera and Ballet companies, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and the American Wind Symphony. Her primary clarinet instructors include Linda Bartley, Maurita Murphy Mead, Fan Lei and Melvin Warner. Dr. Helman has also participated in additional studies with Kalmen Opperman and Kenneth Grant and masterclasses with Elsa Ludewig Verdehr, Richard Stoltzman and Patrick O’Keefe.
She currently resides in Pocatello with husband and horn player, Michael, and their two cats, Gracie and Hattie.