Biennial NAfME Music Research and Teacher Education Conference 2026

NAfME member Krisztina Mathe is a recent graduate of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Over the course of her undergraduate degree in music education, she studied clarinet under MET Opera musician Jessica Phillips, completed extensive fieldwork across elementary and middle school levels, and achieved a minor in computer science. While she is currently working in technology, her interdisciplinary academic experiences have inspired her to return to graduate school to investigate intersections between music and neuroscience, in hopes of further impacting fields of music education and therapy.

Described as “elegant, beautiful, sophisticated, intense, and crystal clear in emotional intent,” the music of Omar Thomas (b. 1984) continues to move listeners everywhere it is performed. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Guyanese parents, Omar received his Bachelor of Music in Music Education from James Madison University and his Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2008. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg and has studied under multiple Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing “great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future,” educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz and symphonic idiom. Omar has previously served as an Associate Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music and on faculty in the Music Theory department of The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He has thrice been awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from Harvard University, where he served as a Teaching Fellow for four years. Omar was awarded the Boston Music Award’s “Jazz Artist of the Year” in 2012, and in 2017, Omar was selected from an international pool of applicants to be an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. In 2019, he was awarded the National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Award for his wind composition “Come Sunday,” becoming the first Black composer awarded the honor in the contest’s 42-year history. Now a Yamaha Master Educator, Omar has become a highly sought-after speaker and thought leader on issues of diversity and equity in music education. Most recently he served as the 2023 College Music Society National Conference Trotter Lecturer and gave the keynote speech at the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) 2023 Annual Meeting. His music has been performed in concert halls and on stages across the country and internationally, by such renowned groups as The United States Marine Band, The Houston Symphony, The Colorado Symphony, and the Showa Wind Symphony, to name a few. He has had a number of celebrated singers perform over his arrangements, including Stephanie Mills, Yolanda Adams, Nona Hendryx, BeBe Winans, Kenny Lattimore, Marsha Ambrosius, Sheila E., Leela James, Dionne Warwick, and Chaka Khan. His work is featured on Dianne Reeves’s Grammy Award-winning album, “Beautiful Life.” His big band, the 18-piece Omar Thomas Large Ensemble was formed in 2008. The group’s first album, “I Am,” debuted at #1 on the iTunes Jazz Charts and peaked at #13 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums Chart. Their second release, “We Will Know: An LGBT Civil Rights Piece In Four Movements,” has been hailed by Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington as being a “thought provoking, multi-layered masterpiece” which has “put him in the esteemed category of great artists.”

Always having an interest and passion for designing things and understanding how they go together, Michael Stone has been with Bassenian Lagoni more than 15 years and has demonstrated a mastery of all building types. A licensed architect in multiple states, he is skilled interpreting housing in all its forms for home buyers at all life stages and oversees a team of designers to generate creative solutions to complex challenges. Having designed projects both domestically and internationally, Michael primarily focuses on working with clients throughout the United States. From individual custom homes to master planned communities, his careful attention to detail helps builders deliver homes offering the lifestyle buyers want at the forefront of market trends. In addition to his architecture degree, Michael also minored in both sustainable design and construction management. As a Vice President and Senior Designer with Bassenian Lagoni, Michael is active in the home building industry, lending his talents to committees and boards at the local, state and national level.