Staff

Executive Director

CHAD COOPER

Chad joined the Conservatory’s Board of Trustees in July of 2014 and served as its Treasurer before joining the staff as Executive Director in August of 2016. Prior to joining the Conservatory, Chad was a Managing Director in the Real Estate Investment Banking Group at Deutsche Bank Securities where he worked for over 15 years covering public and private real estate companies, investment managers and private equity platforms.

Earlier in his career, Chad worked for four years at the St. Louis Development Corporation, the economic development agency of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. There, he designed and implemented community and economic development programs targeted towards alleviating poverty in some of the most economically distressed neighborhoods in St. Louis and East St. Louis. During his time in St. Louis, Chad also co-founded a project-based grassroots non-profit organization called Metropolis Saint Louis, which sought to foster greater engagement of young people in city revitalization efforts.

Like many Staff and Board members of the Conservatory, Chad was drawn to the organization by a love of music. It is a thread that connects many joyful and formative experiences in his life, from nervously singing in school plays before his 5th grade classmates; to performing timeless jazz standards in college with the Yale Whiffenpoofs; to the joy he experiences today seeing how music makes his two sons – both piano students at the Conservatory – instantly happy. Chad is a piano student at the Conservatory himself, having started piano lessons when he joined the Staff, and still not sounding very good.

Chad recently was elected to the Board of Trustees of the National Guild of Community Arts Education, a membership-based organization whose mission it is to develop leaders, strengthen organizations, and advocate for community arts education around the country. The Conservatory is one of the 400+ proud members of the Guild, and we wholeheartedly share the Guild’s vision of a nation where arts education is accessible and embraced as essential for human development and healthy communities.

Chad earned his MBA from Stanford and his BA from Yale.

Director of Administration 

MICHAELA MECHLOVITZ

Michal Mechlovitz joined the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music team in 2012. She has worn many hats at BKCM over the years from Gala Coordinator, to Human Resources Manager, to Instrument Explorers Teaching Assistant, and is excited to apply her years of experience and love for BKCM and its mission to her new position as Director of Administration.

Michal is a born and bred Brooklynite. She has always loved her lively home borough for its diversity of culture and counts herself lucky to live in a city where she can hear music from different traditions and practices from around the world on any given night. She’s proud of BKCM’s work to extend opportunities in music education and therapy to the spitfire and tenacious people of her home city regardless of age, level, ability, and limitation. She loves being part of a team that believes music is for everyone.

Michal is a classically trained mezzo soprano, holding a degree in voice performance from the Boston Conservatory. She has a strong affinity for 20th century and contemporary music, particularly the French repertoire and the work that came out the context of the World War period. What she’s always loved most about classical singing is the crossing of master music and poetry at iconoclast historical checkpoints. She loves absorbing languages and the written word, and has collaborated on writing projects with fellow musicians and music projects with performance artists. She has a taste for art with attitude that’s rebellious, provocative, and challenges form and the status quo.

When Michal is not humming through the halls of BKCM, you can find her throwing clay or at the beach.

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

SHAMEEZA CHANDARPAL

FINANCE ASSISTANT

ALISA BRUZA

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

MARTIN PORTER

Martin Porter is a pianist, curator and strategy manager with a lot of hometowns. Born in Amsterdam and moving through Cleveland, Toronto, and Ft Lauderdale before settling in Brooklyn in 2011. A jazz pianist since he was 7 coming up in Cleveland, Martin has been fortunate to work and play(very briefly) with many great musicians over the years, including Clark Terry, Wynton Marsalis, and Tootie Heath. An avid music historian, he enjoys spending hours (and too much money) at record stores, reading books on history, and spending as much time as possible with musicians in the New York jazz scene, experiencing history as it happens.

Martin began his management career at New York Consulting Partners under the mentorship of Elizabeth Edersheim. After project managing and launching the business theory app “ThEME”, he left to tie music into his professional life more completely, becoming Programming and Operations Manager for Rabbit Moon Productions, and was responsible for curating and managing performances at world-class jazz club Jazz Standard (Operated by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group), along with other productions and curation for events such as the Oval Lawn summer music series at Madison Square Park with the Madison Square Park Conservancy, and the Montclair Jazz Festival.

After receiving his MBA, Martin came to BKCM as Marketing and Communications Manager, in an effort to make a lasting impact and to spread the gift of music as widely and completely as possible. He is responsible for all materials and copy for the Conservatory’s external and internal communications, and helps out with event production and curation when called upon. He loves tying all of the great programming that BKCM does together and helping people find music that they love.

Martin received his BMus in Jazz Piano Performance from the University of Toronto, and his MBA from Purdue University Global.

If you want to waste an hour or two of your time, just say the words “Charles Mingus or “Thelonious Monk” around him.

MARKETING ASSOCIATE

ERIN GALLAGHER

FINANCE & SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER

MIRANDA KNUTSON

Miranda Knutson joined the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in the winter of 2014 helping organize BKCM’s Red Hot Winter Gala. She has worn many hats at the Conservatory including co-running the Brooklyn Brass Festival, implementing early childhood programming at Head Start schools, setting up new summer camps, organizing staffing, food, auctions and other day-of logistics for 11 galas and numerous events. She currently works on events, special projects, payroll, budgets and outreach billing. She coordinates with program directors to set billing and payroll rates for over 64 sites for Music Partners and Music Therapy.  She tracks each programs schedule, budget, grant allocation, account receivable and payroll changes to reconcile and give updates and analytics to Finance and Development.

Miranda has been part of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music community since she was 8 years old. Over the years she has taken piano, voice, musical theater, saxophone, flute, and chorus at BKCM. She has performed with the Village Light Opera Group, Vertical Players, and other local opera groups.

Prior to BKCM, Miranda was Program and Development Coordinator for Community Works, where she coordinated community learning arts workshops in public schools as well as wrote grants and ran events for historical/arts exhibitions. Before that, she worked at the Museum of Sex as the Special Events Coordinator, and at the Metropolitan Playhouse as Company Manager.

Along with her love of music, she has pursued other passions. Miranda is a Historical Cloth-making instructor, Stage Combat choreographer, and Licensed New York City tour guide. Miranda received her B.S. in History at MIT, and her Masters in Medieval History at Kings College London. On weekends you can generally find her with her spinning wheel teaching at colonial houses around New York, or leading tours of literary and historic pubs of Greenwich Village and Brooklyn Heights.

Operations Associate

JUVENAL SANTIAGO

Development Associate

CARA SEARCH

Development Associate, Institutional Giving

DANIEL MASEDA

HEAD REGISTRAR

FATIMA JIHADA

REGISTRAR & OPERATIONS SPECIALIST

DOUGLAS BRADFORD

Registrar & Operations Specialist

ALEX SELAWSKY

Registrar & Operations Specialist

AUBREY NOLAN

Graphic Designer

JEFF YAS

Jeff Yas is an experienced graphic artist, singer, songwriter & guitarist. At BKCM, he serves as Senior Designer, creating and maintaining a cohesive brand identity across all marketing & communications. Jeff’s style mixes the geometric minimalism of Art Deco & Bauhaus with strong color palettes and engaging typography. His own Park Slope studio is called YAS (www.yasgraphics.com) and specializes in logos, websites and brand marketing. His band Turnpike (www.turnpike718.com) plays original alt-folk Americana with a Jazz & Southern Gothic feel, and has just released their first EP “Leaving Camptown” on iTunes and Spotify. They play regularly at Rockwood Music Hall, Freddy’s, Three’s Brewing, The Way Station & Branded Saloon.

Junior Graphic Designer

RACHEL PARK

MUSIC PARTNERS DIRECTOR

DOROTHY SAVITCH

Dorothy Savitch has led the Music Partners program since 1996, developing fully enriched, sequential programs that build upon students’ skills from year to year. Under Dorothy’s guidance, Music Partners has grown from six sites with 700 students to 34 sites with 4,500 participants. Dorothy has expanded the course offerings to meet the needs and interests of our diverse community, including chorus for seniors citizens, West African Drumming, GarageBand Songwriting and programs for toddlers and pre-kindergarten students. Dorothy has been on the BKCM faculty since 1989, and prior to becoming Program Director of Music Partners, she taught music theory, history, classical guitar, chorus and recorder. In 2002, Dorothy Savitch was also named as the first Music Director of the Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra. Since 1997, Ms. Savitch has also been Music Director of Long Island’s Sound Symphony Orchestra. Since her tenure began, both orchestras have grown and expanded into two of the finest community ensembles in the New York metropolitan area. They have received high praise for their vibrant performances and expansive repertoire. Before her transition to the podium, Ms. Savitch studied the classical guitar with Christopher Parkening and Vicente Gomez, and toured throughout the West Coast. She received music degrees from Columbia University and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. Her conducting teachers include Harold Farberman and Maurice Peress.

Music Partners Administrative Assistant

SARA SCHOENBACK

The Wire magazine places Sara Schoenbeck in the “tiny club of bassoon pioneers” at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her performances “galvanizing” and “riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.”
While focusing on the intersection between extended technique and melody Sara works to expand the notion of what the bassoon is capable of in both notated and improvised music. She is a member of Anthony Braxton’s 12+1(tet) and the Tri-Centric Orchestra; Gravitas Quartet with Wayne Horvitz. She performs and tours regularly with the Schoenbeck/Horvitz Duo; ensemble Wavefield; Petr Kotek’s SEM ensemble; the composers group WetInk, the Michael Leonhart Orchestra and the Nels Cline Lovers Orchestra. Sara can be heard on music and film recordings including on the Blue Note label and the movies Matrix 2 and 3. She is looking forward to releasing her debut album in the fall of 2021 as a leader in a series of intimate duets on Pyroclastic Records.
She has performed at major venues and festivals throughout North America and Europe. Highlights include Biennale Musica in Venice Italy, SXSW, New Orleans Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Victoriaville, the Vancouver Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Saalfelden in Austria, the NY Winter Jazz Festival, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn, the NY VisionFest and the Kennedy Center.

Sara received her BFA from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has been adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts, Citrus College and Pasadena Conservatory and given master classes at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Cornish College, University of Denver, Western Washington University and Sacramento State University.

MUSIC PARTNERS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

SHERI GOTTLIEB

MUSIC THERAPY DIRECTOR

TOBY WILLIAMS

MUSIC THERAPY ONSITE COORDINATOR

CHRISTINA STERRETT CALIZ

Christina Sterrett holds a Master’s degree in music therapy from New York University, is a Board Certified Music Therapist with the American Music Therapy Association, and is a New York State Licensed Creative Arts Therapist.  Christina has been part of the Brooklyn Conservatory’s Music Therapy Department since 2010 and works with clients of all ages to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs.  She has extensive experience working with children with developmental delays in early childhood settings and has also worked in public and private school settings.  Christina is currently the Onsite Clinical Coordinator and Lead Onsite Music Therapist for the Brooklyn Conservatory’s Onsite Music Therapy Program ,and also works at several of the Conservatory’s outreach programs in schools throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Music Therapy Administrative Coordinator

MELISSA HARRIS, MA, MT-BC, LCAT

Name: Melissa Harris

I’m from… Lancaster county, PA

I became a music therapist in… 2013

I started practicing music therapy at the Conservatory in… 2011

The populations I’ve worked with include… children, young adults, and seniors with a wide range of developmental, social and emotional needs

The primary population I work with is…  children with developmental needs

My other clinical specialties:  I am experienced in helping people discover their own abilities and grow those abilities.

My inspiration: My clients inspire me with their joy and determination. My own children inspire me with their boundless creative energy. My colleagues and friends inspire me with their passion and commitment to growth and nurturance. Jack White inspires my own creative music making.

Few people know that I… love backcountry hiking.

Education:  Penn State University – B.S. in Music Education
New York University – M.A. in Music Therapy
Teachers College, Columbia University – M.A. in Curriculum and Teaching

I play:  Flute, guitar, and piano

My other artistic/musical endeavors:  I write my own music and play with friends. I also play chamber music occasionally.

COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL DIRECTOR

BRIAN DRYE

CMS Coordinator

SAMEER GUPTA

Sameer Gupta is known as one of the few percussionists simultaneously combining traditional and modern improvisational styles drawing from his dual Indian and American heritage, and has already established himself as an original musical voice in music today. From bebop to avant-garde jazz, and percussion to North Indian Tabla, Sameer continues to compose and perform music from a true multi-cultural perspective that now bridges several continents.

SUZUKI DIRECTOR

JULIANNE CARNEY-CHUNG

Suzuki Program Director Violinist Julianne Carney-Chung has led the BKCM Suzuki Program since 2009. An active and versatile performer, from classical to rock to improvisation, Julianne has studied Suzuki pedagogy extensively, including completing the Teacher Training Program at the preeminent School for Strings, under Allen Lieb and Louise Behrend. Prior to her tenure at BKCM, Julianne was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and a music fellow at OMI Arts Center. Under Julianne’s leadership, the BKCM Suzuki Program has become a thriving center for excellence and community, nearly doubling in size and offering expanded teen programming, an early childhood component and a five-day summer camp. Julianne is also developing a pedagogy of improvisation for Suzuki students, using sonic storytelling and Soundpainting, an interdisciplinary conducting language of gestures for guiding improvisation.

SUZUKI PROGRAM ASSISTANT

JOSEPH SWIFT

Brooklyn Conservatory Chorale Director

NICK NICASSIO

Name: Nicholas Nicassio

From: Los Angeles, CA

I started teaching music in…1999

I started teaching at the Conservatory in… Just starting this September

My inspiration: Former voice teacher, Naomi Farr

Few people know that I…  Have a Scuba certification and went diving with sharks in Palau

Education: University of California, Irvine, BA in English, Manhattan School of Music, MM in Voice, Rutgers University, DMA in Choral Conducting

I play and teach:  Choral Conductor, Voice, Piano

My other artistic/musical endeavors: Conductor for the National Children’s Chorus and Music Director at St. Saviour Church, Brooklyn. Just finishing composing the score for the feature film, When the Moon Was Twice as Big.