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Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin
Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin

Role(s):

Music for All National Festival Clinician

Specialties:

Affiliations:

Dr. Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin (State College, Pennsylvania) is the Director of Wind Band Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Penn State University. With a diverse background as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, educator, and speaker, Mitchell-Spradlin is frequent guest conductor with several regional honor bands, All-State bands, summer camps and clinics, and school & collegiate residencies. Mitchell-Spradlin conducts pedagogy actively, having served as a clinician for the UMKC Conducting Symposium and the President’s Own Marine Band Conductor Training Program. She has shared musical and pedagogical ideas on several music podcasts, including Everything Band, Conn Selmer’s Backstage with Dr. Tim, The Bandroom, and the Ictus Podcast. Presentations include invited sessions at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, College Music Society, the College Band Directors National Association, SCMEA, KMEA, and NYSBDA, and keynote presenter for the NAfME Northwest conference. Mitchell-Spradlin has presented nationally in Australia and Austria. A proponent for advancing the wind ensemble medium, she led the consortium and premiere of Aaron Perrine’s Beneath a Canvas of Green for wind ensemble and percussion quartet. She is active in commissions and premieres. Mitchell-Spradlin holds the Agnes Scollins Carey Professorship in music from 2024 to 2027. This professorship funds her travel and research in Ghana, where she will interview Griots – West African storytellers. The project will conclude with a restaging of Darius Milhaud’s ballet, La Creation du Monde, with West African dance, instruments, and the added element of narration using primary material from Ghanaian storytellers. Under Mitchell-Spradlin’s direction, the Penn State Symphonic Wind Ensemble has received several honors, including a performance at the prestigious Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, PA, as part of Penn State’s President’s Concert, as well as an invitation to perform at the College Band Directors National Association Eastern Region Conference in Ithaca, New York.