People - 2024 staff (2025 coming soon...)
Conductors
Dr. Christopher Hanson 2025 conductor
Dr. Christopher Hanson holds three master's degrees from Texas State University in Music History, Music Theory, and Music Composition. He also holds a PhD in School Improvement from Texas State University, as well as a certificate of professional ethics from the Texas State Philosophy program.Hanson is assistant professor of music at Seattle Pacific University where he serves as the director of music education and orchestral activities. He has developed and instructs a number of courses in music and education, including but not limited to: Applied Pedagogy of Strings, Making Music with Diverse Learners, Foundations of Music Education, Teaching instrumental music in public schools, Teaching Music in the Non-Music Classroom, Advocacy in the Arts, and a number of courses that explore creativity, imagination, and interdisciplinary pedagogy.
Dr. Hanson also serves as the director of the Rainbow City Orchestra (RCO), a community music ensemble that serves and supports the LGBTQIA+ community in greater Seattle through the study and performance of contemporary and historically marginalized composers.
Dr. James Ray 2025 Conductor
James Ray maintains an active and varied career as an educator, conductor, and violinist. He serves on the music faculty at Western Washington University where he teaches coursework in instrumental music education and music theory, and directs the WWU String Sinfonia.Dr. Ray is a sought-after guest conductor, performance clinician, and adjudicator throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. He has received repeated invitations as guest conductor with the Bellingham Symphony, as well as the Port Angeles Symphony, with whom he has also performed as a soloist and guest concertmaster.
Dr. Ray has worked at the state and national levels to address diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the music classroom and within the string teaching profession. Other practical interests include exploring the role of the secondary music educator as an influential force in the lives of students, and the school music program as a place of community. He has led workshops and roundtable discussions with teacher groups locally and nationally. He has presented at Washington Music Educators Association state conference, and nationally at American String Teachers Association conferences and the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference. Dr. Ray has had peer-reviewed papers published in the American String Teacher and the Journal of Research in Music Education. He is also a contributing author to the recently published textbook, Teaching Instrumental Music: Contemporary Perspectives and Pedagogies.
Dr. Ray holds a bachelors degree in violin performance from Central Washington University, a masters in secondary teaching from Western Oregon University, and a doctorate in music education from Boston University.
Ron Jones 2025 Conductor
Mr. Ron Jones led the first high school chamber orchestra from Washington state to perform at the Midwest Clinic, and his orchestra has had five Carnegie Hall appearances. He has served on the WMEA and WIAA boards, as president of the Washington chapter of NSOA, and was named the Outstanding Public School Music Teacher by the state chapter of ASTA with NSOA. He was also selected as WMEA/WIAA Music Educator of the Year. Ron has been principal bassist, assistant conductor and principal conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra.Jones has led the high school orchestras to nine top-three trophies at the state music championships since 1998, more than 30 top placements at the Northwest Orchestra Festival since 1989 and nine trophies at the Western Washington University State Orchestra Festival since it began in 2015.