Hayden Denesha is a passionate conductor known for his intensity and his dedication to the education of audiences and young musicians. Hayden is presently the Artist-In-Residence for Elizabethtown College where he directs the college orchestra and serves as Director of Instrumental Studies. Hayden most recently served as the Loudoun Symphony’s Associate Conductor and continues to serve as Music Director of the Loudoun Symphony Youth Orchestras. Under his leadership, the Loudoun Symphony Youth Orchestra program has become a cornerstone for Music Education in the State of Virginia. Hayden has also served as an Assistant Conductor for numerous orchestras such as the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Rock Hill Symphony, and the Peabody Youth Orchestra.

As an advocate for contemporary programming, Hayden has premiered numerous commissions and has been relied upon for his expertise in multimedia collaboration with orchestras. He worked on the U.S. premiere of Du Yun’s Where We Lost Our Shadows at the Kennedy Center and served as the Assistant Conductor for a Baltimore city-wide production of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass under the baton of Marin Alsop. He is trained in original performance practice techniques of accompanying silent films with live orchestra. In 2018, he was invited to Indiana University in partnership with the Jacobs School of Music to present the original score of Phantom of the Opera (1925) with renowned organ soloist Dennis James.

Hayden holds conducting degrees from the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, the State University of New York at Fredonia, and the University of South Carolina, where he completed his doctorate in 2021. He has also studied and conducted at music festivals such as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, National Orchestra Institute, Eastern Music Festival, Pierre Monteux School, and the PRISMA Festival in Western Canada. His principal teachers have included Marin Alsop, Joseph Young, Scott Weiss and David Rudge. Hayden also earned an undergraduate degree in Viola Performance and Music Education. He has held viola section positions with the South Carolina Philharmonic, Aiken Symphony Orchestra, and served as principal violist of the Southern Tier Symphony in Olean, NY. He presently resides in Baltimore, MD with his wife Mary Kate, his dog Snoopy, and is an avid Buffalo Bills fan.

Pianist Justin Badgerow enjoys a successful career as a solo and collaborative pianist as well as a pedagogue.  Dr. Badgerow received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Masters degree in Piano Performance from the University of Texas at Austin and the Bachelor of Music in Piano from the University of Central Florida. Dr. Badgerow's primary teachers include Gary Wolf, Nancy Garrett, and Andrew Coooperstock with additional coaching by Robert Spillman and Anne Epperson. 

Dr. Badgerow has performed as a soloist throughout the United States and South Africa, Brazil, China, Estonia, and Ireland. He has performed as a concerto soloist with the Kennett Symphony and Imperial Symphony. A champion of Latin American piano music, Justin has performed at the International Joaquín Rodrigo Conference in El Paso, Texas and at the Southwest Council of Latin American Studies (SCOLAS) conference in Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico. As an avid collaborative pianist, Dr. Badgerow has a varied background including extensive experience as a répétiteur for numerous professional and collegiate operas and musical productions.  In addition, he has enjoyed collaborations in chamber music groups including performances with members of the Grammy award winning Pacifica Quartet and clarinetist Eddie Daniels. Justin's solo album "Reminiscences of Brazil" can be found on Divine Art Records and his second album of solo and chamber music, "A Touch of Blue", is featured on Centaur Records. 

Justin is active in the field of piano pedagogy as he has been a featured performer and lecturer at regional, national, and international conferences including Music Teachers National Association, National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy, and the College Music Society.  He is currently a Professor of Music at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA where he teaches piano and music theory.  He serves as the advisor to the Alpha Lambda Delta honor society. Dr. Badgerow was previously an Assistant Professor of Music at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas where he was named as a finalist for the Outstanding University Teacher Award.  

Dr. Badgerow is a member of many prestigious academic and music societies including Pi Kappa Lambda national music honor society and Phi Kappa Phi honor society.  Justin serves as the secretary on the Executive Board for the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association, and on the PMTA Conference Committee. Dr. Badgerow previously served on the artistic committee and board of Gretna Music, a non-profit performing arts organization in Central PA.

Jennene Estes studied cello with Dr. Robert Ashby and voice with Dr. John Little at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia where she graduated in 1989. From there, Jennene settled in Northern Virginia and began teaching private music lessons and performing with the Prince William Symphony and the Alexandria Symphony. In 1998, Jennene graduated from Shenandoah University with an MBA and subsequently earned an Ed.S. in Higher Education Administration at The George Washington University. Jennene continues to teach strings, voice, music theory/composition and piano students in her current studio. Jennene is also a certified Music Together Teacher. Jennene and her husband Wayne, also a musician/teacher, reside in downtown Leesburg Virginia where they own The Catoctin School of Music and freelance as musicians doing symphony, pit orchestra work, weddings and a variety of other musical performances, including Sunday worship services at various local churches. Currently Jennene is a member of the Loudoun Symphony and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. Jennene is deeply passionate about music and its ability to cross cultures and create community wherever it’s practiced. She lives this out each Friday morning as she teaches via Zoom in Accra, Ghana. Jennene believes that musical inspiration is a right, an integral part of society, and a practice to which every individual should have access. Thoughts and ideas, expressed through music, build connection and understanding that words alone cannot.

Huyen MacMichael is a Virginia-based artist, art instructor, and art therapist who has focused on realistic watercolor painting and playful functional ceramics over the past several years. She loves drawing, pastels, watercolors, and building and sculpting with clay. She has exhibited in several local juried shows, participated in national and international art mail exchanges, painted murals at local schools, and has been commissioned for pet portraits. She has taken and taught ceramics workshops and classes at The Clay and Metal Loft, is a member of the Loudoun Sketch Club, has co-chaired local and district Reflections Art Contests for school students, and is the Director of Visual Arts for the DaVinci Art Studio, Arts For All, Loudoun.

Huyen has over 20 years experience in facilitating art and art therapy groups for various ages and with a variety of media including drawing, painting, clay, and photography. She has worked and volunteered in community homeschool groups, preschools, elementary schools, residential facilities, hospitals, community programs and private residences. She won the Jim “Doc” Wiley Leadership in the Arts Award in 2021 and was also selected as a Loudoun 100 Honoree. The DaVinci Art Studio program that she manages was nominated for 2023 Best of Loudoun for Art Instruction. Her education consists of a BA in Fine Arts from Mary Washington, an MA in art therapy from George Washington, and learning all the time at workshops and in the studio. She was a clarinetist in award winning high school marching, symphonic, and all district bands in Southwest Virginia and still keeps in touch with her high school band director.

Stephen Matthie is currently the Director of Orchestras at Rocky Run Middle School in Chantilly, VA, where he is also the chairperson of the Faculty Advisory Council. Prior to this, Mr. Matthie held orchestra directing positions at Robinson Secondary School, Rachel Carson Middle School, and Greenbriar West Elementary School. His orchestras consistently receive “Superior” ratings at festivals and assessments and are praised for their great musicianship and energy. In addition, the Rocky Run Chamber Orchestra was only one of two middle school orchestras chosen to perform at the 2013 Virginia Music Educators Association State Conference. In 2015, the Rocky Run Chamber Orchestra was also chosen as “Commended Winner” for The Foundation of Music Education’s Mark of Excellence Orchestra Festival, based out of Texas. Under Mr. Matthie’s direction, the Rocky Run orchestra program has grown from 88 students in 2006 to 295 students at its peak.

Mr. Matthie was the recipient of the Virginia Chapter of the American Strings Teachers Association’s 2010 New Strings Teacher of The Year Award, given to a teacher each year in their first 6 years of teaching. Recently, Mr. Matthie is also a sought after guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician for several honors orchestras, assessments, and solo competitons throughout Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.

Mr. Matthie is originally from Kingston, Jamaica and moved to the United States when he was five years old. He is a graduate of Chantilly High School, part of Fairfax County Public Schools, in Chantilly, VA. He earned his B.M. in Music Education from James Madison University where he studied violin with Dr. Wanchi Huang and conducting with Dr. Robert McCashin. Mr. Matthie is a member of American Strings Teachers Association and National Association for Music Education.

Apart from teaching in the public schools, Mr. Matthie spent 15 seasons as a violinist with the Tysons McLean Orchestra in McLean, VA, runs a violin studio of 5 students out of his home in Fairfax, VA, and is the second violinist for the BASH Quartet, an ensemble made up of fellow orchestra directors.

Michelle Rippey studied flute performance through high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, during her summers at the Brevard Music Center and holds a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance and a Master of Education.

Ms. Rippey performs regularly with the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra, the Pro Art Chamber Orchestra (PACO) of Greater Washington D.C., and as a freelance musician throughout the Potomac region. She is the flute instructor and director of the Flute Ensemble at Frederick Community College, maintains a private flute studio, and enjoys assisting youth programs as an adjudicator for youth contests, a mentor for youth orchestra, and by providing sectional coaching, clinics, and master classes for young flutists for schools throughout the Potomac region.

In her spare time Ms. Rippey enjoys hiking and biking with her husband, and spending time with their 5 daughters, their parents, and their two German Shepherd dogs.