BIOGRAPHY

Edward “Ted” Messerschmidt is a versatile composer, performer, and educator. He has composed and published original works for performances around the world; he has conducted and performed professionally with a variety of ensembles; and he has taught at colleges, public and private schools, and a prison.

Ted’s original music, published by Cimarron Music Press and Warwick Music Publishing, has been performed at concert venues from the Leipzig Gewandhaus to the Stone in New York City by acclaimed soloists and ensembles including Andy Akiho, George Allen of the United States Army Band (Pershing’s Own), Charley Brighton of the BBC Winds, Jason Ham of the United States Military Academy Band, Ruthanne Schempf, Dr. Patrick Smith and Dmitri Shteinberg of Virginia Commonwealth University, Peter Steiner and Constanze Hochwartner (forthcoming), Harry Watters, the George Mason University Wind Symphony, the International Composers Festival Orchestra, the Luftwaffenmusikkorps Erfurt, the United States Army Orchestra, and students at music schools and conservatories including Boston Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, and SUNY Fredonia.

As a composer, Ted has shown facility writing for different ensembles in a variety of styles. He has been a finalist in several different categories of the American Prize Composition Contest, and he earned honorable mention for his work Fantasia for Horn and Piano, which is included on the Navona Records compilation album Brass Tacks 2. Earlier in his career he was named a finalist in the VH1 Song of the Year Competition (Electronica/Dance). In 2017, Ted served as a judge for the National Trombone Composition Competition of the American Trombone Workshop. His 2021 work Solitary was featured in the digital gallery of Boston University’s project Race, Prison, Justice: Illuminating Stories through the Arts, and his work The Source Revisited was selected for performance at the 2022 International Composers Festival in the UK.

An active freelance musician, Ted has performed on trombone with groups including The Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra, the National Concert Band of America, and the Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra. He is also on the substitute list of the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has done sideline work on trombone for HBO, appearing as a trombonist on the Emmy Award-winning series The Gilded Age. Additionally, he has done session recording for SubFamily Records and played in the pit orchestra for productions of Les Miserables and Newsies at the Center for Performing Arts in Rhinebeck, NY. He has played under the direction of renowned conductors including Arnald Gabriel and Johan de Meij, and he has performed on programs with Phil Smith, Leon Bates, and Zuill Bailey. In addition, he has performed on percussion with groups including the Fifes and Drums of Prince William III and the Capital Band under the direction of Karl Mailand. He has also played piano and electric bass in the pit for several high school musicals, and he has sung with choral groups including The Ron Freeman Chorale, a Washington DC-based chamber choir specializing in early music.

Ted has worked in a variety of contexts as a conductor. He has guest conducted community, school, church, and college ensembles, including bands, orchestras, and choirs. From 2007-2013 Ted served as the Associate Director of Bands at Marist College, and he was the Director of the Marist College Orchestra from 2012-2018. While at Marist, Ted conducted and performed at several national music conventions, and he also directed the Marist College Pep Band at games that were broadcast nationally on networks including ESPN2 and ESPN U. In 2018, Ted was named a semifinalist in the American Prize Conducting Competition (College/University Orchestra Division).

Ted also taught music history courses and beginning piano classes at Marist College, where he was recognized for “Outstanding Service to Individuals with Disabilities” and was also selected as the “Marist College Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year.” During his time at Marist, Ted volunteered in the Robert Hoe V Music Library and served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Concert Bands (ACB). As a board member of the ACB, he helped found the ACB Young Composers Composition Contest in partnership with the John Philip Sousa Foundation.

Ted is currently the Director of Music and Arts Department Chair at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York. He also teaches part-time at SUNY Dutchess and volunteers with Rising Hope, Inc., teaching or assisting with college-level courses in Fishkill Correctional Facility and Woodbourne Correctional Facility. At Oakwood, he directs ensembles and the annual school musical, and he develops curriculum for, and teaches, music courses for grades 6 through 12. He also founded the Community Service through the Arts class along with the Arts Exchange of Red Hook and Oakwood (AERO), a one-year creative exchange between students at Oakwood and residents of a juvenile detention center in Red Hook, NY (2017-2018). In 2020, he initiated the Oakwood Friends School Virtual Arts Lecture Series to foster student engagement and artistic activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. His students have received numerous awards and been accepted to music composition, performance, music technology, and music therapy programs at institutions including Bard College Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Ithaca College, the Mannes School of Music, New York University, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Temple University, and Peabody Conservatory. 

Ted completed his doctoral dissertation on music education in prisons at Boston University in 2017, and he continues to conduct research dealing with the role of music in promoting social justice. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Band Research, Questions, and The International Journal of Community Music (forthcoming), and he has presented original research in Austria, the Republic of Georgia, Germany, and the United States. In addition, he participated in the 2023 Inside Outside Collaborative Songwriting Project, which paired men incarcerated in U.S. prisons with outside composers.

Prior to his doctoral studies, Ted earned a Master of Music degree in Composition at George Mason University, where he studied composition with Mark Camphouse and Glenn Smith and conducting with Anthony Maiello. Ted has also studied conducting with Gary Wayne Hill through VanderCook College of Music and taken part in conducting workshops at Juilliard and the University of Maryland. Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in German Literature and Music from the College of William and Mary, studying trombone with Ronald Baedke and Dayl Burnett and composition with Edgar Warren Williams and Vincent McDermott. Ted has also studied trombone with Scott Shelsta and Michael Parnell, violin with Lauren Regan, piano with Ann Lee, and composition with Andrew Earle Simpson and Bryan Kidd. Between his undergraduate and graduate programs, Ted helped populate and update the Folkways and Global Sounds websites while working as an intern for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. 

Ted lives with his wife and two sons in Poughkeepsie, NY. When not making music, he enjoys hiking, playing tennis, studying foreign languages, and traveling.