Dr. Karlyn Bond, Salt Lake City native, graduated from Walla Walla University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance. After earning master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Southern California, she returned to Salt Lake where she taught full-time at Westminster College for twenty-one years and performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, often collaborating with members of the Utah Symphony Orchestra. During the past two years—following Westminster’s termination of eight longstanding faculty positions, hers among them—Karlyn taught piano and piano literature at Utah Valley University, worked as a bookseller at The King’s English Bookshop, and established Portico MLA: Adventures in Music, Literature, and Art—a learning community for readers and lovers of the arts, which will be hardlaunched sometime this fall. Karlyn has long been interested in interdisciplinary studies in the arts, and last year re-released her 1996 CD A Recital from the World of Jane Austen—this time cast as a documentary recording of a hypothetical concert in Bath, England in February of 1816, and attended by many music-loving characters in Austen’s novels. When not on the job, Karlyn likes spending time with family and friends, walking, hiking, birdwatching (especially with her parents), reading, and watching baseball. After an extended unofficial sabbatical, she is thrilled to be returning to academia and her beloved alma mater, where one of her two sisters and several long-time friends are now colleagues.

Brandon Beck is director of the band and wind instrument program at Walla Walla University, a position he has held since 2000. In his position as associate professor of music, he teaches conducting, methods classes, private instruction in low brass instruments, and also conducts the Symphony Orchestra, Wind Symphony, Steel Band, and Brass Ensembles. 

Beck has taught since 1981, teaching at three academies before joining the faculty at Southern Adventist University for three years from 1997-2000. While at Auburn Adventist Academy (AAA) in Auburn, Washington, his last academy position, he received the 1995 Lowe Teaching Award as teacher of the year, an award voted by the school’s faculty and students, and was listed in Who’s Who Among American Teachers in 1992 and 1996. His ensembles at AAA received numerous awards and distinctions, including invitational performances at the 1987 Western International Band Clinic, the 1990 General Conference Session in Indianapolis, and the 1993 annual meeting of the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges.

His band at AAA consistently received superior ratings in contests run by the local Pierce County League of Music Educators, achieving the highest score for bands four out of the five times they participated. It also won the Small Schools Division of the Lewis and Clark College 1996 Northwest Invitational Band Contest. 

Beck has served as a band clinician for high school and elementary band clinics or honor bands in Florida, Tennessee, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington. He has directed the Oregon Music Educators Association’s District 6 Honor Band at Pendleton High School, and directs the Walla Walla University Honor Band Festival every other year.

Beck completed a Bachelor of Music degree in music education at Walla Walla University, serving as assistant college band director during his senior year. A bass trombonist, he studied with Lloyd Leno at Walla Walla University and with Paul Bauer, Leon Brown, and Royce Lumpkin at the University of North Texas, where he did additional undergraduate study. He completed a master’s degree at Vandercook College of Music in 1988 where he continued his bass trombone studies with Roger Rocco.

Dr. Christine Janis has taught at Walla Walla University since 1999. Her duties at WWU include training voice majors and minors, teaching Theory I, Ear Training I, Music Notation Lab, Singer’s Diction, Vocal Techniques and Methods, and the weekly Voice Performance class. Her students can be heard singing in the University choirs and as soloists. Dr. Janis served as vocal coach for Walla Walla University's successful 2016 production of Little Women - The Broadway Musical. Her work on that show garnered her a Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Achievement Award. She also worked as vocal director for Walla Walla University’s production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in November 2018. For the 2019 production of Amahl and the Night Visitors and the 2021 production of A Year with Frog and Toad, Dr. Janis served as both vocal director and co-stage director. 

Dr. Janis’ undergraduate degree is from Westminster Choir College in Music Education. After four years teaching middle school and high school vocal music in upstate NY, she pursued graduate degrees at The Ohio State University. Dr. Janis completed a Master of Arts in Vocal Pedagogy under the tutelage of Professor Helen Swank then a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance, studying with Dr. Robin Rice. While at The Ohio State University, Dr. Janis sang leading roles in several operas and operettas including Margot in The Desert Song, Adele in Die Fledermaus and Giannetta in L’Elisird’Amore. In February 1991, as a member of The Ohio State University Chorale, she was honored to sing the soprano solos for the Ohio premier of John Rutter’s Magnificat in Cleveland, OH, with Rutter himself conducting.

Since moving to Walla Walla, Dr. Janis has sung professionally with the Walla Walla Symphony and the Mid-Columbia Symphony, performed numerous solo recitals and, in May of 1995, sang the title role in Whitman College’s production of Hello, Dolly! Dr. Janis is also an accomplished choral conductor, having conducted choirs in her home state of NJ, NY, OH and WA. For fifteen seasons she served as Artistic Director/Conductor for the Walla Walla Choral Society. She works with the Walla Walla Symphony on special choral projects such as the youth chorus for the Nutcracker ballet every 2 years with the Eugene Ballet, and the women’s chorus for the May 2018 concert of Holst’s The Planets and Debussy’s Nocturnes to name a few. Since August of 2001, Dr. Janis has been the choir director at St. Silouan’s Russian Orthodox Church in Walla Walla. She is vice-president for the Danza Classica Ballet Foundation, a local non-profit dedicated to fostering the art of ballet and supporting youth ballet in the Walla Walla valley.

A native of British Columbia, Kraig Scott has made recital appearances throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East in venues such as Dunblane Cathedral (Scotland), Kirkpatrick Chapel (Rutgers University), Central Lutheran Church (Eugene), St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral (Seattle), the Sejong Cultural Center (South Korea), and Gaoloumen Christian Church (Nanjing, China). He has presented master classes at many institutions including the Eastman School, Rutgers University, Pacific Lutheran University, the University of Alberta, the University of Oregon, the University of Calgary, Westminster Choir College, and for several chapters of the American Guild of Organists.   

Since assuming direction of the University choral ensembles in 2009 he and the small choir, ICantori, have toured throughout the Pacific Northwest, and to San Francisco, Honolulu, southern California, and New York. As a guest conductor his appearances include leading the festival chorus of Central Lutheran Church (Eugene, Oregon), and conducting the 500-voice choir of the Seventh-day Adventist International Choral Congress in Bucha, Ukraine. In addition to his work at WWU he serves as adjunct instructor at Whitman College. 

Scott holds an associate degree from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and a bachelor’s degree from Walla Walla University. His advanced degrees include a MMus from the University of Oregon, an MA and DMA from the Eastman School of Music, and post graduate choral conducting training at Michigan State University.