My Mentors
Dr. Reginald McDonald
Reginald Adrian McDonald, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, currently serves as Director of Bands, String Orchestra Conductor, Instrumental Music Coordinator and Associate Professor of Music Education at Tennessee State University. In 2015, Dr. McDonald was promoted to Director Bands following a successful four year period as Acting Director Bands beginning in 2011. Prior to his appointment as Associate Director of Bands/Assistant Professor of Music at Tennessee State University in 2001, Dr. McDonald served as Director of Bands at McNair Middle School in College Park, Georgia from 1991 to 1996 and Director of Bands/Music Department Chairman at Southwest Dekalb High School in Decatur, Georgia from 1996 to 2001. During his public school tenure, Dr. McDonald’s middle school and high school bands received ten years of consecutive superior ratings at concert, marching and jazz band state/district evaluations, competitions and festivals. His bands have performed for prestigious audiences such as the 1999 Atlanta Falcons’ nationally televised NFL-playoff game, President George Bush’s 2001 visit to the Atlanta Fernbank Museum, the 100 Black Men of Atlanta Football Classic, the 2002 Inaugural Honda Collegiate Battle of the Bands, the 2002 Music Educators National Conference Bi-Annual In-Service, annually for the Tennessee Titans NFL games, 2006 & 2014 HBCU-National Band Directors Consortium, the 2009 Tennessee Music Educators Association Annual In-Service, 2011 & 2013 & 2018 first/only HBCU band invited to perform for Bands of America Grand Nationals, 2014 the first college band in the United States to perform for halftime of the nationally televised NFL Hall of Fame game, 2016 special invitational performance at the White House in front of the Oval Office for President Barack Obama, 2018 the first HBCU concert band to be selected to perform for the Percy Grainger Wind Band Festival, 2018 special guest performance with Mega-Star Keith Urban’s world tour finally, 2019 Performance for the National Football League (NFL) Draft “Red Carpet”, 2019 guest appearance/performance on ESPN’s nationally televised “First Take” with Stephen A. Smith and Rose Bowl Parade Performance, 2022.
Dr. Jeffery Phillips
Dr. Jeffery Phillips retired from teaching at Hendersonville High School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where he was the Director of Fine Arts in addition to conducting the Symphonic Band, Jazz Ensemble, and Marching Band. He has also taught at Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, Tennessee and as adjunct trombone instructor at Western Kentucky University. He is in his 11th year on the Applied Music Faculty at Belmont University where he teaches the trombone studio and performs with the Belmont Faculty Brass Quintet. He has earned degrees from Middle Tennessee State University, Western Kentucky University, and Austin Peay State University, and California Coast University. As a performer, he remains active as a freelance trombonist in the Nashville area performing with groups such as the Jack Daniels Silver Cornet Band, the Nashville Wind Ensemble and the Nashville Symphony. Phillips has conducted clinics throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi for students in middle school through college and is active as an adjudicator for music groups of all genres throughout the Southeast. In 2012, he founded the Sumner County Community Concert Band which he conducts. He has served as President of the Middle Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association, served two years as the TMEA State Band Chair and served two years as the National Treasurer for the American School Band Directors Association. He was elected President-elect for the ASBDA and served the office of President of ASBDA for the 2008-2009 year. He is currently the President of the Tennessee Music Education Association. Phillips is also a Jupiter Band Instrument Performing Artist and Educational Clinician and performs on Jupiter and XO trombones and euphoniums exclusively.
