Board of Directors
President
Technology Committee (Chair); Development Committee; Communications Committee
Steve Garone
Steve Garone is thrilled to serve on the Board of NHIMA!
Steve’s introduction to playing music was a recorder he played in 2nd grade growing up in Brooklyn, New York. A close friend who played accordion encouraged him to take accordion lessons, which he did for a few years until 5th grade, when he joined a school band to play trumpet. A classmate’s need to switch to a trumpet, and drawing a short straw, prompted a move to the clarinet, which Steve played through college.
Steve is an original member of Sudbury Valley New Horizons Music, where he has been playing trumpet for about 15 years. Guitar, bass guitar, banjo, and ukelele are also part of Steve’s repertoire of instruments. Mandolin can’t be far behind!
Steve’s career has spanned a number of disciplines, including engineering, marketing, competitive intelligence and market research. Steve is currently the founder and chief analyst at Lake Shore Analytics, where he focuses on helping organizations of all sizes develop and execute content strategies to help them grow their businesses.
Steve has worked for a number of companies including Digital Equipment Corporation, IDC Corporation, Hitachi Vantara, Sun Microsystems, and CA Technologies. Steve was also the co-founder of two other companies, and, as a member of the staff of the MIT eForum, he helps those who choose a similar path.
Steve earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering). He also holds both a Master of Science degree and an Electrical Engineer degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He subsequently earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Babson College.
Steve’s free time is spent practicing yoga, running, volunteering for community-based organizations, and hanging out with his grandchildren.
Vice President
Events Committee (Chair); Membership Committee
Michelle Skomars
Michelle joined the Spokane New Horizons Orchestra because an opposing hockey player (friend and violist) invited her to come play while waiting for the puck to drop on a face off. After searching through every closet, I discovered I did indeed still have a clarinet, and wiping off the four decades of grime I showed up.
Since I had recently retired, I ended up ditching my plans to return to pottery and started playing in every group I could convince to take me. That wasn’t enough so I showed up at the first Cincy band camp and was so impressed with the leadership I wanted to be more involved. Spokane started a jazz band, and now I play clarinet and sax.
I spent a great deal of my life working in aviation in the military and federal government, holding a myriad of leadership positions. Most of my most humbling lessons in life come from being a parent.
Secretary
Membership Committee; Events Committee
Mary Kitchen
Mary Kitchen and her husband Allen are founders and directors of the Butler New Horizons Folk and Gospel Band in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mary has played guitar since her teen years, but missed her chance to learn violin in school when her family relocated. In her 50s she decided it was never too late, and started violin lessons at her local music store. She loved playing, and soon learned that what she enjoyed most was bluegrass fiddling. Now she takes part in many jams, both locally and at Chautauqua Institution, where she and her husband spend time during the summer. Mary and Allen started a New Horizons group in Butler because they wanted to share the joy of music with other adults.
Mary grew up in Pittsburgh, and attended Duquesne University and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She has served several congregations as a Presbyterian minister since 1980, and is now semi-retired, pastoring two small churches in the Butler area. She includes music in virtually every service, often with Allen who plays keyboards. Mary and Allen have two grown children, Joanna and Michael.
Treasurer
Finance Committee
Don Sillings
Don Sillings joined the Prime Time Band (the New Horizons band in Santa Barbara, California) in 2004. He was a novice, never having played a musical instrument. Band members welcomed him warmly and offered free lessons on the clarinet. After 2 years there, he moved to Huntington Beach, where he now plays in the Huntington Beach Concert Band, Golden West Pops, and Vanguard University Concert Band.
While working as a financial officer at California State University, Long Beach Foundation, Don attended classes and was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Latin & Italian: Languages & Cultures. The special undergraduate program included a year of study in Florence, Italy. He returned to the States to earn a Master of Arts in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at the Monterey Institute and teach at several community colleges in southern California. He served for 12 years as General Manager and financial officer of a professional association for TESOL teachers in California and Nevada.
Don retired in 2019. He enjoys travel, especially ocean cruises, having visited 20+ countries and is looking forward to several cruises this summer after a COVID-19 hiatus.
Director
Communications Committee (Chair); Events Committee
Debbi Gibson
Debbi Gibson began her involvement with the NHIMA in 2016 when she became the conductor of the New Hampshire New Horizons Band of the Lakes Region. She was a former music educator of public school and collegiate levels for over 40 years. New Horizons was a perfect fit!! Debbi was still able to teach and make music!!! The “age” of the student was just a little different.
Debbi earned her BME from Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music, with a Certificate in Performance and her MME from James Madison University. Currently Debbi conducts several groups alongside of the New Horizons Band; the Carter Mountain Brass Band of New Hampshire and the Taylor Community Chorus of the Retirement Community in Laconia, NH. An avid free lance musician, she continues clarinet and other woodwind instruments in ensembles in NH, such as the Lakes Region Symphony Orchestra, the Newmount Military Band, the Center Harbor Town Band and the Gilford Community Band as well as playing in several pit orchestras. Throughout Debbi’s musical career, she has received many accolades. Those include; 1974 John Philip Sousa Outstanding Band Member, 1974 USMC Semper Fidelis Award, 2002 National “50 Directors Who Made a Difference”, 2005 NHMEA Distinguished Music Educator of the Year, 2011 NHBDA Outstanding Band Director Award. She has guest conductored at several middle and high school festivals as well as the guest conductor at the Adult New England Music Camp at Snow Pond.
Debbi believes that “Music is Medicine”, and enjoys helping people share in the joyful and healing experience that music can provide both through conducting and performing on her clarinet. She lives in Sanbornton, New Hampshire with her Great Dane, Ziva and is surrounded by her children, 9 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild.
Director
Development Committee (Chair); Membership Committee
Julie Kling
Julie Kling currently teaches humanities, music, philosophy, and English courses at the community college level in Ohio. A former K-8 music teacher and elementary classroom teacher, Julie is enjoying playing in groups again after a twelve year break. She first became aware of NHIMA through participation in the band camp at Lakeside Chautauqua. Julie has played piano and flute for many years but has also learned to play the clarinet and most recently the bass clarinet. Her first concert on her bass clarinet was with the clarinet choir at the Cincinnati area band camp this past summer. When not grading papers, Julie sings in the Terra College Concert Choir and plays in the college symphonic band, jazz band, and chamber orchestra. During the summer, Julie plays in the Bryan City Band (which began in 1852 and is one of the nation’s oldest community bands) and attends Interlochen College Symphonic Band Camp. Julie is an ordained Presbyterian minister and also designs online courses and training, so her laptop is usually at her side.
Director
Events Committee; Membership Committee
Ellen Cara Lewis
These days, after 2 1/2 years in the Rochester Eastman Community School Green Band, she can't practice her bells, marimba and made-up drum set long enough.
Ellen became a New Horizons member after attending three music camps in Maine and two in Cincinnati and with her New Horizons, flute-playing husband as his plus one. She decided that he was having all the fun, although she did enjoy some lovely sight-seeing and making new friends. Ellen quickly realized that the best way for her to learn a new instrument and join the Green Band would be to build on her piano skills and play a keyboard instrument. So she borrowed a set of bells from the Band inventory, found an extraordinary teacher, with the help of the Director of the Nazareth University Percussion Department and began a rich new chapter in her life.
Prior to retirement, Ellen's career included a few years as a lawyer and many years in the management of housing, community and economic development; training/education and health care organizations. She has served on the boards of the Community Counselling Services of Rochester (a debt assistance program); Lawyers Referral Service; The Center for Youth Services; and The Perkins Mansion, Inc.
Director
Finance Committee (Chair): Events Committee
Donna Morse
Donna is currently the director and founder of the Monadnock New Horizons Band in Keene, NH, the musical director for the Nelson, NH Town Band, a private teacher and freelance musician. Growing up in Miami, FL in a musical family, her music education began nearly 50 years ago with piano lessons. She started clarinet in 6th grade and played in Florida All-state festivals, district festivals, and four years in the Orange Bowl parade.
After graduating from Bucknell University, Donna expanded her woodwind playing to flute and saxophone, studying flute with Shirley Gilpin and Julie Armstrong, saxophone and applied jazz harmony with Scott Mullett, John Mastriani, and Mark Pinto and jazz piano and harmony with Eugene Uman of the Vermont Jazz Center. Donna teaches private lessons from her home as well as in a number of high schools(in a normal year). She is the lead sax player in the Keene Jazz Orchestra, a clarinet/woodwind player in the Windham Orchestra and a frequent pit orchestra player. While attending the New England Adult Music Camp in 2013 Donna met Roy Ernst and learned about the New Horizons music programs. She returned to Keene and started the Monadnock New Horizons Band(MNHB) in the Fall of 2014. The band is going strong with up to 45 members(in a normal year) bringing together adult musicians of all ages to learn to make music together.
Director
Finance Committee
David Morse
Dave is a member of the Monadnock New Horizons Concert and Jazz Bands. He also plays in the Nelson Town Band, occasional musical pit orchestras and sax quartets, and does the business manager job for the Keene Jazz Orchestra where he also subs on bari sax and bass. He has attended many NHIMA camps over the past 5 years and will attend the Kingston camp and the Europe trip in 2026. He plans on retirement from his chemical engineering career later in 2026. He also volunteers with the AARP Tax Assist Program doing income taxes for folks who don’t find that task as much fun as he finds it.
Dave started playing saxophone in 5th grade. He started playing bass in 10th grade in order to move from bari sax in his High School Jazz Band to the rhythm section. He continued playing sax through college in marching, pep, and concert band while playing his bass in the college jazz ensemble. Music helped keep his sanity as he studied toward his degree in chemical engineering which he achieved in 1982. After taking a playing hiatus early in adulthood, he started playing again in 1996 when he moved to Keene, NH with Donna and their boys. Over the years the opportunity to play sax and bass continued to grow and when the Monadnock New Horizons band was formed, he expanded his playing to flute and percussion (always wanted to be the set drummer).
Dave feels the New Horizons program is important as an opportunity for folks to take those instruments out of the closet in a safe and happy environment. He believes there is room to grow NHIMA as the number of potential players is almost limitless!
NHIMA Advisor to the Board
Irene Cohen
Irene Cohen is a retired Family Physician from London, ON, Canada. She is the past President (2020 and 2021) of the New Horizons International Music Association. She is the current Advisor of the NHIMA Board, and a member of the Events Committee.
Irene grew up in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and emigrated to Israel to obtain her Medical Doctor degree at the Technion University, Haifa. In 1986 she moved with her young family to Canada where she started her 30 year career as a Family Physician, as a leader in community medicine in her region, and as an educator for young physicians. During her tenure as President of NHIMA she was instrumental in creating ongoing NHIMA virtual programming since December 2020. In addition she created and hosts Music Forever - a NHIMA podcast, featuring New Horizons musicians and conductors, who share their musical journeys.
Irene has been the co-director for the Mont Tremblant New Horizons Music Camps. She has also assisted other New Horizons co-directors in organizing their camps. She believes that the creation of a supportive network of music leaders and conductors allows for a broad base for NHIMA programming, where ‘your best is good enough.’
