Joshua Mietz

Dr. Joshua R. Mietz is the Adjunct Instructor of Clarinet at Fort Lewis and San Juan Colleges, the Adjunct Instructor of Saxophone at San Juan College, as well as the Director of Choirs at the First United Methodist Church in Durango, Colorado. He also coaches a large clarinet choir comprised of Fort Lewis Students and area clarinetists. His arrangements vary from rock/pop covers, church hymns for weekly worship, and re-orchestrations of larger-scale works.

Since his arrival in Durango, Mietz has been the featured clarinetist in performances at Fort Lewis College, San Juan College, the 3rd Avenue Arts Series, the Silverton Fall Colors Chamber Music Festival, and performed with the San Juan Symphony. His current research and performance pursuit centers upon the clarinet-based chamber music of Dr. David Maslanka.

While earning a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Mietz studied clarinet with Dr. Diane Barger and conducting with Dr. Carolyn Barber. For his doctoral document, Mietz analyzed Maslanka’s Desert Roads for Clarinet and Wind Ensemble from both a clarinetist and conductor’s viewpoints. Maslanka remarked that the work was, “thorough,” “insightful,” and a “pioneering work that opens doors for others to follow.”

Prior to his study at the University of Montana, Mietz taught junior high and high school band and orchestra in the public schools of Colorado as well as performed with the Denver Pops Orchestra. Mietz received a Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet performance in 2001 from the University of Colorado-Boulder and studied clarinet with Daniel Silver, Bil Jackson, Dr. Phillip Aaholm, and studied conducting with Allan McMurray. Additionally, Mietz completed the requirements as a Certified Massage Therapist at the Denver School of Massage Therapy where he subsequently acquired positions both at local clinics as well as taught cadaver-based Human Anatomy at the Laboratories of Anatomical Enlightenment.

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