Biography
Dana Sloter, DMA serves as the Teaching Artist of Clarinet at Drake University (Des Moines, IA) and Clarinet Teaching Artist at Simpson College (Indianola, IA). Dr. Sloter also maintains private piano and clarinet studios with Sounding Sharp and the Drake University Community School of Music (DUCSOM), respectively. Her approach in piano lessons is built on a foundation of essential, practical skills that are reinforced with games, narrative music history worksheets, composition/improvisation exercises, and individualized recital arrangements of popular songs to build a strong relationship with the student and encourage their creativity. In clarinet lessons, Dr. Sloter is also focused on essential technical and expressive skills and deliberately pulls from a broad range of useful repertoire to expose students to the work of women composers, the value of transcriptions, and a wide variety of musical styles. She is also a music director and pit musician, having played for productions in theaters in the Peoria, Des Moines, Phoenix, and Kansas City areas as both a keyboardist and woodwind doubler (piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, and saxophone). She is a proud alumna of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity and a member of the Des Moines Alumnae Chapter, as well as a member of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, the American Federation of Musicians (Local 75), and the International Alliance of Women in Music
Dr. Sloter received her Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance at Drake University in Des Moines, IA in 2013, her Master of Music in Clarinet Performance at Arizona State University (ASU) in 2015, and recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Clarinet Performance at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) Conservatory. Her teachers include Clarence Padilla, Robert Spring, Joshua Gardner, and Jane Carl.