ACME Honorees

Mu Phi Epsilon is proud to announce the latest ACME (Artists, Composer, Musicologists, Educators) honorees and include them among our most accomplished members whose achievements place them at the acme of our profession. Like all ACME honorees, they welcome mentoring requests and other contact from Mu Phi members.

David Isaacs

Gamma Sigma

David Isaacs is an artist, composer/ arranger, musicologist and educator. He earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in classical guitar performance at California State University, Fullerton and his Doctor of Musical Arts in historical performance practice at Claremont Graduate University under the tutelage of Jack Sanders.

An Eroica Classical Recording Artist, Isaacs has performed throughout the United States and Greece as a soloist and chamber musician as well as the guitar and voice duo Chanson du Soir, which he founded. He has released 6 CDs and has been featured on radio stations across the U.S. The American Record Guide’s Ken Keaton wrote “Isaacs plays with sensitivity and technical finish and is more emotionally committed to the music and its images than many far more famous players.”

As a pedagogue, Isaacs is adjunct faculty, instructor of guitar at CSU, Dominguez Hills, Cerritos College and Cypress College where he conducts guitar ensembles, coaches chamber groups and guides young players on their path to university study, judges for guitar competitions, and presents masterclasses, adjudicates competitions, supports new compositions and transcribes works for the guitar and voice pairing. In print, Isaacs writes sheet music reviews for Soundboard and authored The Essential Classical Guitar Scale Book with Michael Anthony Nigro. Isaacs helped establish and operate the Long Beach Classical Guitar Society, the Long Beach Classical Guitar Academy and the Southern California Classical Guitar Summer Workshop for over seven years. An avid rock music fan, Isaacs shares this passion in history of rock courses at Cypress College.

Jeannine Wagner

Phi Nu, Los Angeles Alumni

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Wagner received her formal training at Loyola Marymount University, UCLA, California State University, Fullerton and USC. For 10 years, she was assistant director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, preparing masterworks for such prominent conductors as Eugene Ormandy, Carlo Maria Giulini, Zubin Mehta and Michael Tilson Thomas. Her work with new and unusual repertoire also included premieres of compositions by Steve Reich and Krzysztof Penderecki. In 1991, she founded the Wagner Ensemble, and in 1992, she became the director of the Roger Wagner Chorale founded by her late father, Roger Wagner. In December 2017, Wagner completed her 12th tour of Japan as the conductor of the Roger Wagner Chorale. Her myriad credits also include chorusmaster and assistant conductor of various opera productions. She has participated as singer and consultant in over 80 motion picture and television soundtracks, including work with Steven Spielberg and John Williams.

As an educator, Wagner has taught at the California Institute of the Arts; California State University, Los Angeles; Immaculate Heart College; UCLA; California Institute of Technology; the Los Angeles City Schools; and has served as the Los Angeles Music Center’s consultant to the Wiseburn School District. She is the director of the Chamber Singers at St. Lucy’s Priory High School in Glendora, California; the Wagner Ensemble; and the St. Francis de Sales Choir. She is also conductor of the Roger Wagner Chorale.

Sophia Tegart

Mu Beta

Sophia Tegart is recognized for her immense contributions to the world of music, particularly music by women composers. She has greatly distinguished herself for her outstanding accomplishment as an artist, musicologist and educator. Tegart earned her Bachelor of Arts in history and Bachelor of Music in performance from Washington State University. She graduated with a Master of Arts in music history and a Master of Music in flute performance from University of Oregon. She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in flute performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where she held the flute fellowship in the Graduate Woodwind Quintet.

As a Yamaha Performing Artist, Tegart has performed extensively throughout the Europe, Asia and the U.S. and held masterclasses throughout the country. In addition to teaching at Washington State University, Tegart has taught flute lessons, flute choir, chamber music, music history and women in music courses at several other colleges and universities.

Tegart’s research interests include 19th-century operatic mad scenes, representations of art and literature in music and zoological elements in early 20th-century French flute music. For her master’s thesis, “An Instrumental Voice: Use of the Flute in Lucia’s Mad Scene,” she won the Mu Phi Epsilon Musicology Award. Tegart has also presented lectures about ekphrasis in the music of Jessica Rudman, specifically Anne Sexton’s Transformations, a retelling of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

At each school she attended, Tegart was part of the lifeblood of Mu Phi Epsilon. She has helped reactivate collegiate and alumni chapters. She has served in multiple leadership roles within the Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, recently concluding her term as foundation president.

Jennifer Barlament

Delta Zeta

Jennifer Barlament, executive director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) since 2016, earned her Bachelor of Music with a minor in physics from Emory University. She earned a master’s degree in clarinet performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she founded the student-run New Eastman Symphony to help provide practical experience for graduate students at Eastman.

Barlament is recognized for her “exceptional leadership, dedication and accomplishment” of providing a platform for the art form of the orchestra to continue and thrive through the combined involvement of ASO management, musicians and community support to make that vision a reality both artistically and financially. Under her leadership, ASO achieved fiscal sustainability for eight continuous years even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic through its “Behind the Curtain” virtual concert series and livestreams. Barlament believes that the orchestra is for everyone. ASO’s creative vitality engages the next generation of music lovers and music-makers through its educational programs, family concerts, youth concerts, as well as its regular programming, including pieces composed by women and people of color, world premieres, ASO commissions and U.S. premieres. Barlament’s historic hiring of Nathalie Stutzmann as ASO’s first woman music director (and the second woman to lead a major American orchestra), promises to see the return of major choral music to ASO programming.

Barlament has more than 15 years of experience leading orchestras across the country, holding various positions such as general manager of the Cleveland Orchestra; executive director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra; general manager of the Omaha Symphony; concert manager of the Baltimore Symphony; director of special projects at the Detroit Symphony; and orchestra management fellowship program of the League of American Orchestras at the San Francisco Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony and the Detroit Symphony. In 2013, Barlament was the recipient of the League of American Orchestras’ prestigious Helen M. Thompson Award.

ACME is the acronym for Artists, Composers, Musicologists and Educators

ACME highlights the strengths of our Mu Phi Epsilon artists, composers, musicologists, and educators. It is an honor bestowed upon Mu Phi Epsilon members who are distinguished in their respective fields of musical endeavors. We therefore encourage members to nominate deserving candidates who have achieved national and/or international acclaim in their music-related fields for ACME consideration. Information about ACME members and their attainments are published to recognize outstanding achievements of our members as well as to provide mentors who are willing to advise other musicians in the same category of the music profession.

ACME nominations may be submitted by an alumni or collegiate chapter, or by individual members year-round.

For more information, contact ACME co-chairs Arietha Lockhart (Beta Gamma, Atlanta Alumni) and Mary Au (Mu Nu, Los Angeles Alumni) at ACME@muphiepsilon.org.