Board Members

Dr. Paul Jackson – President

Paul Jackson is an academic, musicologist, conductor and pianist who was, for over 20 years, Director of Music and Performing Arts at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. His publications include contributions to The New Percy Grainger Companion (2010), to Grainger Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2012) and to John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education (2018). He is editor of The Grainger Journal, and is also currently preparing an edition of Percy Grainger’s Round Letters for publication.

Susan Colson – Secretary and Treasurer

Susan Colson is a Trusts and Estates attorney with Lanahan Law, LLC in White Plains, New York. She is dedicated to the arts, community building, and civic engagement through her professional and volunteer work. She is a long time volunteer and docent at the Percy Grainger Home and Studio, most recently organizing the Daffodil Planting Project in Fall, 2021. She worked with the White Plains Beautification Foundation to organize The Great Bloom Out in Spring, 2021 and arranged a collaboration with Westchester Symphonic Winds to celebrate the celebrate Grainger's centennial year in White Plains with a November, 2021 concert. 

Bill Garlette – Membership Chair

Major (R) Bill Garlette is the Conductor and Music Director of Chesapeake Bay Wind Ensemble. He retired to the Hampton Roads Virginia area in 2002 after serving over 25 years as an Army Band musician and officer. In his final tour from 1998–2002, he served as Deputy Commander and Associate Conductor at the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, NY.

Chalon Ragsdale – Associate Editor, The Grainger Journal

Chalon Ragsdale is University Professor of Percussion at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and owner of Aux Arcs Music, a publishing firm responsible for some 30 editions of the music of Percy Grainger for wind band and Percussion Ensemble. Chal has presented on the life and music of Percy Grainger for the Midwest Clinic, the College Band Directors National Association, for the  Japan Grainger Festival in Tokyo, and three times for the Grainger Museum in Melbourne. In 2003, he was awarded the Grainger Medallion for his contributions to the music of Percy Grainger.

Marissa Kyser

Marissa Kyser is from Troy, Missouri and studied Music Education and Wind Band Conducting at Missouri State University. She is the Director of Bands for the Spokane R-VII School District located in southwest Missouri. In 2019, she wrote a thesis about Percy Grainger's time living in Springfield, Missouri during the 1940s and presented her findings at the Percy Grainger House.

Staff Members

Anne Ocone – Museum Coordinator

Anne Ocone, an experienced museum and arts professional, began working with us as Museum Coordinator in 2018. She is a key contact for the organization and is involved in all areas of the society's operation, from collections and facilities to membership and programs.

Emeritus Board Members

Barry Peter Ould – President Emeritus

Barry Peter Ould was, in 1978, co-founder of the Percy Grainger Society (UK) with Professor David Tall. In 1984, Barry took over the editorship of the Grainger Society Journal with Vol. 6. In 1987, he established the music publishing company, Bardic Edition, and under this imprint many new Grainger works have been published. He acted as musical consultant to the Chandos Grainger Edition (1998–2003) as well as writing the extensive liner notes.

Matthew McGarrell – Board Emeritus

Matthew McGarrell recently retired as Director of Bands at Brown University, a position he held for thirty-five years. Raised in New Hampshire, he is a graduate of the Loyola University College of Music in New Orleans where he studied trombone with Richard Erb. Since 2002, McGarrell has been performing with and writing music for the Sociedade Filarmónica de Covõesin Coimbra, Portugal. Recent work for the Percy Grainger Society has focused on preserving and cataloguing photographic negatives in the collection at 7 Cromwell Place as well as making photographs and videos for the society. 

Dr. Cora Angier Sowa – Board Emerita

Cora Sowa is a native of Los Angeles, with a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard. Her area of special interest is in oral epic poetry and song, and her thesis on "Traditional Themes in the Homeric Hymns" eventually became a book. Cora became acquainted with the Percy Grainger Society in the 1970s, and joined the board soon after, designing the first web site for the Percy Grainger Society. She now works as an independent scholar, and maintains a web site at www.minervaclassics.com.

Dana Perna – Board Emeritus

Dana Paul Perna is an American composer-musicologist at the forefront of endorsing the music of Percy Grainger through his works for orchestra, concert band and chorus. He was the conductor for the wind ensemble Holzblazer, both in New York and Chicago, and has studied composition with Elie Siegmeister and David Loeb. His music for orchestra, brass, concert band, chorus and chamber music has been played in North America, Europe, and Asia. He hosts the weekly  podcast The Dana Paul Perna Powerhouse.