Academy Director and Voice Faculty

Gene Davis is an Assistant Professor of Music and Music Department Chair at Huntingdon College in Montgomery. She taught in the Montgomery County School System for 28 years as the choral director at Robert E. Lee High School. Ms. Davis holds a Bachelor's degree in Music from Samford University and a Master's in Music Education from Auburn University. She has served as an adjudicator for solo and choral festivals in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. She also serves as consultant and coordinator for the Alabama National Fair Invitational Choral Festival. Over the past thirty years, Ms. Davis' voice students have received various honors, which include outstanding ratings at statewide competitions and numerous scholarships to colleges and universities across the southeast. She has also had students selected to attend summer music institutes at the University of Alabama Opera Camp, Florida State University's Summer Music Camp and Boston University's Tanglewood Institute. Ms. Davis' professional memberships include National Association of Teachers of Singing, Alabama Vocal Association, having served as District Chairman, Music Educators National Conference, and American Choral Directors Association, having served as State President, Membership Chair, and currently serving as Historian. In 1985, she founded the Madrigal Voices of Montgomery, a community vocal ensemble. This ensemble under her direction has performed at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and other venues around the Southeast. Ms. Davis was recently inducted into the Robert E. Lee Hall of Fame and received the 2003 Francis Moss Choral Director's Award which is presented annually by the Alabama Vocal Association to one of its members. This lifetime achievement award represents recognition for the positive impact a teacher has had locally and throughout the state in choral music.

Voice Faculty

Tiffany McGuire Nishibun is an alumna Huntingdon College (B.A. in Music), as well as The New England Conservatory of Music (M.M. in Vocal Performance) in Boston, Massachusetts. She has performed opera scenes as Gilda in Rigoletto, Barbarina and Susanna in Marriage of Figaro, Despina in Cosi fan Tutte and Blonde in Abduction from the Seraglio. She has also performed in the productions of Amahl and the Night Visitors as the title character, The Elixir of Love as Gianetta, and La Traviata as Violetta with the Huntingdon College Opera Theater. She has recently performed as the soprano soloist with the Faulkner University Chorus in Mozart’s Coronation Mass, with Church of the Ascension in Faure’s Requiem, and The Montgomery Chorale in Orff’s Carmina Burana. Tiffany is an adjunct professor of music for AUM and Faulkner University and looks forward to teaching her first class at Huntingdon College this fall. Not only is she involved in college-level education, but she is also the Director of Children’s Ministries for Church of the Ascension and Administrator of the Montgomery Youth Chorale and Montgomery Chorale.

Piano Faculty

Joan Shockley Cunningham recently moved from El Paso, Texas to the Montgomery area. As a long established piano instructor, of 30 years, teaching at beginning and advanced college prep, and church musician Mrs Cunningham was a member of Texas Music Teachers Assn, El Paso Music Teachers Assn serving as vice president in charge of student concerts, ways and means chairman and chairman twice for EPMTA/EPMD/UTEP Piano Festivals. She has also served as adjudicator for the Texas Interscholastic League in piano division, and Texas Association of Private Schools, in piano, female vocalist, and male vocalist in the secondary levels in El Paso. Mrs Cunningham has also served as chairman for Master Classes and workshops with James and Jane Bastien, Ozan Marsh, Reah Sadowsky and Augustin Anievas, for the further development of students at the advanced level. She studied choral music with Barbara Henry Forest , vocal music with Evelyn Losack, orchestra conducting from Quinn Lotspiech , and the Louise Robyne method from American Conservatory. Piano instructors included Dr Ralph Briggs, UTEP, James D. Gutherie, Yale School of Music, Phoebe Mutnick, Utep, and Austin and Lorene Williams in extra theory work and shape note reading. She developed the music dept and program of the Abundant Living Faith Center of El Paso Texas, building and establishing the band, orchestra, choir, and stage group. From there Mrs Cunningham served as a consultant with other churches in Texas, New Mexico, and Alabama helping them develop their music depts.. After moving to the Montgomery area in 2006, Dr Ronald Shinn sought her for teaching piano at the Huntingdon Academy of Music where she has been teaching since March 2007.

Carrie Carboni graduated in May of 2008 from Huntingdon College with a bachelor's degree in Music with a concentration in piano performance. She then went on to Samford University where she completed her masters in piano performance and pedagogy. Having taken part in numerous competitions, she has placed 2nd in both the Alabama Federation and Birmingham Music Club competitions in 2006 and took first place in both the state and regional Alabama Federation competitions in 2007. In 2008, she placed 3rd in the Morris piano competition at Samford University. Ms. Carboni also enjoys collaborative work. She has played with numerous soloists, two trios, and has significant choral accompanist and church musician experience. Ms. Carboni has been teaching privately in Montgomery since 2007 and her students have been selected as Honor Students at Helen Boykin Festival as well as receiving outstanding scores at the Alabama Music Teacher's Association District Auditions. She is a member of the Music Teacher's National Association, the Montgomery Music Teachers Forum, and the Montgomery Music Study Club.

Summer Whatley has been teaching piano lessons to children and adults for seventeen years.  A gradulate of Auburn University in Montgomery, she has also served as a church music minister for ten years and as a classroom music teacher at Holy Cross Episcopal School for three years. During her teaching career, her students have been chosen as Honor Students at the Federation and Boykin piano festivals in Montgomery and have achieved district and state awards at the Alabama Music Teachers Association (AMTA). Ms. Whatley currently teaches private lessons to beginners through advanced students beginning at age four.  In addition to weekly private lessons, she also teaches an adult group class where students learn at their own pace.

Sharla Bender received her Bachelor’s degree of the Arts from Huntingdon College in Montgomery, AL in 2004. Her coursework has included instruction in pedagogy (the technique of teaching) and performance. She has also received a Masters degree in Piano Performance in May 2007 from the University of Alabama and she is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts. She has served as a camp counselor and faculty member of Summer Piano Camps for pre-college students at the University of Alabama and Huntingdon College since 2005. Her students are encouraged to perform publicly and enter music festivals, where they have received high ratings. At the University of Alabama she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Music Department.

She is currently serving as a faculty member at Faulker University teaching both Class Piano and private lessons. She is on the staff of the Academy of Performing Arts, a division of Heritage Baptist Church, teaching violin and piano. In addition, she owns Sharla Bender Studios where she teaches private piano and violin lessons. She has been called upon as an adjudicator for music festivals including the Boykin Festival and the Federation Festival.

Sharla has performed as a violinist with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra and enjoys playing for weddings and special events. She has received training at the college level in both violin and voice. As part of her doctoral studies, Sharla has completed advanced music theory courses in 20th Century Music/Atonality, Advanced Counterpoint, and Schenkerian Analysis. Since 2000 she has served as the Assistant Music Director at New Testament Christian Center in Montgomery, AL. This is her eighth year as a music instructor.

Instrumental Faculty

Clarinet

Curtis Hollinger, (B.S., M.M.Ed.), is a graduate of Alabama State University; Montgomery, Alabama and Vander Cook College of Music, Chicago, Illinois. He has served in the following capacities: Band Director (forty (40) years) in the public school systems of Georgia and Alabama; past director of the George Washington Carver High School Bands, Montgomery, Alabama; past director of The Montgomery Public Schools All-City Bands; first instrumental music director for The Alabama Governor’s School of the Arts; director for three different high school bands from Montgomery, (with Superior ratings), at District Band Festivals.

 He currently serves as principal clarinet for the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra – a position held since 1984.  Additional experiences include participation in the Festival Clarinet Choirs of the International Clarinet Association Annual Festivals, and clarinetist in the Montgomery Woodwind Quintet.

 Hollinger’s professional development includes attendance at the Mid-West Band and Orchestra Clinics, and attendance at the Alabama Music Educators Association (AMEA) conferences. Over the years, he has served as judge for clarinets at Alabama All-State Music Festivals, adjudicator at District Band Festivals, State Band Festivals, Marching Band Festivals, Solo Ensemble Festivals, and Clarinet Clinician at various schools and colleges. In March 2005, he served as music director for a local production of the Broadway musical “Purlie”, performed at the Davis Theatre; Montgomery, Alabama. 

Hollinger’s most  recent professional work includes a solo performance  of Concertino for Clarinet by C.M. von Weber with the Minor High School Band - at the 2008 Alabama Music Educators Association (AMEA) Conference, held at  the University of Alabama. Hollinger has been band director of Loveless Academic Magnet Program Symphonic Band in Montgomery, Alabama; adjunct clarinet instructor at Troy University in Troy, Alabama, adjunct clarinet instructor at Faulkner University, Montgomery, Alabama; clarinetist in the orchestra for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s productions of Man of La Mancha and Peter Pan, and currently, adjunct instructor at Huntington College Academy of Music, Montgomery, Alabama.