Meet Our Team
Druminar™ programs are developed by our certified business executive, HR professional, international symphonic conductors, and music directors.
Jamie Shrock
Facilitator and Human Resources Executive
Jamie Shrock is an accomplished professional with more than 20 years of human resources, leadership, and organizational development experience in multiple industries, including Banking and Health Care.
Shrock has a strong track record of assuming positions of increased accountability and career expertise in designing, creating, and leading innovative programs and systems to enhance corporate culture, improve employee performance, and support organizational change. She is a passionate, resourceful, Inclusive, people-oriented leader who develops teams of human resources professionals and senior leaders.
Shrock is currently the senior director of human resources for Kaleida Health, the largest healthcare provider in Western New York.
Little known fact about Jamie: As a former professional musician, Shrock has held both management, contracted positions and appeared as a soloist with multiple symphony orchestras throughout the United States. She has performed in some of the most prestigious halls, such as The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
Mark Hodges
Founder and Facilitator
Mark Hodges is currently the Principal Percussionist of the Grammy award-winning Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and a percussion faculty member at The Eastman School of Music. He has recorded extensively with many symphonic ensembles, performing in over 50 recordings with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to touring internationally, Hodges has been an active soloist for many orchestras, including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Prior to his appointment with Buffalo, he held many Principal Percussionist positions throughout the United States.
In addition to his orchestral appointments, Hodges is an active music educator. He is a member of the percussion faculty at the Eastman School of Music/University of Rochester, the State University of New York, Buffalo State College, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Percussion at the Greatbatch School of Music at Houghton University. He also is a highly sought-after clinician, adjudicator, and lecturer of percussion throughout the United States. Highlights include adjudication and presentations at The Percussive Arts Society State and International Conventions.
Hodges holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music/Case Western Reserve University, Capella University, and the University of Cincinnati/College-Conservatory of Music.
Little known fact: Hodges has performed many concerts with some of the top rock and pop artists, including The Moody Blues, Sarah McLachlan, The B-52s, Johnny Mathis, Stewart Copeland (The Police), Lou Gramm (Foreigner), Burt Bacharach, Olivia Newton-John, The Temptations, and The Four Tops.
Paul Ferington
Facilitator
Druminar Facilitator Paul Ferington is hailed as a “distinguished Guest Conductor” by the Buffalo News. Ferington conducted the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for over 25 years as a member of the executive conducting staff. During this tenure, he conducted the orchestra in over 400 concerts in the U.S. and Canada. In addition to his conducting, Maestro Ferington is Professor Emeritus from the Niagara campus of State University of New York (SUNY) and was awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2005. During his 32 years as an academic educator and administrator, Maestro Ferington served in major roles such as Division Chair of Fine Arts and as Vice-President for Academic and Student Affairs. He has supervised over 400 full and part-time faculty.
Little known fact about the Maestro: Ferington has conducted the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus every July 3rd to an audience of over 16,000 people for over 18 years.
Our Music Director
JOANN FALLETTA
Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, music director laureate of the Virginia Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and artistic adviser of the Hawaii Symphony. She was recently named as one of the 50 great conductors of all time by Gramophone magazine. As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Ms. Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble.
In Summer 2022, Ms. Falletta made her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut at the Tanglewood Music Center. International highlights for 2022–23 include concerts in Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Croatia. Her recent and upcoming North American guest conducting includes the National Symphony and the orchestras of Baltimore, Detroit, Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, Toronto, and Milwaukee. Internationally, she has conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, and South America. In the past year, she has led the National Symphony in two PBS televised specials for New Year’s Eve and the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center.
With a discography of over 120 titles, Ms. Falletta is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual Grammy Awards, including the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s “The Passion of Yeshua.” In 2019, she won her first individual Grammy Award as Conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist, her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammy Awards in 2008, and her 2020 Naxos recording with the BPO of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award.
Ms. Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served by Presidential appointment as a Member of the National Council on the Arts during the Bush and Obama administrations. In 2019, she was named Performance Today’s first Classical Woman of The Year
Clients
