Faculty & Staff
Office Manager: Alice Sluss
Email asluss@nmc.edu
Phone: (231) 995-1325
Office: F 124
Contact Information
Alice Sluss
Office Manager
Greetings from the NMC Music Department! I am proud to serve as the Office Manager for the Humanities Academic Area, which includes the Music and Audio Technology programs. Our Music Department offers students a unique opportunity to learn in a creative and supportive environment. Here, our students receive individualized instruction from our dynamic faculty in coursework designed for students' success. I am here to help our students and faculty — please feel free to stop by and introduce yourself. Thank you for your support of our Music Department students!
Sam Boase-Miller
Audio Tech Coordinator
Sam Boase-Miller started his professional career after graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy. This included performing, teaching, and studying at Ithaca College, DePaul University, and Western Michigan University. As the former Associate-Principal Cellist of the Manhattan Symphonie, Sam toured China twice and performed regularly in the great venues of New York City, including Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and Carnegie Hall. While in New York, Sam founded Status Report Productions with his three best friends Erik Saras, Dan Lovley, and Brian Goodheart. Sam writes, produces, composes, records and edits music and voice over. He creates instruments out of wood and metal for his current projects, as well as the award-winning sci-fi podcast Marsfall. Sam lives in beautiful northern Michigan, where he is the coordinator of the Audio Tech Department and is an award-winning teacher at Northwestern Michigan College.
David Chown
Audio Tech, JAzz Appreciation, History of rock and roll, Applied Jazz Piano
David has been playing piano professionally in the Traverse City Michigan area for over 25 years, and has been an Audio Tech instructor at NMC for 9 years. David also owns and operates “Lookout Music Productions” studio in Traverse City, where he records and teaches piano lessons. He is also co-owner of MusicHub.Live, which specializes in live streaming concerts and video recording. He also owns his own record label, Schmooze Music, which has released 9 CDs as David Chown at the Piano, Pico & Chown, and his latest CD with Pico, Chown & Sears, “Live at St. Andrews”. He performs concerts, weddings, and club gigs with popular Traverse City singer/songwriter Miriam Picó, The Lookout Cats, Doc Probes, and East Bay Drive. David received a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies from Western Michigan University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Technology from Michigan State University. In between his college stints, David toured Europe for a year, playing concerts and clubs. He performed for three years at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island Michigan. David resides in Acme with his wife Janet, who are now “empty nesters”, as their daughter Kaysen is a graduate of Performance Arts Technology at University of Michigan, and Their son Dawson is a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps in aviation. Their cat Millie keeps them company.
Tiff Falls
Audio Tech
Tiff Falls (she/they) is a musician, live sound engineer and lover of all things creative. Originally from Montreal, Canada, she moved to Michigan in 2007. Jumping into the live sound industry in 2016, she has been running with it ever since in many different capacities. A graduate from Northwestern Michigan College receiving her associates degree in Audio Technology and immediately able to use the skills and networking provided there to deliver live sound to the masses here at The Alluvion in Traverse City and across the States and Canada touring with different bands including Irish Traditional bands specifically. Passionate about representing and appreciating artists of all forms accurately, she is adamant about delivering the best experience possible for the audience and artist alike.
Michael Kudirka
Class Guitar Applied Guitar, Applied Bass, Audio Tech
Hailed by Classical Guitar Magazine as “a leading proponent of new directions in classical guitar music”, Michael Kudirka specializes in both contemporary works and in the field of microtonality with his interchangeable fretboard system, developed by the company he co-founded, MicroTone Guitars. Michael Kudirka performs around the globe as a recitalist and chamber musician, and has appeared at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (China), Darmstadt Ferienkurse Für Neue Musik (Germany), Le Chappelle Historique du Bon Pasteur (Montreal), Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), Conservatorio de Las Rosas (Mexico), Ono Guitar School (Japan), Palace of Fine Arts (San Francisco), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), Zipper Recital Hall (Los Angeles), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Flatfile Galleries (Chicago), Lincoln Recital Hall (Portland), and many others. He has performed at numerous festivals and guitar societies including the 2011 Guitar Foundation of America Convention, Portland Guitar Festival, American Guitar Society, Jacaranda – Music at the Edge, Pacific Standard Time’s Stravinsky Retrospective, New Mexico Guitar Festival, Grand Canyon Guitar Society, Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Sunday’s Live”, American Composers Forum, EUROMicroFest, Seattle Classical Guitar Society, Northwest Guitar Society, Other Minds 8, and Music of Changes. He has taught at the Idyllwild Arts Academy, California Institute of the Arts, University of Southern California, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He is currently a faculty member at Northwestern Michigan College.
Michael Wolpe
Audio Tech
Michael Wolpe is an award-winning composer, songwriter, music producer, sound designer, and audio engineer who has spent more than 20 years creating music and audio for film, television, documentaries, advertising, and other visual media. As an Adjunct Professor in Northwestern Michigan College’s Audio Technology program, he teaches audio production and music scoring, drawing on his professional experience in composition, recording, sound design, mixing, and post-production to give students a practical sense of what it’s actually like to work in the industry. Over the years, Michael’s music and sound work has appeared in projects for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Showtime, FX, PBS, The CW, Sony, Lionsgate, NIKE, Panasonic, Ford, Chrysler, the U.S. Olympics & Paralympics, and two Barack Obama presidential campaigns. His songs and original music have appeared in television series including Smallville, One Tree Hill, Dirt, and Showtime’s The Real L Word, and he has composed music for an independent feature film released by Lionsgate. His work has also received an International Monitor Award and multiple Telly Awards. Michael grew up in Michigan and attended Interlochen Arts Academy before studying music, composition, production, and filmmaking at the University of Southern California and Hampshire College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree. Alongside teaching, he continues to compose and produce professionally and spends plenty of time writing, recording, and collaborating with independent artists through Super Alchemy Records. Whether he’s working on a film score, producing a song, designing sound, or teaching a class, Michael is most interested in the same basic idea: using technology in service of creativity and storytelling—and helping students develop the skills and confidence to turn the strange noises in their heads into something the rest of us can hear.
