John W. Hildreth

Gassman Family Professor of Music, Musicology, Ethnomusicology

• Phone: 309-794-7427
• Email: JohnHildreth@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Studio

Dr. John W. Hildreth is a native of Evansville, Indiana. He began his musical studies there with Eva Crawford Brooks with whom he studied piano. He later entered the Preparatory School of Music at the University of Evansville while a student at Lincoln High School. There he studied piano with Margaret Shepherd and organ with Gerald Clark. In 1959 he won the Arion Music Award at Lincoln High School.

After graduating from high school, he continued his education at Concordia College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While there he was a member of the college chorus, the brass choir, and was choir tour accompanist and chapel organist. He continued his studies at Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne, Indiana where he chose music as an academic concentration and served as chapel organist. He received the B.A. Degree from Concordia in 1965.

In 1967 he began studies with Professor Robert Reuter at Chicago Musical College, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois in organ and church music and also studied piano with Felix Ganz. He was on the Dean's List and was the recipient of numerous music scholarships. He received a B.M. Degree in organ and church music in 1969 and an M.M. Degree in organ and church music with Highest Honors in 1970 at Roosevelt.

He began his doctoral work at the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston, Illinois and completed the Ph.D. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology in 1978 under the direction of William Porter, Theodore Karp, Aarond Pasrons and Klaus Wachsmann. He also studied piano with Francis Larimer and harpsichord with Dorothy Lane while at Northwestern.

Dr. Hildreth has served as organist and choirmaster at various places, including Augustana College where he served as chapel organist for a number of years. At present he serves as organist and choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Rock Island, Illinois. He is on the faculty of the Music Department at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois where he has completed 30 years of service and now holds the rank of full professor. He has taught courses in the History and Literature of Western Music, Music Theory, Music in General Studies, History of American Music, African-American Music, Women in Music, the Art of Listening and Ethnomusicology, and has published his own materials for teaching in these areas.

Randall B. Hall

Professor, Saxophone

• Phone: 309-794-7639
• Email: RandallHall@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Studio

Saxophonist Randall Hall joined the Augustana music faculty in 2005. Dr. Hall holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (DMA), the New England Conservatory (MM), the Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt, France (Premier prix) and Warner Pacific College (BS).

He studied saxophone with Claude Delangle, Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Jean-Michel Goury, Kenneth Radnofsky, and Ramon Ricker.

Internationally active as a performer and clinician, Hall has performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including concerts at the Karnatic Lab (Amsterdam), Logos Foundation (Belgium), Werstatt für improvisierte Musik (Zürich), Zeitgeist Gallery (Boston), Center for New Music (Iowa City), Electronic Music Midwest (Chicago), Outside the Box Festival (Carbondale), and the Electro Acoustic Juke Joint (Mississippi).

He has given lectures and master-classes at institutions around the world, including Harvard University, Cornell University, the Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, Bowling Green State University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, the Luxembourg Conservatory, Concervatorio Superior de Música de las Islas Baleares (Spain), and the World Saxophone Congress.

Randall Hall is the recipient of numerous honors including a Fulbright Grant, Frank Huntington Beebe Grant, Presser Music Award, Encore grant and the Premier prix in the Concour Région Ile-de-France.

Dr. Hall’s students have continued their studies at major music schools in the United States and Europe, including the New England Conservatory, Northwestern University, Eastman and the National Conservatory of Boulogne-Billancourt, France. They have also won prestigious awards including the Frank Huntington Beebe Grant, the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship and the Joseph P. O’Hern Phi Beta Kappa Scholarship. 

Hall has recorded on the Innova label and Medusa Critical Publications and his compositions are published on Reed Music. In addition to saxophone Dr. Hall also teaches improvisation, music theory, electronic music, and co-directs Augustana’s summer session in Paris, France. 

Specializations: Saxophone

Erin P. Freund

Part-Time Assistant Professor; Harp

• Phone: 309-794-8298
• Email: ErinFreund@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff 65

Erin Freund is a part-time assistant professor of music at Augustana College where she teaches harp and music appreciation. 

Teaching is at the core of her musical life as a musician, and loves the opportunities at Augustana to teach both private lessons as well as in a formal classroom setting. 

She strives to open the minds of her students to new kinds of music, and to open their ears to listen thoughtfully and critically.   She aims to equip her harp students with the technical and musical tools necessary to pursue a diverse life of music in the 21st century. 

Dr. Freund is a registered Suzuki harp teacher, and has served on the faculty of Indiana University South Bend’s Raclin School of the Arts, as well as the Music Institute of Chicago.

Dr. Freund is a versatile and creative harpist, equally at home performing solo music, chamber music, and orchestral repertoire. 

Dr. Freund is a frequent recitalist and embraces the challenge of performing virtuosic solo repertoire, spanning ancient and modern works that displays the full capabilities of the harp. 

She loves the challenge of transcribing unusual works for the harp, and her projects have included: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition for 2 harps, and Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, among many preludes and fugues by Bach and piano rags by Scott Joplin.  Dr. Freund views each transcription as an opportunity to present beloved pieces of music in a new light, expand the harp’s repertoire, and bust a few stereotypes along the way.

Dr. Freund holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees as well as a Performance Certificate from Northwestern University.  She completed her undergraduate studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.  Dr. Freund’s primary teachers included Yolanda Kondonassis, Alice Chalifoux, and Elizabeth Cifani.

As a supporter of new music, Dr. Freund has premiered orchestral works by Alan George S. Clinton, Greg D’Allesio, Jason Eckardt, and Laurence Rosenthal, among others.  She premiered the harp concerto “The Parting Glass” by Alan Terricciano with Northwestern University in 2011.  She was honored to premiered German-native Ulf Anneken’s harp solo “Liebesabenteur In Persien,” which bears a dedication to Ms. Freund.  She was a performer on world premiere recordings featured on Lewis Nielson’s album The Twittering Machine.  Her solo playing is featured on New York filmmaker Sean Gill’s works Crescendo and Thursday Night.  She frequently collaborates with composers, and has led workshops at the Henry Mancini Institute and Northwestern University.

Dr. Freund is an active composer of crossover solo and chamber works that seek to blend classical, folk, and modal elements in a minimalist style.  Her composition Merah for 5 harps was premiered in 2005 by the Oberlin Harp Ensemble.  She has composed a number of programmatic pedagogical pieces that seek to engage young harpists through technically progressive miniatures with optional accompaniment.

Specializations: Harp history, Harp pedagogy, Harp performance, Suzuki harp instruction

Margaret Ellis

Professional Faculty-Assistant Professor and Administrative Assistant, Musicianship, Trumpet

• Phone: 309-794-7333
• Email: MargaretEllis@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Studio

Margaret Ellis teaches music theory, music appreciation, applied trumpet, ballet, and supervises the computer music lab.

She also acts as coordinator of recruiting and auditions for the music department. 

Ellis received a bachelor of music degree in trumpet performance from Augustana in 1993 and a master's of music in Music Theory from Northwestern University in 1994.

She is a member of the Augustana Faculty Brass Quintet and advises the Augustana Dance Company.

Robert P. Elfline

Professor and Acting Co-Chair (Spring) of Music, Piano

• Phone: 309-794-7523
• Email: RobertElfline@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff 13

Robert Elfline grew up near the Quad Cities in Morrison, Ill., and graduated from Morrison High School in 1993. He began his studying the piano at age 6 and by age 12 was accepted into the studio of renowned pianist Donald Walker, with whom he studied for six years.

After high school, he earned a B.A. in piano performance from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill., where he graduated magna cum laude in 1997. After college, Dr.  Elfline enrolled in the graduate program at Rice University in Houston, Texas, taking performance honors and earning an M.A. in music.

He graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music  in  2007. 

He maintains an active private studio having taught private lessons, group piano classes and music theory classes to pre-college students in Davenport, Iowa, and Mason, Ohio. As a performer, he takes a particular interest both in the sonatas of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, and the recent music of American composers. Additionally, he enjoys presenting works of lesser-known composers, particularly those active around the turn of the nineteenth century. This interest has led to the study of works for piano and narrator, a long-neglected segment of the piano repertoire that has formed the basis for his dissertation.

Specializations: Piano, Piano pedagogy, Music theory, Music history, American music, Popular music, Chamber music, Collaborative piano

Deborah Dakin

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Viola

• Phone: 309-794-8253
• Email: DeborahDakin@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Studio

Deborah Dakin is currently Principal Violist with the Quad City Symphony, a position she has held since 1988. She is violist of the Ohmes String Quartet, and a founding member of the Iowa Chamber Players. In the belief that each of us is called to "heal the world", and that music is one avenue to fulfill this calling, she has joined with fellow Augustana colleagues Robert Elfline and Janina Ehlich to establish the ensemble, Tikkun. With over 30 years of teaching experience, she has served on the faculty of the University of Iowa and Cornell College as well as the Eastern Music Festival and Pine Mountain Music Festival. Her interest in widening the audience base for classical music has led to her longtime involvement in creating a wide variety of educational and community outreach programs. As a result, the Augustana Viola Ensemble plays a number of outside concerts each year. These venues have included: an Alzheimer's unit, Gilda's Club (for cancer survivors and their families), L'Arche (a residential facility for adults with developmental disabilities in Clinton, Iowa) and as well as various nursing homes. In addition, each year they host "Violapalooza", where all the viola students and teachers in the area join us in playing ensembles and learning about the viola. An avid supporter of school music programs, she is regularly invited to teach sectionals, general "booster" classes for beginners, master classes, coach chamber music and as an adjudicator for solo contests in Illinois and Iowa. She has twice traveled to Brasil as a guest performer and teacher. Deborah has been on the faculty of Augustana College in Rock Island Illinois since 1989.

Specializations: Viola

Michelle J. Crouch

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Voice

• Phone: 309-794-7239
• Email: MichelleCrouch@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Hall

Michelle Crouch, born and raised on the Canadian prairies, started studying music at a very young age, and pursued both piano and voice in college. She remembers explaining subjects like algebra and grammar to her classmates in middle school, and enjoying it, which was her first clue that she was wired like a teacher.

Voice eventually came to dominate her professional music pursuits. She has sung in several award-winning vocal ensembles under some of the finest conductors in the world. She performs a wide range of solo and chamber vocal repertoire, from medieval music to music written yesterday, and loves the enormous diversity of vocal expression written for singers, a love she seeks to pass on to her students.

Her primary research interest is musical literacy, particularly for singers, who tend to lag behind instrumentalists in general music education. Over the last 15 years as a singing teacher, she has observed a clear connection between literacy and advanced vocal skill, and her vocal pedagogy intentionally cultivates that connection. She is keen to help musicians to read more fluently, with less reliance on the piano, more immediate commitment to singing phrases, and more skill in singing the nuances of the poetry. With so much interesting and beautiful vocal music to sing, both as soloists and in ensembles, there is no time to lose in equipping people to sing it all.

Specializations: Vocal music, Musicianship, Musical literacy , Pedagogy, Opera, Musical theatre

Maarten Lempia

Advancement Communications Specialist

• Phone: 309-794-7592
• Email: maartenlempia@augustana.edu

Maarten Lempia, originally from the west suburbs of Chicago, joined the Office of Advancement in the fall of 2025. He graduated from Denison University in 2025, a small liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio, where he majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing (Fiction). During his time at Denison, Maarten was involved with Alumni & Family Engagement, Conference Services, First-Year Experience and the 2025 SCLC Committee. He also served as a Captain and Executive Officer of Denison's Men's Ice Hockey team and was a published author in the Exile Literary Magazine. Maarten is excited to continue working in a Higher Education environment committed to the core principles of a liberal arts education.

Specializations: Advancement