Professor Toner is Chairman of the music department at the University of Vermont. He holds a DMA from Eastman as well as degrees from Yale and the University of Massachusetts. His duties include conducting the concert band, wind ensemble and percussion ensemble.
Dr. Toner joined the Vermont Symphony Orchestra at the age of 18, and became Principal Percussionist a few years later. He has performed a wide variety of music with the VSO, including most of the standard orchestral repertoire, unusual 20th Century pieces (such as the solo snare drum part in Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto with soloist Richard Stoltzman), and “Pops” music with the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Tish Hinojosa (where he played drum set, congas, and hand drums). Dr. Toner was the featured soloist of the VSO’s fall 2002 tour of Vermont in David Gunn’s “A Tangoed Web” (commissioned by the orchestra specifically for that occasion) and was the soloist in Shane Shanahan’s “Ahshutmas” with the Eastman Percussion Ensemble in April 2003. A frequent substitute percussionist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1993-1995, he has also appeared with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (on their 1998 tour of New England), the Massachusetts Chamber Players, and many other ensembles in the northeast. Dr. Toner has also been a featured artist on faculty recitals at the University of Massachusetts and Dartmouth, Williams and Smith Colleges, as well as at the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Convention. Dr. Toner appears on recordings with the Vermont Symphony and the Robert DeCormier Ensemble, issued by Arabesque Records, and on two solo recordings of Trey Anastasio, issued on the Elektra label. In addition, he is a featured percussionist on several audio and video recordings by the vocal group Counterpoint, conducted by Robert DeCormier, and was recently heard with that group on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today”.
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