Board of Directors
Jon Goldberg
President
Mr. Goldberg is in his ninth year as an Adjunct Professor of Music at Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus where he teaches music theory, music history and composition. He holds a Bachelor of Music, cum laude, from North Texas State University and a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music. From 2018 to 2020 Mr. Goldberg served as Director of Classical Music and Conductor of the Rose Hill Chamber Orchestra at the Barns of Rose Hill in Berryville, Virginia. Mr. Goldberg also curated the Recital Series presenting both established artists and emerging younger talents. Mr. Goldberg was a founding member and Music Director of the Endymion Ensemble from 1975 to 1979, a New York City-based chamber orchestra that for four years offered concerts in Carnegie Recital Hall sponsored by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the New York State Council on the Arts, winning critical acclaim from the New York Times. Mr. Goldberg has conducted the Memphis Symphony, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the El Paso Pro Arte Orchestra, the Doctors Orchestra of New York, and the Goldman Band in summer concerts at Lincoln Center. He also served as Musical Assistant to Leonard Bernstein on his Grammy winning recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #4 with the New York Philharmonic. At the invitation of Mr. Bernstein, Mr. Goldberg spent two summers as a conducting fellow at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood.
Dr. Cindy C. Emmans
Dr. Cindy C. Emmans holds a BA and MA in music education and a doctorate in educational media and technology. She is from Minnesota and has lived in Germany, Italy, Bahrain, and Russia. Since 2007 she has lived in Charles Town, West Virginia. She joined the Main Street Chamber Orchestra as a violist in 2021. Dr. Emmans started playing the violin at age ten and is currently studying violin with Domenic Salerni of the Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet. She has extensive experience playing violin and viola in civic orchestras including as the principal violist for the Civic Orchestra of St. Paul, Minnesota for eight years. She was a member of either the viola or violin sections (as needed!) of several groups over the years such as the San Diego State University Orchestra, Central Washington University Orchestra, and the "Wilde Gungl" Orchestra in Munich, Germany. She has also played with professional groups in our area including Charles Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Two Rivers Symphony Orchestra, and in the orchestra for the Mercersburg (PA) Area Community Chorus. She has served as a board member and chair of the education committee for the Friends of Music in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She also served as a director on the board of the Ziridis Foundation, a PreK-12 educational organization in Athens, Greece. In addition to her very active performing life, Dr. Emmans served as a music (orchestra) teacher in the public schools for ten years, later becoming a professor of technology at the university level. She has worked in university administration as a dean, director, and course developer in traditional on-site and also online degree programs.
Brian Ganz
Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. Mr. Ganz shared first prize in the 1989 Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition and was third prize-winner of the 1991 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition. He has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony (USA), the National Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia, and the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra. Among the conductors he has performed with are Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Mstislav Rostropovich, Jerzy Semkow and Yoel Levi. In January of 2011 Mr. Ganz began a multi-year project in partnership with the National Philharmonic in which he performed the complete works of Fryderyk Chopin at the Music Center at Strathmore. After the inaugural recital, The Washington Post wrote: "Brian Ganz was masterly in his first installment of the complete works [of Chopin]." The final concert took place on April 11, 2026. At this finale Mr. Ganz was honored to receive from a representative of the Polish government one of Poland’s highest cultural honors, the Medal for Merit to Culture-Gloria Artis. Mr. Ganz is on the piano faculty of St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he is artist-in-residence—and recently retired after 21 years—from the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. He is the artist-editor of the Schirmer Performance Edition of Chopin’s Preludes (2005). In September 2019, he made his debut as an actor and playwright at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries. The play imagined a dialogue between American artist James Whistler and a musician who explores the connections between Debussy’s music and the artist’s “10 O’clock Lecture.” Included in the play are portions of the lecture itself, along with performances of the music of Debussy and composers under his influence. Ganz’s recent highlights include a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra at Capital One Hall in Northern Virginia, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488 with the Annapolis Symphony in Annapolis and at the Music Center at Strathmore. In June 2026, Gramophone Magazine featured Mr. Ganz’s performance of two Chopin Etudes from Op. 25 as its “Video of the Day,” along with a short article about his journey through the complete works of Chopin.
Lawrence Goldstein
Mr. Goldstein brings a unique blend of business and classical musical experience to the MSCO. He recently retired after nearly 50 years working in both the public and private sectors. His work with many organizations specialized in transportation system economic and financial research and analysis, and preparation of a broad range of economic development impact studies. Most recently, he served nearly 15 years as a Senior Program Officer at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, managing over 125 research studies affecting Airport, Transit, Rail, and Highway development. Prior to joining the Academies, he was Principal and co-founder of The SGM Group, Inc., an Economic Analysis/Market and Financial Feasibility consulting firm. Mr. Goldstein holds Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from Columbia University in New York City, with an undergraduate minor in music; and a Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from George Washington University. As evidence of his love for and commitment to classical music, Mr. Goldstein has played the piano his entire life. He has collected over 8,000 classical LPs dating from the 1950s, specializing in historic piano performances.
Dr. Donovan Stokes
Dr. Stokes has presented solo performances throughout the U.S. and in Mexico, Norway, Italy, England, France and the Czech Republic. His solo recording Gadaha garnered two JPF Music Award rankings for Best Album and Best Instrumental Song. Described as a musician who “paints primary colours and subtle shades to considerable effect” (The Double Bassist), Dr. Stokes is also noted for his “eye-popping display of technical wizardry and showmanship” (Madison Jazz). As a chamber musician he has collaborated with musicians such as Julian Schwarz, Alaria Ensemble, Frisson Ensemble, Clyde Thomas Shaw, Fry Street Quartet, members of the Audubon Quartet, Stuart Malina, Blanka Bednarz, John O’Connor, David Oei and Seymour Lipkin. A Full Professor at Shenandoah University-Conservatory, he teaches jazz and classical bass. As a composer, he has enjoyed commissions from Discover DoubleBass.com, Berry College Orchestra, Barry Green, Blanka Bednarz, The International Society of Bassists Young Bass Division, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra and Jerry Fuller. Dr. Stokes earned degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.M.) and Indiana University (M.M. and D.M.), where his major instructors were Lawrence Hurst and Edgar Meyer. He studied fiddle styles with Crystal Ploughman and Mark O’Connor, string pedagogy with Lawrence Hurst, Helga Winold, Inez Wyrick and Mimi Zweig, and composition with Michael Alec Rose, Michael Kurek and Mary Jeanne Van Appledorn. Dr. Stokes is a former President of the Virginia String Teachers Association and a former Board Member for the International Society of Bassists.
Diana Kincannon
Director of Development and Board Member Emerita
A resident of Virginia since 1993, Diana holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in vocal performance. Her 15-year singing career included opera, music theater and art song concerts in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Italy. She later held positions in financial services and international executive recruiting in Washington, DC, New York City, and Virginia. Diana served initially in an advisory capacity to the MSCO and joined the board in 2021. Diana has lived in Clarke County since 2001. In 2005 she undertook to lead a community project to restore two decrepit barns in Berryville, Virginia’s historic district, raising more than $2 million in public and private funding over a six-year campaign. The Barns of Rose Hill opened in 2011 as a regional center for the arts, and Diana served as chair from 2014 through 2019. During her tenure, the Barns grew significantly, establishing two $1 million endowment funds. The Barns of Rose Hill welcomes nearly 10,000 guests annually.