Directors

Dinah Menger is in her seventeenth year as the Director of Choirs at Arlington High School. The AHS Choral Department consists of 340 singers in eleven performing ensembles. Choirs at Arlington High have received many honors, including Best in Class and Grand Champions in contests from New York to New Orleans. Her choirs have toured and sung in major venues in Italy, Ireland and Scotland. The varsity mixed ensemble, Colt Chorale, was honored to be selected to perform at the 2005 and 2009 TMEA Conventions in San Antonio. This same choir was one of 32 invited choirs who performed at the American Choral Directors Association National Convention in Miami, Florida in March of 2007.


The Arlington High Chamber Singers received First Place in the 2010 Madrigal Festival in San Antonio and will perform as this year’s “Honor Choir” on March 5, 2011. Her choir members have performed with famous contemporary composer Eric Whitacre in Avery Fischer Hall in New York City and have cliniced with Matt Oltman, former member and now Music Director for the Grammy winning vocal men’s ensemble, Chanticleer.

Mrs. Menger has served on the 2007-2011 Texas UIL Prescribed Music Selection List Committee, will serve TMEA as a Performing Choirs Facilities manager again this year. Other TMEA opportunities include All State Treble Choir Section Leader and 2 years as the All State Treble Choir Coordinator. She is currently the Vocal Vice President of the Texas Music Adjudicators Association. She has served Region V as the Region Chair for two terms and is on the Region V Judges Selection Committee. She is a member of TMEA, TCDA, ACDA, TMAA and is an honorary Lifetime member of PTA. Mrs. Menger is the 1998 Secondary Teacher of the Year AWARE Foundation recipient, a 2007 Distinguished Colt honoree and is a member of Who’s Who Among American Teachers.

Mrs. Menger is a frequent guest clinician and judge and spends summers as a section leader at several All State Choir camps across Texas. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a major in Choral Education and a minor in Vocal Performance. Mr. and Mrs. Menger have three children. Claire lives in Brooklyn, New York with her new husband; Samuel resides in Austin, Texas and Anna is a Freshman at Oklahoma State University.

Mason Barlow is enjoying his second year as a choir director for the Arlington High School choral department after student teaching with Mrs. Menger in the fall of 2009. Upon his graduation from college, he was hired by the Nacogdoches School District and taught at McMichael Middle School from January to May of 2010. During his time there he built the choir program from 50 to 110 students and took the choirs to the UIL Concert and Sightreading contest; a first for the school. Mr. Barlow received his Bachelor of Music degree from The University of Texas at Arlington and studied voice with Dr. Samuel Savage. He was the founding President of the UTA chapter of the Texas Collegiate Music Educators Association. While at UTA, Mr. Barlow sang with the A Cappella choir and Chamber Singers under the direction of Jing Ling-Tam. He toured with the choirs in Austria and Canada, as well as throughout Texas. Mr. Barlow performs regionally in musical theater and has been in musical productions such as The King and I, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and The Music Man. Mr. Barlow is a member of TMEA, TCDA and PTA.

 

 

 

 

Rebecca Nunez-Stubbs is a graduate of Mansfield High School, where she performed in the A cappella and Show Choirs directed by Mr. Asa Lowe and Mrs. Laura Piese. She attended Baylor University where she studied Music Education and Vocal Performance. Mrs. Nunez-Stubbs was a member of the A cappella choir and the select Chamber Singers and was a premiere soloist for the early Music Ensemble and for Graduate Composition recitals through out her college career. Mrs. Nunez-Stubbs can be seen in the Christmas at Baylor special produced by PBS in 2004. She was a frequent semifinalist at NATS and advanced in many performance competitions and was named on the prestigious Deans List as an Honoree in 2004-2005. After completing her Bachelors in 2005 she directed junior high choirs in both Texas and in Wisconsin where she and her husband Jeff attended graduate school. Mrs. Nunez-Stubbs participated in the Masters program at The University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where she studied vocal performance and pedagogy. She was the winner of the Chancellors Scholarship in 2007 and held the role of Octavia in The Coronation of Poppea by the UWM Opera Theater. Rebecca and her husband Jeff welcomed the birth of their daughter Kate in May of 2007. Mrs. Nunez-Stubbs continued her Masters studies and took on the position as UWM Choral TA for the 2007-2008 school year. She returned to teaching music the following year and shortly after joined the Florentine Opera Company for their 2008-2009 season. Rebecca is very happy to be back in Texas with her family and they are all excited about being a part of Arlington High. She looks forward to the life changing experience of making beautiful choral music with the wonderful Directors and amazing students of Arlington High.

Private Instructors