Dominic Talanca

Associate Professor of Music - Director of Bands

SFA 120A

(501) 450-5764

Dr. Dominic Talanca is an Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of Central Arkansas, where he oversees the UCA Bands program, conducts the Wind Ensemble, and teaches undergraduate conducting courses and graduate conducting and wind literature. Prior to arriving in Arkansas, Dr. Talanca held a similar position for eight years at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Dominic Talanca has enjoyed numerous opportunities for professional collaboration in recent years. Some meaningful engagements include invitations to conduct productions of Considering Matthew Shepard with Wilmington Voices and Man of La Mancha with Opera House Theatre Company. Dr. Talanca co-founded Southern Harmonie – a professional chamber ensemble of winds, percussion, and strings. Talanca has also traveled to Costa Rica for a week-long residence & performance with the Banda de Conciertos de San José.

Dr. Talanca was artistic director of the Wilmington Symphonic Winds – an ensemble that performed twice at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference. He remains the conductor of the Wilmington Symphony Pops Orchestra – a role that includes annual Fourth of July Celebrations and opportunities to perform JAWS and Jurassic Park In Concert as well as a recent performance with Judy Collins.

Over the past decade, Dr. Talanca has worked with hundreds of secondary schools through clinic and adjudication activities. He has also served as the conductor for dozens of honor bands throughout the US and abroad, including the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) Young Artists Wind Ensemble and the Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) European High School Honor Band in Frankfurt, Germany.

Talanca holds a DMA in Wind Conducting from Northwestern University, studying with Mallory Thompson, and BME/MM degrees from the University of North Texas, studying with Eugene Migliaro Corporon. Prior to his graduate studies, Dr. Talanca taught middle school and high school for ten years in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and served as the Associate Director of Bands at Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas from 2006–2013.

Dr. Talanca is co-author of Musical Mastery, a prominent beginning band method used in over 150 school districts and adopted by several universities for methods classes, impacting over 100,000 students internationally. He is a 3-time contributor to the GIA Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series, has published articles in several state music journals and the WASBE Journal, and is a multiple-time presenter at The Midwest Clinic in Chicago.