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The Detroit Medical Orchestra
The Detroit Medical Orchestra
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The Detroit Medical Orchestra's Board of Directors is responsible for maintaining background operations, ensuring that the group runs smoothly. Individuals volunteer their time to serve on the board, and are appointed to their respective positions through a unanimous vote. Any DMO member is invited, and encouraged, to serve on the board each year. The Board of Directors communicates weekly with all musicians, oversees all DMO financial activities, and ensure that resources are focused on the DMO mission - to bring healing through music.
Scroll below to learn more about each of our board members individually.
Syd Schaaf
Chair of the Board, and Librarian
Syd is a Systems Engineering Supervisor at Ford Motor Company responsible for software-enabled feature delivery for the next generation Expedition/Navigation. She is a proud Detroiter, heavily involved in her east side neighborhood. She has been a member of DMO since 2013 and has served on the board in several capacities including concert hospitality chair, treasurer, and music librarian. Syd studied flute under Dr. John Bailey at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she received her B.A. in Music Performance.
Greta Mulbauer
Secretary, Grants Coordinator, Webmaster
Greta is a PhD student in biomedical engineering at Wayne State University. Growing up, Greta studied both piano and viola, but found herself having time for neither in college. She learned about the Detroit Medical Orchestra during Wayne State's annual Festifall, and realized the DMO was the perfect opportunity for her to get back into music. She's been a violist with the orchestra since 2022, and began serving on the board as Webmaster. She's taken on the role of Grants Coordinator, and Secretary during the 2024-25 season, and looks forward to securing additional funding for the orchestra in upcoming seasons.
Dan Frohardt, PhD
Treasurer
Dan has been playing the bass since 1960, when the next door neighbor told Dan's mother that the school orchestra needed another bass player. For the next 15 years he played in school orchestras of the Royal Oak Schools, Grinnell College, and the University of California, Berkeley, with occasional forays into nightclub music.
In 1995, after a hiatus of twenty years spent raising children and pursuing a career as a mathematician at Wayne State University, he joined the newly-constituted Royal Oak Orchestra whose conductor Peter Tolias he had gotten to know through his children's musical activities. He joined the Detroit Medical Orchestra in 2011 after hearing about it through a colleague who was a patient of the orchestra's co-founder, Dr. Michael Cher.
Dan retired from Wayne State at the end of 2019. He finds playing in the DMO and preparing for its concerts a very satisfying way to spend Sunday evenings.
Dan has been serving on the board of directors as Treasurer since 2022.
Danish Ali, MS
IT
Danish Ali is a Research Analyst at Aledade. He joined the DMO as principal violist in 2016, and served as the Board President from 2020-2023. Danish has been part of the music scene in the Metro-Detroit area for several years now. He is very active with various ensembles in the Southeast Michigan area, including the Oakland Symphony, Macomb Symphony and the Warren Symphony Orchestras. In his free time, Danish enjoys spending time with his family and dabbling in music composition.
Michael Cher, MD
Student Liason, and Co-Founder of the Detroit Medical Orchestra
I was fortunate to grow up in a very musical family in terms of both playing and appreciating classical music. I'm very proud of my own two boys, both of whom are accomplished violinists and have played several concerts with the DMO. My brothers and their kids are musicians, so our idea of a family reunion always seems to involve a lot chamber music. I've had the opportunity to play in many orchestras over the years, including medical orchestras in other cities. I love getting to know good music, and I enjoy playing in the Detroit Medical Orchestra and Spectrum Orchestra here in Detroit area. I've also had the chance to play chamber music with many very talented friends and colleagues.
My "day job" is urology oncology. I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wayne State University and Chief of Urology at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. I have the privilege of caring for patients, performing cancer surgery, teaching medical students and residents, and participating in research projects and clinical trials.
Kenn Jones
Musicians Committee Director
I began playing the trumpet in fourth grade as part of the Royal Oak Schools Instrumental Music program. In seventh grade I switched to the Horn. I then played through high school and college at Michigan State University where I studied with Dr. Douglas Campbell. I was in Symphony Band, Marching Band, opera orchestras, brass choir, a woodwind quintet and eventually the MSU Symphony.
After graduation, I did not own a horn so I did not play for twenty years until my then ten-year-old son began the horn in the Berkley Schools Instrumental music program. Now I had a horn to play, and I eventually purchased my own horn and began playing regularly in community bands and orchestras.
After retiring from my "day job" as an outside technician for AT&T, I now spend a good deal of my time with several groups of which the DMO is my favorite. Even though I am not involved in the medical arena, I support the DMO's mission wholeheartedly.
Aaron
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Zeljko "Bill" Milicevic
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Timmy Li
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Beverly Fu
Student Outreach Committee
Beverly is currently an M2 at Wayne State University's Medicine's MD/PhD program. She has played piano for 19 years, and violin for 11. She especially enjoyed minoring in music at the University of Michigan, where she explored music history and underrepresented composers. When asked why she joined the DMO, she said she is actually more of a pianist than a violinist (but "shhh, don't tell my section"), so she took a break from violin after high school. However, she had a couple of persuasive medical school friends who were already in the orchestra, and she really missed part of a large ensemble and playing orchestral music.
Robert Moeller
Advertising/Marketing
Bobby
Darion Twitty, MD
Social Media Chair
My name is Darion Twitty. I was born and raised in Detroit. I play violin with the DMO. In addition to being the Social Media chair, I’m also a family physician at Henry Ford Hospital. I have been playing the violin since I was 10 years old. My main inspiration for wanting to learn to play the violin is my mother. She used to play when she was a little girl and I used to love hearing about her memories of playing in an orchestra, especially her favorite piece, Chariots of Fire. I have been mainly self-taught since private lessons were not something that my family could afford. Despite studying hard in school to become a doctor and being the only musician in the family, I have strived to maintain my involvement by playing in various ensembles. I have played with the UofM campus orchestra, the Detroit Community Orchestra, and now the Detroit Medical Orchestra. I've been playing with the DMO since I was a first-year medical student. I love that our organization is comprised of people across all fields of medicine, even those non-medicine-related. I've gotten to know the orchestra quite well throughout the years and was thrilled to be a part of our holiday performance project, "Songs of Comfort and Healing- A Holiday Chamber Music Collection" in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It highlighted the strength and dedication of the orchestra to continue spreading joy even during the most challenging times. I look forward to continuing to find ways to heal through music.
Edward "Ted" Lasker
Audio/Visual
My dad taught Anatomy at the WSU Medical School for 36 years. He wasn’t a musician, but he was a great listener and would have been delighted with idea and the reality of the DMO had he lived to see it. My mom was a professor of Anthropology at WSU where she taught for 50 years. She enjoyed attending DMO concerts. I like to think of my participation in the DMO as partly in their honor. Along with the fun of playing great music with an enthusiastic orchestra, I’ve made new friends through the DMO. Playing from time to time in hospitals, as an orchestra and also in smaller groups - on hold since Covid but hopefully to resume before too long - has been memorable and gratifying. I joined the DMO during its first season, and currently serve on the Board as Audio-Visual Coordinator.
Malik Wali
Director of Hospitality
Malik Wali is an aerodynamics engineer at Ford Motor Company. He grew up in East Lansing, Michigan and has been playing the flute since 10 (totaling a little over two decades now). During his undergraduate studies, he played piccolo in the Michigan Marching Band. Malik decided to join the DMO upon the recommendation from a friend. He attended a Chamber Music Collage Concert during one of his seasons and hasn't looked back since. He enjoys playing music with people and in addition, has began serving on the board since 2023 as the Director of Hospitality.
Nina Flanigan, MA
Co-director of Outreach
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