The New Way to progress.success.unity.
Local 15 was chartered in 1896 and Local 286 was chartered in 1924. The two Toledo area Locals, separated by race, were merged in 1969. The Certificate of Affiliation (Charter) for Local 15-286 was granted to Local 15 representatives Steve Charomia, C. A. Perkins, Paul Gallagher, and John Knorr, as well as Local 286 representatives Velmer Mason, Paul Stewart, Charles McDaniel, and Ray Montgomery.
Meet our Board Members
| Garth Simmons is the principal trombonist with the Toledo Symphony, and a trombonist with the Detroit Chamber Winds. Originally from Montana, Mr. Simmons holds degrees from Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music. Prior to his arrival in Toledo, Garth held positions with several orchestras across the U.S., including the Alabama and Florida, and Elgin Symphony orchestras. Additionally, Mr. Simmons has also performed as a substitute and extra with the Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee and Jacksonville Symphony Orchestras.
Garth has served on the faculties of Birmingham-Southern College, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University, and currently maintains a small private studio in Toledo. During his tenure with the Toledo Symphony, Garth served on the orchestra committee for over 16 years, participating in the negotiation of five collective bargaining agreements. |
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Emily Price Dietz, Vice President Emily has been a member of the Toledo Symphony horn section since 2000. During that time she has also performed chamber music, with the brass and woodwind quintets, and other various ensembles on the chamber music series. She has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Columbus Symphony, and Milwaukee Symphony, and served as principal horn for Utah Festival Opera in Logan, Utah for eight seasons. Her main teachers have been Louis Stout, Douglas Hill, and Randy Gardner and she holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Emily resides in Perrysburg with her family and enjoys teaching horn lessons, baking, gardening, and old house maintenance in her spare time. |
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Charles Slater is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Toledo Federation of Musicians and has been since 2015. He has been a delegate to the AFM national convention three times and has also been a delegate to AFM’s Mid-America Conference. He was recently appointed to the board of directors of the Mid-America Conference. He is a trombone player and was 2nd/Associate Trombone with the Toledo Symphony for over 40 years, retiring in 2019. He served on the TSO Orchestra Committee for several years and participated in the negotiation of three collective bargaining agreements. He and his wife Carol live in Bowling Green, Ohio and have two adult children. In addition to union work he is a CPA in Ohio and formally had his own accounting practice in Bowling Green.
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Jocelyn Langworthy is the second clarinetist of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and has served on the Executive Board of the Toledo Federation of Musicians 15-286 since 2020. Prior to joining the Toledo Symphony, Jocelyn was the principal clarinetist of the Cedar Rapids Symphony (now Orchestra Iowa) from 1995-2000.
She earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Clarinet Performance from the University of Minnesota where she studied with Burt Hara. She earned her Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California, studying with Yehuda Gilad. She has served on the faculty of several colleges and music schools in Iowa, Los Angeles and the Boston area and currently maintains a private studio in Toledo. |
| Laura has been member of the Toledo Symphony’s violin section since 2015. She is a Michigan native and alum of the University of Michigan.
Laura has also served as a member of the Toledo Symphony’s orchestra committee and as the Symphony’s delegate to the Regional Orchestra Players’ Association. |
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Toledo native, Randy Richie, along with Dennis Sankovich, was the 1981 co-founder the Toledo Jazz Society (established for the purpose of creating the Toledo Jazz Orchestra). Randy is a Liberal Arts graduate of the University of Toledo, where he was a founding member the UT Lab Band. After taking a year off to try to make it as a full-time jazz piano player, Randy went to law school at UT. Upon graduating, he went into the music business full-time, eventfully becoming the Sec-Treas. of the Toledo Federation of Musicians, co-founding the Toledo Jazz Society and playing for 5 years at the Cape House restaurant in Maumee. After moving to Washington DC in 1983, Randy had a 35 year career producing corporate events for major DC trade associations where he engaged name artists such as Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, the Beach Boys, Johnny Mathis among others. He married Gretchen in 1988, eventually ending up in Leonardtown MD, where they performed at the local French restaurant for 15 years. He is now retired and moved back to Toledo this past March. |
Our Mission
The objectives and the purposes of the Local Union shall be to unite the professional musicians within its juristiction who are eligible for membership without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex, to advance the mutual interests and unite the instrumental and vocal portion of the musical profession for the better protection of its members, in general, to enforce good faith and fair dealing between its members, to facilitate speedy adjustment of business disputes, to further the spirit of unionism, to promote and further the social improvement and general welfare of its members and to organize the unorganized professional musicians in its jurisdiction and provide services to such organized professional musicians.
