Buffalo Hanover Montrose Community Education

Zack Carlson-Giving is the Vocal Music Director at Buffalo High School, where he leads all curricular and extracurricular choirs, directs annual musicals, and teaches Unified Music. Throughout his career, he has taught private voice lessons and has guided students through successful Honor Choir, All-State Choir, Scholarship, and College auditions as well as the adolescent voice change. While his focus is on building and sustaining great technique, voice lessons are a blend of vocal exercises, learning new songs, and creating a plan to achieve the student's goals. Whether you want to discover new music, gain more confidence, expand your range, or simply get better at singing, voice lessons with Carlson-Giving will guide you along the way!

Under his leadership, the Buffalo High School Concert Choir was selected to perform at the 2020 MMEA Midwinter Clinic. Unified Music was chosen to perform at the 2024 ACDA-MN Fall Conference and the 2025 MMEA Midwinter Clinic. A dedicated advocate for career mentorship, Carlson-Giving co-founded the Minnesota Choral Mentorship Program and has presented sessions at MMEA and ACDA conferences at the state and regional level. He was honored in 2021 as the ACDA-MN Outstanding Young Choral Director of the Year. In 2024, he conducted the ACDA-MN 7th-8th Grade CTB Honor Choir. He holds degrees from the University of Minnesota Duluth and Michigan State University.

Taylor Ann Grand is a voice instructor and freelance soprano who has recently returned to Minnesota after living abroad in Copenhagen Denmark and one year in Florence Italy since 2018. She has reached people with her voice and teaching in her own Minneapolis community and abroad while honing her musicality through growth and cross-cultural life experience.

Taylor‘s musicality began with the violin during her elementary years in Waldorf education under the influence of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical understanding of music making as ‘essential in experiencing what it is to be fully human’.

Taylor is a graduate of Wayzata High School and Concordia College of Moorhead, Minnesota where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Vocal Music Education and Performance. Taylor recently returned to Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2024 and is now rooting herself back in the Twin Cities community bringing her multifaceted experience and growth from her time abroad to her continued work as a performer and instructor. She has recently moved to Wayzata where she lives with her new kitten Lily. She has taught for the entire 2024-2025 school year on the voice faculties of Buffalo High School and Waconia High School.

Matthew Tintes is a private voice lesson instructor, performer, and choir director. Originally hailing from Fargo, ND, Mr. Tintes is a graduate of North Dakota State University, earning a degree in Vocal Music Education. Mr. Tintes then attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he studied Opera Performance and earned his Master's Degree in Vocal Performance. For 7 seasons, Mr. Tintes was part of the acclaimed men’s vocal ensemble, Cantus. While with Cantus, Tintes got to perform and tour the country, and the world, as well as record several albums, and appear on various popular radio programs such as A Prairie Home Companion, and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts. Since 2016 Mr. Tintes has been a private voice instructor, working with primarily high school students. In addition to his studio of over 40 students, Tintes also directs the adult choir at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, "The Hosanna Choir".