Artists

The Axiom Quartet is a dynamic professional ensemble based in Houston, TX. The group is known for creating and performing programs that mix traditional string quartet repertoire and transcriptions of works from a variety of genres (including jazz, electronic, rock, indie, etc.). By combining these genres, the quartet exposes classical music audiences to extraordinary music from different genres, and creates new fans of the classical repertoire.

Vox Futura is New England's premier recording choir for composers, recording artists, film, television, and video games. Past projects have included work with internationally distributed classical production house PARMA Recordings, video game companies Nintendo and Bandai Namco, legendary German power metal band Blind Guardian, and platinum selling world music artist Sami Yusef.

New York City composer Bruce Lazarus characterizes his extensive catalog of instrumental and vocal music as "diverse, concise, architectural, contemporary, and in turn meditative, energetic, humorous, moody, and exuberant.” Lazarus' music has often been inspired by astronomical imagery, woodlands and mountain trails, and lifetime involvement in the worlds of theater and dance. His works are published at Universal Editions and Swirly Music, and his albums - Musical Explorations of the Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae, Works for Solo Piano, November Sonata, and Song of the Earth - are available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.

Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington VT, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally by the ensembles Continuum, Transient Canvas, Earplay, Guerilla Opera, and others.  Her compositions have won awards from the Orvis Foundation, Copland House, the Colorado New Music Festival, New York Treble Singers, and regional arts councils. She teaches clarinet, composition, and music theory at the University of Maine. 

Martha Hill Duncan’s passion for music started early, inspired by her mother, who sang and played the piano by ear. She was a member of the first graduating class of the Houston High School for Performing and Visual Arts, (Vocal Music ’74) and earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin (1979). She is grateful to many inspirational and generous teachers including composers Dr. Donald Grantham and Dr. Sam Dolin and pianists Danielle Martin, Gregory Allen, Dr. Errol Haun, and Trudy Borden.

Rae Howell is an award-winning Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist. She is founding director of Sunwrae, a music performance and production enterprise, and works across a vast range of music concert hall and multi-artform projects. She has studied music in Melbourne, London, and New York; she lectures in music and creative industry subjects; and has worked professionally in many places across the globe, producing a large catalog of original music albums, publications, and collaborative recordings.

David Colson (b. 1957) is an American educator, administrator, percussionist, conductor, and composer of classical music. He is Professor of Music at the Western Michigan University (WMU) Irving S. Gilmore School of Music, where he has taught composition, music theory, and leads the new music ensemble Birds on a Wire. He served as Director of the School of Music from 2007 to 2014 and Director of the Gwen Frostic School of Art at WMU from 2017 to 2021. He came to WMU from California State University–Chico, where he taught composition and music theory, chaired the Department of Music, and was the David W. and Helen E.F. Lantis University Professor, the University's first endowed professorship.

Dr. Joseph T. Spaniola is a composer on a passionate quest to engage the hearts and minds of audiences and performers through the communicative powers of music. Spaniola is active as a composer, arranger, educator, conductor, lecturer, producer, clinician, and adjudicator. He has composed works for band, orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, voice, choir, and electronic tape.

Matthew Hetz (b. 1957) is a native to Los Angeles where he still resides. His formal music studies began at age 16 with piano lessons, and composing has always been in the forefront. He began playing the violin in his 20s, and joined local orchestras, an experience of tremendous importance and influence for composing. His study of composition and music at California State University, Dominguez Hills in the 1980’s was at the height of atonality, with the dissolution of harmony as the accepted compositional practices.

Dieter Flury was born and brought up in Zurich (Switzerland) and studied with Hans Meyer (Principal Flute of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich), André Jaunet (at the Zurich Music Academy), and Aurèle Nicolet. In addition to his flute studies he graduated in mathematics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. At age 25 he was appointed a member of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and in 1981 he was named Principal Flute of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Zagreb Festival Orchestra was founded in 1989, comprised of the top classical performers in Croatia and formed with the intent to record a single album. That intent was fulfilled with OVERTURES, a record of composer Gioachino Rossini’s greatest operatic works conducted by the acclaimed maestro Michael Halász, a resident conductor at the Vienna State Opera for 20 years, and produced by six-time GRAMMY Award winner Martin Sauer.

Scott Brickman (b. 1963, Oak Park IL) is passionate about sport and his Baltic and Slavic ancestry and culture. A cancer survivor, he has run 5k and 10k races in both the United States and Canada and anticipates adding Europe to that list. Starting in 2018, he has attended summer school at the University of Latvia in Riga, studying Latvian Language and Culture.

The pianist Lucie Kaucká was born on March 31, 1978 in Kraslice near Karlovy Vary, where she began studying music at the age of seven. She continued her piano studies at the Conservatory of Teplice and the Conservatory of Pardubice with Martin Hröel. After graduation from Pardubice she concentrated on the study of musicology at the Palacky University in Olomouc and finished successfully there in 2003.

Nan Avant’s music embraces thematic and rhythmic intentions often reflecting her Latin heritage, encompassing her passion for classical, jazz, world, and ethnic music. Avant has won numerous awards including two Global Music Awards Silver Medals in 2022, was named a Finalist for The American Prize in orchestral composition and is a four-time nominee in the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. Avant’s Tributum for Celtic Bagpipes and Orchestra, recorded by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, is on the ballot for first-round voting in the 65th Grammy Awards. Tributum enjoys airplay around the world, from Ireland’s Public Radio in the United Kingdom to Hawaii’s Maui Celtic Radio in the United States, and already boasts a Best Instrumental Song Award at the 13th Annual Independent Music Vox Populi Awards.

Originally known as The South Bohemian State Orchestra, the South Czech Philharmonic, based in České Budějovice (Budweis), was founded in 1981. Today, it comprises 39 artists and remains the only professional philharmonic orchestra in the South Bohemian region.

Storytelling is an important aspect in much of the music of American composer Christine Jancarz. Her recognizable melodies and rhythms are similar to the main characters of a novel, and along with aspects such as orchestration attempt to convey a narrative. Recurring melodies and rhythms are easily identifiable; like characters in a book, they become familiar. Much of her music is influenced by rock, jazz, and classical styles. She also frequently uses counterpoint, and mathematical concepts in her works, such as her Melodic Matrix series for solo instruments.

Peter Paulsen is an active performer on the Philadelphia jazz scene as well as Assistant Principal Bass of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and Principal Bass of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. He has received three PA Council on the Arts composition grants and was recognized with a PEW Fellowship in Composition. Paulsen has released five critically acclaimed CDs of his compositions: Three-Stranded Cord by Peter Paulsen Quintet; Tri-Cycle by Peter Paulsen Trio; Peter Paulsen Change of Scenery Sextet; Goes Without Saying by Peter Paulsen Quintet; and A Few Thoughts by Peter Paulsen Trio.

Aaron Haas and Anastasia Malliaras of Duo Apollon perform art song repertoire for voice and classical guitar. With grace, poise, and fearless expressivity, they bring new life to repertoire originally written for voice and piano, and showcase song cycles rarely heard written specifically for the voice and guitar ensemble. The pair met while studying music at the University of Southern California and began by performing The Divan of Moses ibn Ezra by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After playing a number of recitals at the University, they began to branch out and play at various venues throughout Los Angeles.

I have been fortunate in my life to have had three overlapping but distinct careers in music. As a younger woman I enjoyed freelancing as a pianist and singer; performing chamber music, solo and duo recitals, coaching, and doing some part time college teaching. Later I took a full time position as music professor at Los Medanos Community College, where I headed the piano, theory, and recital programs. Now, retired from teaching, I am turning my focus to composing, a long-neglected love. 

Santiago Kodela is an award-winning Classical Guitarist & Composer working in the areas of concert, solo instrument, chamber, and choral music. His works explore various aspects of sound and harmony, adventuring intensely into the areas of iso-rhythms, metric modulation, and chord harmonization. In 2022 the album PINNACLE VOL. 2 was awarded the 2nd Prize Silver Medal by North-American Global Music Awards in the classical category. Furthermore, his piece Delicate Soliloquies was shortlisted as a finalist in the 2nd Composition Competition by the Dutch Guitar Foundation by a jury integrated by Steve Goss, JacobTV, and Nikita Koshkin.