Performers

John McGuire has a vast array of performance and teaching experiences. He has performed with many orchestras around the country, most notably the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Opera, the Fort Worth Symphony, the New World Symphony in Miami FL, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and the Florida West Coast Symphony. McGuire has also toured internationally with the acclaimed Fortress Brass Quintet, of which he is a founding member.

Flutist Lindsey Goodman is a soloist, recording artist, chamber collaborator, orchestral musician, educator, and clinician whose “palette of tone colors includes cool silver, warm chocolate, the bright colors of a sunrise, and the deep blue of midnight.” (The Flutist Quarterly) Renowned for her “energy and artistry, conveying her exuberance and creativity” (Pittsburgh in the Round), Lindsey has performed solo and chamber concerts, taught masterclasses, and given presentations at countless series, festivals, and universities.

Houston TX based Apollo Chamber Players “performs with rhythmic flair and virtuosity” (The Strad) and has “found fruitful territory” (Houston Chronicle) through innovative, globally-inspired programming and multicultural new music commissions. Winner of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Residency Partnership award, the quartet has performed for sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall, and it holds the distinction of being the first American chamber ensemble to record and perform in Cuba since 1960. Apollo is featured frequently on American Public Media’s nationally-syndicated program Performance Today.

Mike Fansler is Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Western Illinois University in Macomb IL, where he provides direction and leadership for its comprehensive band program. He serves as conductor of the university Wind Ensemble and Chamber Players and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. He has served Western Illinois University since 2001.

Harmonija Dissonance Ensemble evolved from the eponymous research and performance project that started at the Academy of Music in Zagreb in 2016. Guided by the idea of bridging the gaps between the worlds of academic and folk musicians, of traditional and art music, the project soon evolved into the lively and stimulating space of mutual learning, experimenting, and music-making of renowned traditional singers and the Academy’s students.

Jazz Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Zagreb was founded in 2016, following in the footsteps of the renowned Big Band of the Academy of Music of the early 1980s, founded and led by the distinguished professor Stanko Selak. The repertoire of the Orchestra encompasses standard pieces written for big band orchestra that in time became the canonical literature of big bands around the world, as well as works of contemporary composers of art music inspired by jazz.

Iris Graffman Wenglin is from a distinguished musical family. Joseph Graffman, Wenglin’s father, played the string bass in The New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, and her cousin is pianist Gary Graffman. Wenglin made her first professional appearance as a pianist at age 13 on the Jinx Falkenberg TV program, and at age 16 she started working as a rehearsal pianist for NBC Opera Theatre. As a teenager she performed several times on WNYC’s “Young Artist” series. She graduated from Music and Art High School and holds a B.A. and an M.A. from New York University and a M.Ed. from the Manhattan School of Music.

Saxophonist Dr. Dave Camwell is a distinguished, versatile, and dynamic performer, and serves as the Director of Jazz Studies and Associate Professor of Music at Troy University in Alabama. Camwell has been a Yamaha Performing Artist since 2004, a D'Addario Performing Artist since 2009, a Beechler Artist since 2003, and has over 30 publications available through Jeanne, Dorn, and UNC Jazz Press.

A bright, young, accomplished singer on the opera and concert stages, soprano Katherine Jolly has appeared in leading roles with Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Florida Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Virginia Opera, Amarillo Opera, Piedmont Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, American Lyric Theatre, and Union Avenue Opera. In the concert arena she has performed in multiple seasons with Bach Society Saint Louis in Bach’s Coffee Cantata, The Kingsbury Ensemble in Bach’s Wedding Cantata and Handel’s Il Delirio Amoroso, as the soprano soloist in Handel’s The Messiah with the Evansville Philharmonic, the Richmond Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony.

The Colorado-based Altius Quartet has dedicated itself to expanding traditional notions of the string quartet. Members Hannah Kennedy and Andrew Giordano (violins), Allyson Stibbards (viola), and Erin Patterson (cello) are equally at home as performers, mentors, and educators, and strive to fulfill each of those roles at the highest possible level. Altius has received critical acclaim for their recordings, including Fanfare Magazine describing their 2017 release Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 7, 8, and 9” as “visceral and wrenching”. Altius was also hailed as “rich” and “captivating” by the renowned music blog I Care If You Listen.

duo526 was founded in 2011 by violinist Kerry DuWors and pianist Futaba Niekawa at the Eastman School of Music (Rochester NY) where they worked extensively with professors Jean Barr and Charles Castleman. Invited to the Banff Centre for the Arts four times as Artists-in-Residence between 2011-2018, they worked with Henk Guittart, Roger Tapping, Lafayette String Quartet, Hardy Rittner, and Mark Steinberg. They have been featured on radio broadcasts including “Backstage Pass” WXXI (Rochester NY) and Classic 107 “Morning Light” (Winnipeg MB).

Matej Meštrović (b. 1969) is undoubtedly the most versatile artist on the Croatian cultural scene, and an exclusive artist of PARMA Recordings. In 2018, he premiered the Danube Rhapsody for piano and orchestra in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, thus becoming the first Croatian composer to have his own work premiered in that prestigious hall.

Shudong Braamse has appeared on stages in Canada, Italy, Austria, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Latvia, Singapore, Taiwan, and China. She has premiered a number of vocal works, including Gary Nash’s cycle Peace, Love and Prosperity premiered in Nashville in 2010, and Michael Bulychev-Okser’s Spanish art song Romance de la Luna premiered in 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia.

The BONIFANTES Boys Choir was founded in 1999 and in its short life has won a place among the cream of the choir ensembles in the Czech Republic. Talented boys from the ages of 4 to 20 years work in seven departments of the singing school known as “BONIFANTES School of Arts” with a capacity of 350 students. All the singers have solo voice training lessons and many of them play musical instruments. Almost 100 boys visit the concert department alone and the choir takes part in up to 100 concerts and performances each year.

Omar Carmenates is currently the Associate Professor of Percussion at Furman University in Greenville SC. He holds a Doctor of Music degree from Florida State University, a Master of Music Degree in Percussion Performance from the University of North Texas, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Central Florida.

Growing up on a farm outside of Spartanburg SC, Dr. Phillip Chase Hawkins serves as Principal Trumpet with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 2013. He is also a member of the cornet section in Fountain City Brass Band and is an active performer on historical instruments as a member of Kentucky Baroque Trumpets and Saxton’s Cornet Band. Hawkins can also be heard as a performing and recording artist for the Nashville Music Scoring Studio and Sound Lair Studio.

Les Délices, which includes Baroque oboist Debra Nagy, Mélisande Corriveau on viola da gamba, and Eric Milnes on harpsichord, explores the dramatic potential and emotional resonance of long-forgotten music. Founded by Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established a reputation for their unique programs that are “thematically concise, richly expressive, and featuring composers few people have heard of.” The New York Times added, “Concerts and recordings by Les Délices are journeys of discovery.”

The Phoenix Ensemble is a mixed instrument chamber music group based in New York City. It was founded in 1991 with goals to inspire a new and diverse audience for classical music through live performances, recordings, and innovative community residencies. Through supporters such as the National Endowment for the Arts, it has been in residence at a wide range of venues, including NYC’s Greenwich House, the Aaron Copland School of Music, and the 92nd Street Y. The group also encourages the creation of new works, and sheds light on important unexplored music of our time.

Mark Lieb, clarinetist, is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Phoenix Ensemble. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and The Juilliard School, where he studied clarinet performance with Robert Marcellus, former Principal clarinet with the Cleveland Orchestra, and David Shifrin, clarinet soloist and former Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has been an active professional freelance musician since 1991, performing with many orchestras, opera companies, chamber ensembles, and new music groups in New York City.

Dana Muller and Gary Steigerwalt have performed as duo pianists for more than three decades, creating programs that encompass the historical and stylistic gamut of the piano four-hand genre. As recitalists, they have performed extensively in the United States, South America and Scotland. Festival appearances range from presenting Beethoven’s complete four-hand works at the Beethoven Festival, Oyster Bay, Long Island, to performances at Bethlehem Musikfest (Pennsylvania), Music at Penn Alps (Maryland), and Sevenars Festival and Musicorda Festival (Massachusetts).