Michele Bernabei

Michele Bernabei is an accomplished jazz trumpet player and composer. He earned a BM in trumpet at the Conservatory “N.Paganini" of Genoa and MM with full marks in jazz arranging and composition at the Conservatory "G. Verdi" of Turin, Italy. He studied composition at the Conservatory of Turin with Giorgio Colombo Taccani and in parallel at the “Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale" of Fiesole with Fabio Vacchi. At the same time he received the ABRSM diploma in String Orchestra Direction under the guidance of Fabrizio Dorsi. He has also studied with international renowned teachers, Paolo Fresu, Marco Tamburini, Giampaolo Casati, Avishai Choen, Dave Duglas, and Laurie Frink. His compositional language is influenced both by jazz, improvised music, and the theater, an art-form that is dear to him.

Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder was born in Chicago in 1944. He studied saxophone with his father, a professional jazz musician. During high school he received a scholarship to the inaugural Stan Kenton Band Camp and in 1962 was honored with a Downbeat Magazine Student Hall of Fame Award. He attended Quincy College and the University of Wisconsin earning a DMA degree in 1973. He has studied Korean music at the Traditional Performing Arts Institute in Seoul. Snyder has taught at colleges in Illinois, Wisconsin and for several years at the University of Nebraska where he was resident composer. He currently is a free lance musician living in Lincoln, NE. and adjunct professor at Peru State College. His compositions have been commercially recorded on the CRS, VMM, North/South, Coronet, Opus One, Albany, and Elan labels.

Richard Heller

Richard Heller was born in Vienna (Austria) in 1954. He studied composing at the Vienna State University of Music, but also attended lectures in mathematics, abstract logics and musicology at the University of Vienna. Aftergraduating he worked as a contributor to the music department of the Austrian TV, and taught music theory and composing at Leopold Mozart Conservatory-University of Music Nürnberg-Augsburg. He retired as a teacher 2019. His music has been performed and broadcast in almost all European countries as well as in Japan, South Africa, Argentina and the USA. Richard Heller has contributed to almost all genres of music and he has won numerous commissions and prizes. See more at richard-heller.eu

Mark Rush

Known as a performer, teacher and author, Mark Rush enjoys a diverse musical career encompassing many interests. He has performed extensively on the concert stage and for radio and television in the United States, China, Canada and Europe. He plays a far-flung repertoire that includes many historical periods and musical genres. Rush counts among his musical mentors many of the finest artists and teachers of the 20th century; he has studied with Ivan Galamian, Dorothy Delay, Itzhak Perlman, Szymon Goldberg, Nathan Milstein and Arthur Grumiaux and is a graduate of the Yale School of Music (MM) and the University of Colorado (BM). Rush has recorded for ASV, CRI, Albany, and Equilibrium Records and was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 1994. His recording, Playing the Edge (2010), which features music for violin and percussion instruments, received widespread critical acclaim. May of 2015 marked the release of Barnstorming, a raucous collaboration of solo violin works and music for violin and piano. Rush has been a professor at the University of Denver, the University of Arizona and the University of Virginia. He is also an author and his book, Playing the Violin: An Illustrated Guide, is widely recognized as a valuable text for violin teachers and students alike. See more at: markrushviolin.com

Daniel Gall

Daniel Gall is a young composer living in Hollywood, California. More information is available on his web-sites.

Teppo Hauta-aho

The late (1941-2021) Teppo Hauta-aho, was considered to be one of today's top composers. His compositions have been premiered throughout the world, and as performer he appeared with most of the world's great musicians. Both a jazz and classical bassist, Teppo found improvisation to be his most comfortable medium: Composition at the Moment! Teppo composed music for almost every instrument, yet he specialized in compositions for the bass. He was a well respected teacher who had presented clinics around the world. He will be forever missed.

Kari Henrik Juusela

Kari Henrik Juusela, a Finnish/American composer and cellist, is presently Dean of Professional Writing at the Berklee College of Music. His compositions have won numerous awards including the 1995 Vienna Intl. Full-Length Opera Composition Competition, the Schirmer 1995 Young American's Art-Song Competition, First Prize in the 1989 GASTA String Quartet Composition Competition, numerous awards from the Composer's Guild, and from ASCAP as well. In 1997, he was awarded the Stetson University Hand Award for Faculty Research and Creativity. His work Vorjot was chosen by the Jacksonville Symphony to be featured in its 2002 Fresh Ink Series. Night Calls, Kari's twelve cello ensemble composition was commissioned and premiered by Cellobration 2002. Professor Juusela's works span the gamete of works for instrumentalists and vocalists. His style is truly virtuosic and yet immediately accessible by today's audiences. Ensembles around the globe have premiered his music, including Quartetto Latinoamericano, The CORE Ensemble, the London Chamber Group, Florida's Electro-Acoustic Festival, SEAMUS, the Society of Composers Inc, and the Berklee College of Music, to name a few. Individual collaborators include violinist Beth Newdome, guitarist Stephen Robinson, organist Boyd Jones, cellist David Bjella, and santoorist virtuoso Nandkishor Muley.

Jeff McAuley

Jeff McAuley was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He studied cello performance at the Aaron Copland School of Music where his primary teachers were Stephen Kates and Barbara Stein Mallow. Before entering into graduate school, Jeff spent three oddly productive years in San Francisco, where he was able to explore more alternative forms of music outside the realm of his more traditional classical undergraduate training. It was during this period that Jeff first began composing. He later went on to recieve a M.M. degree from Northern Illinois University under the guidance of Marc Johnson and other members of the Vermeer String Quartet. After completing his graduate studies, Jeff moved to Istanbul, Turkey where he still currently resides.

Klaus George Roy

Klaus George Roy was born in Vienna, Austria in 1924, and died in May 2010 in the USA. He emigrated to the United States in 1940 and served in the US Army from 1944 to 1946. In 1949 he completed a Master of Music Degree from Harvard University where his composition teacher was Walter Piston. A member of the musical community of the United States and in Europe, for over 50 years, Dr. Roy enjoyed a wide variety of musical endeavors including composition (over 500 works!), music criticism, program annotating, teaching composition and music criticism, and lecturing. He gave more than 30 years of service to the Cleveland Orchestra as program annotator, editor, and pre-concert lecturer, and was presented with numerous awards including: the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Arthur Shepard Prize, an honorary doctorate from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University. Dr. Roy received commissions and honors for works in instrumental and vocal genres, his music is presented in performances around the globe, and is published by at least 11 different publishers. His discography includes recordings on the CRI, Crystal, Advent, Dimension, and TrueMedia labels.Duet in Ancient Style for bassoon and double bass, was presented to Laura Koepke, bassoonist, and Jordan Frazier, double bassist, on September 3, 2001 in honor of their betrothal. About the Duet in Ancient Style, Dr. Roy commented; "The style of the Duet looks back a bit wistfully at that of past centuries, the adventurous 20th recently completed, and even the much-lamented 19th, with a muffled cheer for the incipient 21st."

Haskell Small

Haskell Small is a pianist and composer who, hailed by England's Musical Times for his "dazzlingly prodigious technique," has concertized with great success in major European capitals, South America, Japan and China, and has been enthusiastically received by American audiences in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Spoleto Festival. A semifinalist in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Piano Competition, Mr. Small has received numerous awards and has been featured in the nationally broadcast PBS special, "A Celebration of the Piano". Following in the tradition of 18th and 19th century pianist/composers, Haskell Small is also an accomplished composer, who often performs his own works. He has received commissions from such organizations as the Washington Ballet, Three Rivers Piano Competition, Georgetown Symphony and Paul Hill Chorale, and he was the winner of the 1999 Marin Ballet Dance Score Competition. Since 2000, he has been composer-in-residence with the Mount Vernon Orchestra. He is currently at work on RENOIR'S FEAST, a commission by the Phillips Collection to set to music Renoir's painting, LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY. Prof. Small has recorded a number of CDs. In recent seasons, he has made several tours of Japan, played recitals in Paris and London, and has extensively performed Bach's GOLDBERG VARIATIONS. Haskell Small received his musical training at the San Francisco Conservatory and Carnegie-Mellon University, where he studied piano with Leon Fleisher, William Masselos, Harry Franklin and Jeanne Behrend, and composition with Roland Leich and Vincent Persichetti. Currently, he is the piano department Chair of the Washington Conservatory of Music.

Camil Van Hulse

Camil Van Hulse, was born in Belgium in 1897 and died in Tucson, Arizona, in 1988, after a lengthy career in music, particularly symphonic direction and opera composition. Though not a bass player, Camil wrote the composition, Sonatine-Etude, after hearing the incomparable Gary Karr performing works of Bottesini on the local classical music radio station. Sonatine-Etude is both lyrical and technically challenging, yet surprisingly, it is written quite idiomatically for the bass. Camil's knowledge of orchestration is evident and the piece is a welcome addition to the repertory.

Donald Wheelock

Donald Wheelock studied composition at Union College and the University of Ediburgh, and Yale University where he was a student of Quincy Porter and Yehudi Wyner. He has served on the faculty of Colgate Univeristy and Amhurst College, and is presently the Irwin and Pauline Alper Glass Professor of Music at Smith College. His compositions include four string quartets, many works for solo instruments, eleven song cycles, and many large ensemble and orchestral works. He has received fellowships and awards from the Hartford Symphony, the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Guggenheim Foundation. His music can be heard on the Gasparo, Albany, Harmonia Mundi, and New Aria record labels.