Christine Beard

Christine Erlander Beard has performed extensively across the U.S. and abroad as a soloist, including Ireland, England, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Austria, and Russia. In addition to her active performance schedule, Dr. Beard is the Roy Seaman Piccolo Artist/Clinician for Gemstone Musical Instruments and in that role has presented piccolo clinics and lecture-recitals at state music conferences and flute festivals across the U.S. As an arranger, she has completed several works for flute choir and her edition of Eugene Damare's "The Wren Polka" for solo piccolo and band has enjoyed performances across the U.S. and Europe. Christine earned her MM and DMA degrees in flute performance from The University of Texas at Austin (1998, 2003); she joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2002 where she teaches applied flute, chamber music, and serves as Coordinator of Woodwind Studies. (For more info, visit www.piccoloHQ.com).

Lauren Bernofsky

Lauren Bernofsky's music has been heard across the United States as well as in Canada, Norway, Iceland, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. Her catalog of compositions totals over sixty pieces, written for professional musicians as well as children. She is the recipient of grants from The National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, The American Composers Forum, The American Music Center, and the American Embassy in Norway. Her commissions include such groups as Sinfonia Calcania of Boston, the Holyoke Civic Symphony, the Del Mar Trio, Alamanda Women’s Choir, and The Harford Ballet. For more information, please visit www.laurenbernofsky.com.

Paul Bissell

Dr. Paul Bissell (b. 1966) is currently the associate professor of music technology at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Dr. Bissell has written many articles for Percussive Notes, The Louisiana Musician and The Transoniq Hacker in both percussion and music technology related fields. He has also performed with the Austin Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, The Florida Orchestra and the Joeffrey Ballet among many others. He is featured as a performer on compact discs as diverse as Eric Johnson's Ah Via Musicom, Karl Korte's Extensions: A Retrospective of Elctro-Acoustic Music and the Spy Kids II movie sound track.

Barry Ford

Barry Ford Barry Ford (b. 1964 in Châteauroux, France) earned his Bachelor of Music degree at the Northwestern University School of Music (Chicago, IL) in 1987 where he studied trumpet with Vincent Cichowicz and Luther Didrickson. While at Northwestern, he began studies in conducting, arranging, and composition with John P. Paynter, Don Owens and Jay Kawarsky. After teaching for several years in the public school system, Ford began studies of composition and orchestral conducting at the University of Missouri at Columbia with Edward Dolbashian, John Cheetham and Thomas McKenney.
Before joining the faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2004, Ford served as Professor of Trumpet at the State University of Pará and the Carlos Gomes Conservatory, as well as conductor of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro da Paz and the Amazônia Jazz Band in Belém, Brazil.

Neil Flory

Neil Flory Neil Flory is an active composer and poet. He holds degrees in music from the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has studied with Stella Sung, Budd Udell, James Paul Sain, Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, and Russell Pinkston. He has composed a variety of works both in the acoustic and electro-acoustic mediums, and his music has been performed across the United States as well as in Europe and South America. One of his electro-acoustic works appears on Volume One of the University of Florida SCI Student Chapter's CD series, and one of his pieces for violin and guitar is available on the Duo46 CD Untaming the Fury (available through GuitarPlus Records). Some of his music has been published by Jomar Press and Go Fish Music, and his poetry has appeared in various publications such as Poetry Forum, Alternative Press Magazine, and Mind Matters Review. Recent commissions include a set of songs for flute, guitar, and voice, commissioned by Christine Beard, a Texas flutist, and a work for harpsichord and chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Iowa Music Teachers' Association. The composer has performed as a soloist and with a variety of ensembles both as a pianist and as a percussionist. He continues to be an active member of the Society of Composers, Inc. and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States. Dr. Flory is currently the Assistant Professor of music theory and composition at Del Mar College.

Dave Gerhart

Dave Gerhart holds a D.M.A. from the University of Southern California in Percussion Performance with a secondary emphasis in Music Education, Ethnomusicology, and Music Industry & Technology. Dr. Gerhart received a M.M. in Percussion Performance and Instrumental Conducting and a B.M. in Music Education from California State University, Long Beach. He has been featured on CDs with the Robin Cox Ensemble and most recently with Steven Hartke on Sonic Scenery for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. As a freelance musician, Dave has performed under Zubin Mehta, Mehli Mehta and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Michael Kamen, Yefim Bronfman, Ray Holman, and Robert Greenidge. His principle teachers include Dr. Michael Carney, Erik Forrester, Brad Dutz and Raynor Carroll, principal percussionist of the L.A. Philharmonic. Dave is currently the director of the CSULB University Percussion Ensemble and the CSULB New Music Ensemble. He is also a member of the applied music faculty at CSULB.

Richard Hall

Richard Hall is a Lecturer of Music at Texas State University-San Marcos in San Marcos, Texas, USA. His teaching duties include Composition, Electronic Composition, Music Technology, and Humanities. He has received degrees from Angelo State University and Texas State University.
During his graduate work at Texas State University, he was the recipient of the Francis R. Schneider fellowship studying composition under Dr. Russell Riepe. He has received numerous commissions from all over the country, scored two independent films and has pieces published by Dorn Publications and Go Fish Music. Richard has performed with the Lackland Air Force Band of the West, as a soloist with the San Angelo Symphony, and with the National Collegiate Band under the direction of Dr. Frederic Fennell. His pieces have been performed at many conferences including some sponsored by the Texas Society of Music Theorists, the College Music Society and the National Association of Composers USA. Richard also serves as the Music Graphics Editor of the South Central Music Bulliten.

Dr. Thom Hasenpflug

Dr. Thom Hasenpflug is nationally recognized as a performer and educator, and his compositions for percussion receive international attention and are played all over the world. He has been commissioned by some of the field’s leading percussionists, and has received top awards in the PAS composition contest as well as the Louis Smadbeck prize. International performances of his works have occurred in London, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Barcelona, Dublin, Rio de Janiero, Venezuela, and Sweden, by various percussion artists of note. Born in 1966, he received his Degrees in percussion and composition from Ithaca College and the University of Colorado and has studied with Gordon Stout, Doug Walter, and Greg Woodward. As a percussionist-composer, he is an active clinician, having given presentations and masterclasses at many universities, festivals, and at multiple PAS “days of percussion.” He currently directs the percussion program at Idaho State University, has performed as a member of numerous symphonies, and has fronted the Hasenproject percussion group. For more information see www.thomhasenpflug.com

Christien Ledroit

Christien Ledroit was born in 1975, in London, Ontario, and now lives in Montreal, Quebec, where he is completing his Masters degree in music composition at McGill University, studying with Jean Lesage. He completed his Bachelor of Music degree at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario in 1999, where he was the recipient of the Maurice Dubin Memorial Prize in Composition. He is currently a member of the Group of the Electronic Music Studio at McGill University (GEMS).

Terry Longshore

Terry Longshore (b. 1966) is active as a performer, composer, and educator of percussion and has performed nationally and internationally. He performs regularly as a soloist and with the percussion duo Skin & Bones, percussion quartet Conundrum, and multi-media ensemble Sonoluminescence. He can be heard on numerous CD and motion picture recordings and has premiered many compositions for solo percussion, percussion ensemble, chamber ensemble, and symphony orchestra. Longshore holds bachelor’s degrees from California State University at Fresno and Sacramento and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with percussion virtuoso Steven Schick. Longshore has taught at several universities and currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Music, Chair of the Department of Music, and Director of Percussion Studies at Southern Oregon University. Terry Longshore is a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist endorser for Vic Firth sticks and mallets and Zildjian cymbals.

Jonathan M. Leshnoff

Jonathan M. Leshnoff: Hailed by The Baltimore Sun as one of 2006’s artists to watch out for, composer Jonathan Leshnoff continues to make headlines. The young composer’s work—described by the Kansas City Star as “a diaphanous fabric of beautiful transparency”—has been performed coast to coast. Recent and upcoming performances include the IRIS Chamber, Buffalo Philharmonic, Columbus Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, National Symphony of Mexico, National Repertory Orchestra, Oakland Symphony and Baltimore Chamber Orchestras, the “President’s Own” United States Marine Band and the Smithsonian’s Twenty-first Century Consort. Leshnoff’s first symphony, Forgotten Chants and Refrains, was recently recorded by Michael Stern and the IRIS Orchestra for commercial release. Past and future performances of Leshnoff’s chamber works include the American Brass Quintet, Da Capo Chamber Ensemble and Syrinx Ensemble at venues including the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Merkin Hall, Saratoga Chamber Music Festival and the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Aki series. Drawing inspiration from the joys and difficulties in everyday life, Leshnoff’s music has received many awards, including two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, special distinction in the Rudolph Nissim Prize and the highest State Artist award from the Maryland State Arts Council. Dr. Leshnoff, 32, is an associate professor at Towson University. For more information on Leshnoff, including upcoming performances, visit www.jonathanleshnoff.com.
His web site address (which contains upcoming performances and additional information) is: www.jonathanleshnoff.com

Mel Mobley

Dr. Mel Mobley teaches percussion, music theory, and music composition at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Director of the ULM New Music Ensemble, Mel has long been an advocate for new music. He has been involved as a performer and/or composer with many contemporary music festivals around the country including BONK, FunNewMusic, and the SEAMUS Convention. Recent commissions include a marimba/percussion concerto for the Monroe Symphony and a piece for percussion trio with piano for the regional percussion group, Three-Headed Monster. His current work focuses on the combination of electronic audio, video and acoustic performance. Recent premieres include ...of God waiting... and Peaces of Earth and Science.
As a percussionist, Dr. Mobley has performed with groups as diverse as The Florida Orchestra and the I-Pan steel drum band. He is currently the principal of the Monroe Symphony Orchestra and a regular performer with the Shreveport Symphony and the Longview Symphony. For more information see www.melmobley.com

Janis Potter

Janis Potter was formerly a percussionist with "The President's Own" United States Marine Band in Washington DC where she was known by her married name as Staff Sergeant Potter-Paulson. Ms. Potter has performed numerous solos with the band including Thea Musgrave's Journey Through a Japanese Landscape, which she played at the Concert Band Director's National Association Convention in February 1999, and her own arrangement of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which she performed 18 times during the 1999 fall concert tour of the Western United States. On her "time-off" from the band she performs approximately twenty solo recitals each year- many of which are sponsored by The Piatigorsky Foundation. She received her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in music performance from The Juilliard School where she is now faculty member and coordinator for the Summer Percussion Seminar for high school percussionists. She endorses Adams marimbas, Pearl drums, and Innovative Percussion mallets. Ms. Potter resides in Glenn Dale, MD with her husband, percussionist Glenn Paulson, and their three pets, Megan, Millie, and Bernie. Aside from music, Janis' hobbies include tap dancing, pottery, gardening and landscaping, wood working, and home improvement. Most information (upcoming performances and additional information) can be found at her website: www.janmarimba.com.

Martin Rokeach

Martin Rokeach (b. 1953) earned music degrees from San Francisco State University and his Ph. D. in music composition and theory from Michigan State University. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Australia, and has received honors in eleven national competitions, including first prize in the Chicago Ensemble's 1999 "Discover America" competition and the 1998 Cygnus Ensemble competition in New York. In addition to Go Fish, his works have been published by Roncorp, ALRY, Fallen Leaf and Dorn, and recordedby Albany, North/South, furious Artists, Capstone and CRS records. He teaches at Saint Mary's College of California, and is one of the founders and artistic directors of San Francisco's contemporary music concert series, Composers, Inc.

Erik Santos

Erik Santos is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Music where he teaches Composition and is the Director of the Electronic Music Studios. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), The MacDowell Colony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Rackham Graduate School of The University of Michigan, and was named the 1999 “Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year” by the Music Teacher s National Association (MTNA) of America.Santos has had three large-scale orchestral commissions from the Bozeman and Butte Symphony Orchestras of Montana, directed by Matthew Savery, and a number of commissions for chamber works. Among them: "Zauberkraft (Magic Power)," commissioned by Danish-American percussionist Timothy Lutte for performance at the 1996 Percussive Arts Society International Conference (PASIC) in Nashville, "…con Cruces de Fuego (…with Crosses of Fire)", commissioned by the Michigan Music Teachers Association, "Sun Dogs" commissioned by the percussion duo, Equal Temperament, and "Dreamer: 7 Poems of Langston Hughes" for voice, harp and piano, commissioned by tenor Darryl Taylor, and "Star Rising," commissioned by the American Guild of Organists. More about Erik Santos at: www.eriksantos.com