Artists

Composer and double bass player Adriano Orrù was born in Nuoro, Italy in 1958 and currently lives in Cagliari, Italy. He devotes his time to jazz, radical improvisation, chamber music. He also works as a music teacher.

Cotatcha Orchestra was founded by trumpeter Jiří Kotača with a vision to play unusual and original big band music. The band morphed and grew with each new repertoire, from compositions by legendary world-known jazz authors, through contemporary Czech works for the big band to collaborations with great foreign guests such as Ilja Reijngoud, Mar Vilaseca, and Geraldyne Schnyder.

Berl Olswanger, dubbed "Mr. Music of Memphis" by the local press, grew up in Memphis in the 1920s and 1930s where he heard music that would later influence him as a composer. He quickly developed an affinity for the piano and began playing professionally at the age of 12. After a stint on WMC radio in his twenties, he joined the tour of the George Olsen Orchestra, which led him across the country from New York to Hollywood as he accompanied legendary acts like Bing Crosby and Jack Benny.

Composer and banjo innovator Michael Nix writes and performs new classical music for banjo and banjo hybrids that explores both the history of America's beloved instrument as well as modern day influences. 

Dr. Israel Neuman is a composer, producer, sound engineer, bass player, and educator. He teaches sound production at the Texas Southern University School of Communication. Neuman’s sound projects are diverse both in content as well as in their uses of technology. He recorded, mixed, and mastered for jazz artists such as John Rapson, Damani Phillip, Lewis Nash, Jim Buennig, and James Dreier. He collaborated as sound designer and composer with filmmakers Tyrone Dixon and Yuval Cohan as well as playwright Thomas Meloncon.

Natraj melds the classical music of India, traditional music from West Africa, and contemporary jazz to create its own unique and infectious style. Hard-driving African grooves and graceful Indian ragas meet in the band’s expansive jazz conception. Selected as Boston’s Best Jazz Band by the Improper Bostonian and nominated Best World Music Act in the Boston Music Awards, Natraj captivates and excites audiences with exotic textures, accessible melodies, and rhythmic energy.

Chiharu Naruse holds master’s degrees in Music Performance and Music Instruction from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.  She has participated in several international piano competitions, and won the silver prize in the Hyogo Piano Competition in Japan.  In 2002, Chiharu moved to the United States to study under Frank Glazer.

Marco Buongiorno Nardelli's (b. Rome, Italy, Nov. 21, 1964) broad musical interests span from the baroque repertoire to jazz, contemporary, and electronic music. Educated as both a musician and a physicist (Ph.D., Condensed Matter Theory, 1993), he holds a B.M. in Music Theory and Composition from the Conservatorio "Luigi Cherubini" in Florence, Italy, studied flute with Oro and Gian-Luca Petrucci in Rome and Brooks deWetter-Smith at UNC-Chapel Hill and sung in the choir of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana with M. Pablo Colino, who introduced him to music at a very early age.

The sights and sounds of nature. Literature. Film. The many languages of the world. These are the Muses of the group known as Ecco La Musica. From its inception in 2006, this ensemble has been dedicated to the performance of original material created by its members and uniquely arranged to highlight the instrumentation and artistic perspective of the composers' collective.

We entertain, encourage, and educate children and families about the adventure of being human through music that presents positive ideas for living a life full of possibilities.

A North Carolina native, Mel went to Lafayette, Louisiana in the summer of 1969 to visit a college friend and play a little music before going back to UNC. His plans changed when he became totally immersed in the rich culture and physical beauty of southwest Louisiana. He moved permanently to Lafayette at the end of the summer and began playing in a band he co-founded with Sonny Landreth, the Louisiana slide guitar-playing superstar.

Sebastiano Meloni lives in Cagliari, Italy, where he teaches literature and history. He graduated from the Conservatory in Cagliari with a degree in jazz music. While at the Conservatory, he also studied classical music, contemporary music, composition, and music theory. In 2002, he recorded Libere Forme, a CD of free jazz-contemporary music, with drummer Alessandro Garau and double bassist Nicola Cossu. He continues to play free and mainstream jazz throughout Italy.

La Mandragore distinguishes itself in two ways: its energic and contagious dynamism and its approach to the music, equal parts musicological rigour and modern creativity. The group presents unique arrangements of ancient melodies and of world folk music on a panoply of heterogeneous instruments, from the crumhorn to the nay, from the ud to the bouzouki and the gaida, and a whole range of percussion instruments.

A native of Chicago, composer, multi-instrumentalist, author, and educator Alex Lubet has lived in Minnesota since 1979.  While having written works in many idioms, he has long devoted himself principally to performing his own music, as a solo acoustic guitarist and in collaboration with artists including Maja Radovanlija, Swiss free jazz pianist Guerino Mazzola, and his wife, taiko and fue (Japanese drums and horizontal flute) player Iris Shiraishi. 

Pianist Laura Loewen is a long-time colleague and collaborator at the University of Manitoba's Desautels Faculty of Music in Winnipeg. Loewen is one of Canada's most expressive collaborative pianists, performing with leading singers and instrumentalists across the country. Her ongoing work with saxophonist Allen Harrington led to the recent Ravello Records release of METROPOLIS, a recording of new compositions for saxophone and piano. Loewen teaches collaborative piano and coaches singers at the Desautels Faculty of Music, where her "Passionate Diction" approach to language has inspired a whole new generation of language enthusiasts. Together, Mel Braun and Loewen have toured Canada and commissioned numerous works, always evolving as recitalists and collaborators.

Based in Boston for over three decades, Bertram Lehmann’s supple and fluid style of drumming has made him a sought-after player within a multitude of musical contexts in the region and beyond, performing in Jazz, South-American, and many other global genres.

Thomas Lee is a founding member of the Oscuro Quintet. He studied piano at the Julliard Pre-College division in New York with Richard Fabre and Antonio Fermin, and later at Yale University with Elizabeth Parisot. From 2005-2006 he studied carillon with Eddy Marin at the Royal Carillon School, Jef Denyn, in Mechelen, Belgium, where he was only the fifth student in the school's history to graduate with "Greatest Distinction." He received his carillon accreditation with the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in 2006, and has been a regular performer in the United States, Belgium, and the Netherlands since then. He is also half of the carillon duo "Campana Nova" with Eddy Marin. Lee has composed and arranged many pieces for carillon, and has begun to study tango music with Juan Martin Fernandez of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Jerry Leake is a Professor of World Percussion at Berklee College of Music, the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, and the New England Conservatory (Jazz and CMA). He leads the world-rock-fusion band Cubist whose albums feature his skill as a composer, arranger, and performer. He is a co-founder of the Indo/Jazz band Natraj and the dub/trance/groove collective Club d’Elf.

Kenneth A. Kuhn (Ken) (B. 1954) is an electrical engineer specializing in electronic circuit design who had the privilege of growing up with a great appreciation of classical music. His favorite composers include Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. Over the years classical music enhanced mental skills valuable for his engineering career.  Composing music and designing electronic circuits are very interrelated as each enhances the other.

Miguel Kertsman’s compositions organically reach beyond genres and boundaries. They encompass classical symphonic, chamber, and vocal music for the Concert Stage, as well as experimental, progressive rock, jazz, and film/game scores.

His classical works have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by international artists such as conductor Dennis Russell Davies, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Saint Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, São Paulo State Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna Symphony, mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, guitarist John Williams, and others.