Artists

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.

With their unique brand of ethno-classical music, Duo Beija-Flor presents a varied repertoire of works inspired by traditional and folkloric music from around the world. Guitarist Charles Hobson and flutist Marie-Noëlle Choquette began to perform together while in the midst of their graduate studies at Concordia University in Montreal. In 2010 they officially formed the Duo Beija-Flor. Since then they have performed concerts throughout Canada, the United States and Argentina.

Michael Arnowitt is one of the most creative and imaginative musicians of today. He is best known for his beautiful and sensitive touch at the keyboard, for the clarity and elegance of his musical ideas, for his abilities to find new articulations and colors from the piano, for his innovative and thought-provoking concert programs, and for his natural and warm on-stage manner with audiences of all ages.

Pianist, electric bassist, composer, and arranger, Ron Paley has composed works for solo piano, big band, and symphony orchestra. He formed the Ron Paley Big Band in 1976 after playing electric bass with the big bands of Buddy Rich, and Woody Herman, with whom he recorded two album’s.

Margaret Herlehy was born into a musical family in New Rochelle, NY in 1959. Growing up, she recalls an attic filled with her grandfather’s instruments as her experimental playground where she would spend hours figuring out popular tunes on them. At the suggestion of her middle school band director, she started playing the oboe and began playing professionally alongside her teacher Lois Wann at the age of 16.

Gay Pearson received a B.M. in applied piano from Lawrence University in '65 and a B.S. in Meteorology from Purdue University in '83. During her twelve years of employment in air quality evaluation with New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection in Trenton, she also studied jazz harmony, theory and improvisation. Since relocating to Maine, she is finishing her eighth year of studying advanced improvisation and composition with Vardan Ovsepian, first in her home town of Newburyport MA, then via skype.

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.

A trombonist and prolific, highly diverse composer who recently retired from The University of Utah's School of Music after nearly 40 years as Director Of Jazz Studies, Henry Wolking has found creative inspiration in writing for almost every imaginable type of large and small ensemble in classical and jazz music. His prodigious orchestral output includes symphonies, fantasies, and an overture as well as eight concertos featuring various soloists such as jazz quartet, trombone, flute, heckelphone, bassoon, contrabassoon, two pianos and horn.

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. 

Jazz pianist and composer Bunny Beck comes from a long line of musicians. Her dad, Larry Sideman had a band that played hotels, her aunt was a vaudeville violinist, and her grandmother sang opera.

Tony Oxley was born in Sheffield, England. Oxley, a self-taught pianist by the age of eight, first began playing the drums at age seventeen. While in the Black Watch military band from 1957 to 1960 he studied music theory and improved upon his drumming technique.

The Oscuro Quintet is an international group of 5 accomplished musicians of diverse disciplines pursuing their collective passion for tango and contemporary music.

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.

Tony R. Clef was born in Bellows Falls VT and grew up in nearby Springfield, VT. He has spent most of his adult life in the Boston, MA area. He studied classical guitar primarily with Richard Layman in Brookline, MA and also for a time with Adam Holzman in Austin, TX.

Christina Rusnak (b. 1959) is a multifaceted composer whose work reflects a diversity of styles. Actively seeking to integrate artistic and geographic elements into her work, her goal is to compose music that engages the performers as well as the audience.

Svjetlana Bukvich first came to the attention of the European music world following her appearances as featured soloist with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s 1st Piano Concerto at the age of 16, and the following year with Edinburgh George Heriot’s Symphony Orchestra with the 2nd Concerto. Driven by a need to express beyond interpretation, Bukvich studied at the Music Academy – University of Sarajevo, where she earned degrees in Composition and Musicology. During this period she was invited to participate in the Intensive Composition Workshop in Groznjan, Istria, where she worked with some of the leading lights in European contemporary music.

Anne Vanschothorst is described as 'an extraordinary musician,' 'such a cool artist' and 'a highly emotive harpist.' Her work has been characterized as 'avant garde,' 'innovative,' 'minimal,' 'lyrical,' 'cinematic,' and 'very touching and intense music.' She is known for an equal clear sound in bass and melody; the lower register speaks in a deep inner voice while the higher notes are talkative and enchanting.

Andy Jaffe is the Lyell B. Clay Artist in Residence and Director of Jazz Activities at Williams College, as well as Artistic Director of the Williamstown Jazz Festival. An active jazz composer, performer, and recording artist, Jaffe has been a leader in jazz pedagogy for over twenty-five years, having taught at the Berklee College of Music (1977-81), The University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate program in Afro-American Music and Jazz (1994-98), the Institut Musical deformation Professionelle in Nimes, France (1984), Amherst College (1987-99), Tufts University(1992-93), Smith College(1997-99), and Williams (since 1989). He runs the jazz ensembles and teaches courses in jazz theory and improvisation, jazz arranging and composition, and on the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane.

Peggo in Love ñ singer Peggo Hodes' debut solo recording ñ is a striking collection of timeless love songs picked from the Great American Songbook. Peggo, whose previous outings include her work with award-winning childrenís music group Peggosus and folk duo Peggo and Paul (featuring her husband Paul Hodes), looked to her past for inspiration on Peggo in Love.

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.