Composer Chats (Jason K. Nitsch)

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Paul Dooley to the podcast!

aul Dooley is one of the most prolific and performed composers in America today. His path has embraced not only his Western Classical heritage, but also a cross-cultural range of contemporary music, dance, art, technology and the interactions between the human and natural worlds. His music has been described as "impressive and beautiful" by American composer Steve Reich.

Dooley’s orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by, among many others, the Nashville Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Macau Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, United Nations Chamber Music Society, Omaha Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, Beethoven Academy Orchestra, Radom Chamber Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Nu Deco Ensemble and Alarm Will Sound, in addition to wind ensembles such as “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, The United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” and the United States Navy Band.

Recent works include Circuits and Skins (2017), an EDM-inspired electronic percussion concerto for Lisa Pegher and the Lansing Symphony, Mondrian’s Studio (2019), for horn and wind ensemble, for Adam Unsworth and the University of Michigan Symphony Band, Manifestos (2019) for the universities of the Big 12 Conference and The Conductor’s Spellbook (2016), an educational, interactive and entertaining work for young audiences, which has received more than 100 performances since its 2016 premiere, originally commissioned by the Naples Philharmonic.

Born in Santa Rosa, California in 1983, Dooley began his musical life listening to Beethoven, Bruce Hornsby, Nirvana and Rush. At the age of 13, Dooley began a long mentorship with singer, songwriter, improvisor and gifted counselor Gary “Doc” Collins. In high school Dooley also studied composition with Charles Sepos, before earning bachelor degrees in mathematics and music composition at the University of Southern California (2002-2007) with Frank Ticheli and Stephen Hartke, and a master and doctorate degree at the University of Michigan (2007-2013) with Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers. A key moment occured for Dooley in 2010, with his participation in the inagural Mizzou International Composers Festival. The festival commissioned Dooley's breakout work Point Blank, which was premiered by the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound.

In 2013 Dooley joined the music faculty at the University of Michigan. He created and directs the Performing Arts Technology department’s annual Computer Music Showcase. He also co-directed the Midwest Composers Symposium and was coordinator of the “ONCE. MORE.” festival, a celebration of the 50 year anniversary of the ONCE Festival of Contemporary Music, and was co-awarded a grant from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching.

Dooley’s music is the subject of several...

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Alexandra Gardner to the podcast!

Praised as “highly lyrical and provocative of thought” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “mesmerizing” (The New York Times), the music of composer Alexandra Gardner is thrilling audiences and performers alike with a “particular alchemy of craft, whimsy, and sensual appeal” (The New Yorker). She composes for varied instrumentations and often mixes acoustic instruments with electronic music and field recordings, drawing inspiration from mythology, the natural sciences, and contemporary literature.

Alexandra’s compositions are regularly featured at festivals and venues around the world, including the Aspen Music Festival, Beijing Modern Festival, Centro de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Festival Cervantino, Grand Teton Music Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Library of Congress, Merkin Hall, Strathmore Music Center, Symphony Space, and the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Her music has been commissioned and presented by leading organizations and ensembles such as the National Flute Association, the American Harp Society, Astral Artists, Boulanger Initiative, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, Strathmore Music Center, Tesla Quartet, and the United States Navy Band.

Recent works include the string quartet Watershed, commissioned by Tesla Quartet, ImmerSphere, and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; Lantana for Seattle Symphony principal oboist Mary Lynch VanderKolk; and Sanctuary of Joy for organist Joy-Leilani Garbutt and violinist Laura Colgate, co-founders of Boulanger Initiative. Upcoming projects include a concerto for alto saxophone and wind ensemble inspired by the recent discoveries of the James Webb Telescope and a collaboration with New Music Detroit exploring the local history of a major medical invention from the 1950s. 

Among Alexandra’s honors and awards are recognitions from American Composers Forum, ASCAP, Maryland State Arts Council, Mid-America Arts Alliance, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Netherland-America Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. She is a recipient of the Vassar College W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts and a Rubys Artist Project Grant from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. She has conducted residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Liz...

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Quincy Hilliard to the podcast!

Quincy C. Hilliard’s compositions for wind band are published by several major music publishers, and are performed throughout the world where there are wind bands of British-American instrumentation. His stature as an outstanding composer is apparent as conductors frequently commission him for new compositions.

Dr. Hilliard has been a recipient several times of the distinguished American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) award recognizing the numerous performances of his works and was chosen as one of a select group of composers to write a piece for the 1996 Olympics. He has also written the music score for a film documentary entitled “The Texas Rangers” for public television. In addition to composing, Dr. Hilliard is invited to all parts of the world to conduct, adjudicate festivals, and demonstrate effective teaching techniques and has written extensively on pedagogical topics in journals and publications.

In the spring of 1997, Dr. Hilliard was appointed by the Governor of Louisiana to the Louisiana Arts Council. Dr. Hilliard is also the president of Hilliard Music Enterprises, Inc., a personal consulting firm that has a corporate board of distinguished music educators. He is currently composer in residence and professor of music theory and composition, and holds the Heymann Endowed Professorship of Music at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.

Join Jason as he welcomes world renown, Grammy nominated soprano, Laura Strickling!

Two-time GRAMMY® award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Confessions (2022) and 40@40 (2024) – Laura Strickling’s recordings make, “a strong statement about the status of contemporary art songs and her commitment to them,” (Schmopera). Recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence,” she is celebrated for her work performing and promoting art song, with an emphasis on new additions to the canon. She curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of contemporary art songs for soprano and recently announced The 40@40 Project – a personal initiative to commission 40 new art songs from 40 composers. Featured in the May 2021 issue of Classical Singer Magazine for her advocacy work in commissioning and recording new music, she has appeared with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Mexicoliederfest, Calliope’s Call, Liederfest in Suzhou (China), the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Lyric Fest, Chiarina Chamber Players, Joy in Singing, Trinity Concerts at One, the American Liszt Society, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Concerts on the Slope, National Sawdust, Art Song at the Old Stone House, the Brooklyn New Music Collective, SongFusion, has been a featured performer at the New Music Gathering, and presented a radio broadcast recital of American songs on “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with pianist Daniel Schlosberg. Laura and pianist Liza Stepanova were 2017 Artists in Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, where they presented a program of Granados and modern songs in Spanish, including the world-premiere of Ciudades del Porvenir by Reinaldo Moya. She has presented guest artist recitals and lectures at the University of Georgia, Mercer University, College of William and Mary, Mercer University, University of Notre Dame, New World School of the Arts, Notre Dame University of Maryland, Pittsburg State University, McDaniel College, St. Mary’s College, and University of Richmond. She is on the New Music Advisory Board of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Artistic Advisory Boards of Cincinnati Song Initiative and Calliope’s Call.

Equally acclaimed for her work on the concert stage, she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, Trinity Church on Wall Street, Washington National Cathedral, and the Opera America Center. Her, “powerful and expressive voice across a large range, her variety of timbre and character,” (Classical Scene), make her a welcome guest soloist for a range of oratorio and concert works, from Handel to Britten. These include Messiah (Handel)with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony, Gloria (Poulenc) with the Asheville Symphony, Mass in c minor (Mozart) with the Richmond Symphony, Cathedral Choral Society, and Berkshire Choral International, Stabat Mater (Dvorak) and Elijah (Mendelssohn) with Berkshire Choral International, Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee and Chorosynthesis, Luonnotar (Sibelius) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with Mexicoliederfest, Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) and Carmina Burana(Orff) with Choralis, as well as Requiem (Mozart), Credo Mass (Mozart), Dixit Dominus (Handel), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn),...

The Octopus Project has been releasing joyous party music since 2002, following a musical path that veers through blown-out rock’n’roll, vibrant electronics, surreal pop and expansive psych landscapes. Based in Austin, TX, the group of multi-instrumentalists has released six studio albums, starting with 2002’s Identification Parade. Touring venues and festivals worldwide (Lollapalooza, Coachella, All Tomorrow's Parties) both on their own and as handpicked support for artists as diverse as DEVO and Aesop Rock, they’ve earned a reputation for explosive live shows and immersive audio-visual experiments. 

Also active as composers for video games and film, they were awarded the Special Jury Award for Musical Score at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival for their work on the film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. 

Their most recent scoring work includes Damsel (starring Robert Pattinson, dir. by Zellner Bros.), 2021's The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood (dir. by Joe Ahern), the Reading Rainbowdocumentary, Butterfly In the Sky (starring LeVar Burton, dir. by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb), & the upcoming Zellner Bros. film, Sasquatch Sunset (starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg), which will premiere at Sundance 2024.

www.theoctopusproject.com

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Nicole Piano to the podcast this week!

Nicole Piunno (b. 1985) is a composer who views music as a vehicle for seeing and experiencing the realities of life. Her music often reflects the paradoxes in life and how these seeming opposites are connected as they often weave together. Her harmonic language and use of counterpoint mirrors the complexity of our world by acknowledging light and dark, past and present, beauty and brokenness, confinement and freedom, chaos and order, spiritual and physical, life and death. 

Nicole holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition and a Master of Music degree in theory pedagogy from Michigan State University. Her composition teacher was Ricardo Lorenz. She earned a Master of Music degree in composition at Central Michigan University, studying with David Gillingham. Nicole earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and her emphasis was on trumpet.  Her music has been performed by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the Principal Brass Quintet of the New York Philharmonic, the United States Coast Guard Band, and at many universities and conservatories around the country. Her large ensemble music has also been featured at multiple regional CBDNA conferences, the Midwest Clinic, and numerous all-state concerts.

JaRod Hall (b. 1991) is a Texas-native composer, educator, and performer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of North Texas where he studied conducting with Nicholas Williams and Dennis Fisher. JaRod's bands have received consistent sweepstakes awards at the Texas University Interscholastic League Concert and Sightreading Evaluations, as well as being recognized at the state level. In 2018 and 2019, JaRod's bands at Griffin Middle School earned the Citation of Excellence award, honoring the top two non-varsity bands in the state of Texas. Under his leadership, the R. L. Turner Marching Band in Carrollton, TX received 1st divisions and advanced to the Area Marching Contest for the first time in almost a decade; his Varsity band at Sam Houston Middle School in Irving, Texas received the unanimous 1st division ratings from all UIL judges for the first time in the school's history; his Varsity band at Hobby Middle School in San Antonio, TX achieved the same feat for the first time in five years.

JaRod is a tuba and trombone player by trade and has been a part of many esteemed ensembles such as the North Texas Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band, 3 O’ Clock Lab Band, Carrollton Wind Symphony, and Metropolitan Winds. During his time in high school, JaRod made the Texas All-State Band for all four years of his eligibility - the first 3 years of which were on tuba, eventually earning 1st chair Jazz Bass Trombone in the state his fourth and final year. He served as drum major for the 2013 Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps, and was a member of the 2014 Disneyland All-American College Band.

As a composer, JaRod's compositions appear on the Texas Prescribed Music List, The J.W. Pepper "Editor's Choice" list, and the Bandworld Top 100 list. His composition Lost Woods Fantasy was showcased at the 73rd annual Midwest Clinic in Chicago by the Berkner High School Band composed of the first students JaRod taught as a band director in Richardson ISD. His composition "Silver Fanfare" was selected as a winner of the Dallas Winds Call for Fanfares and "Through the Storm" was selected as the 2021 Barbara Buehlman Prize winner for middle school band - commissioned by David Puckett and the Keller Middle School Band, premiered for Midwest by Robert Herrings the Artie Henry Middle School Band. Additionally, JaRod is a nationwide marching band and WGI arranger and consultant.

JaRod is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Composition at Texas State University. He resides in San Antonio, Texas with his wife, Rachel (the smart one in the family) who is a medical student at the University of Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Join Jason this week as he welcomes composer Dara Taylor to the show!

Dara Taylor is an American composer for film and television scores. An HMMA-nominated composer, she has composed music for a number of Independent films including thrillers, dramas, and comedies. She has contributed additional music to ABC's Agent Carter,  Galavant and Lifetime’s Child Genius as well as arrangements and score production for studio productions like Bad Moms, Baywatch, Smurfs The Lost Village, Sausage Party, and more. In 2015, she was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award for her score for the Together Magic film Undetectable. In 2016, she was one of the composers asked to take part in Women in Film’s Women Composers in Media concert.

Taylor was born in Poughkeepsie, New York but spent most of her childhood in Lockport, New York. She studied as a mezzo-soprano under Judith Kellock at Cornell University and sang in the Cornell University Chorus. Also at Cornell, she studied composition independently with Zachary Wadsworth and Steven Stucky. In 2009, she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's in Music and Psychology. Taylor then received a Masters of Music from New York University in 2011 where she studied Film Music Composition with Mark Suozzo.

Taylor is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.

Join Jason this week as he welcomes composer Rossano Galante!

Born in Buffalo, New York, Rossano Galante received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Trumpet Performance from SUNY Buffalo in 1992. That same year he was one of nineteen people from around the world to be accepted to the University of Southern California’s Film Scoring Program. He studied with the late Jerry Goldsmith, who won an Academy Award for his film score for The Omen. In 1999, Mr. Galante moved to California to pursue a career in composition and film orchestration. Since then he has worked with two-time Oscar nominated composer Marco Beltrami, Christophe Beck,

Brian Tyler, Christopher Lennertz and Wolfram de Marco.

Mr. Galante has served as orchestrator for over seventy-five studio films including, Venom: Let There be Carnage, Rambo: Last Blood, Charlie’s Angles, Ready or Not, A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place 2, The Mummy, Logan, Sausage Party, Smurfs: The Lost Village, First They Killed My Father, Ben Hur, The Shallows, Fantastic 4, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Gods of Egypt, Prisoners, The Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma, A Good Day to Die Hard, Trouble with the Curve, The Thing, Final Destination 5, The Homesman, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Knowing, Max Payne, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Live Free or Die Hard, Red Eye, Die Bluthochzeit, The Tuxedo, Tuesdays with Morrie, among many others.

For his large-scale Wind Ensemble compositions, he has been commissioned by the Federation of Gay Games-Paris 2018, Atlanta Freedom Band, Lake Braddock High School Band, Hofstra University Symphonic Band, Nebraska Wind Symphony, the Amherst Chamber Orchestra, Trenton State College, SUNY Buffalo, Grand Island Middle School, Syracuse Youth Symphony, Point Pleasant Borough High School, North Tonawanda High School, Lockport City School District, Edward Town Middle School, Duxbury High School Wind Ensemble, Allegro: The Chamber Orchestra of Lancaster, Franklin & Marshall College, West Genesee High School Wind Ensemble, East Stroudsburg High School, Grissom High School, Hafabra Publishing, Desert Winds Freedom Band, Starpoint High School Band, Francis T. Maloney High School Band, The Erie County Wind Ensemble, The Solano County Honor Band, The Buffalo Niagara Concert Band and many others in the works.

John M. Pasternak is an active composer, conductor, and teacher. John attended Kent State University (KSU) where he pursued a Bachelor of Music Education degree and served as President of the Kent State Chapter of the Ohio Collegiate Music Education Association (OCMEA). Mr. Pasternak was a Staff Arranger at Kent State University, where he focused on composing and arranging for the music department while conducting his works with many of the KSU music ensembles. He has composed repertoire for many Independent Films and is an elected member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Since beginning teaching in 2013, John has directed band, Orchestra, and choir grades five through twelve. He has also taught fifth and eighth-grade general music. His roles have included assisting with marching band, concert band, middle school, and beginning band programs.

John is an experienced composer with works published by RWS Music Company, Carl Fischer Music, Bandworks Publications, Grand Mesa Music Publishers, Excelcia Music Publishing, and Wingert-Jones Publications. His “Intrepid Fanfare”, “Excel” March and arrangements of the “Heart of America” March and “National Defense” March were selected as one of the Top 100 works by Bandworld Magazine.  

In addition to his numerous concert works, John composed music for several films, including the Audio Technica video "How To Mic A Zombie." He has written for several Coaster Studios documentaries, beginning with “Save My Park” and most recently “This is How We Roll.” He is currently working on music for the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) documentary “The Legacy of Schwarzkopf” which will be released in the Fall of 2024.

Mr. Pasternak is in demand as a composer and guest clinician for his concert work and teaching experience across musical genres. He is an active Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) member and attends the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic annually. 

https://www.johnpasternak.com/

Join Jason this week as he welcomes composer Erika Svanoe to the podcast!

Dr. Erika Svanoe (b. 1976) is a conductor and composer for wind band, known for her lyrical melodies, nods to classic literature, musical deconstruction, humor, and pastiche. Her works have been performed by "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, the United States Navy Band, the National Concert Band of America, featured at the Midwest Clinic, the American Bandmasters Association National Conference, and the Boston New Music Festival, and on Wisconsin Public Radio, in Bandworld's Top 100, and the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series. Her first major work, The Haunted Carousel, won the 2014 NBA Young Band Composition Contest. Her first album, "The Music of Erika Svanoe," was recorded by Andrew Boysen, Jr. and the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony, and released in 2022.

As a conductor, Dr. Svanoe has held residencies with the USAF Heritage of America Band, the Atlanta Freedom Bands, and numerous universities. She has held collegiate appointments at Augsburg University, Bemidji State University, and the University of New Hampshire. She remains active as a guest conductor and clinician, appearing with high school, university, and All-State and festival ensembles across the United States.

She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from The Ohio State University under Russel C. Mikkelson, where she served as conductor of the OSU Collegiate Winds, assistant conductor of the OSU Wind Symphony, and taught undergraduate conducting classes. Her DMA dissertation included a critical edition of Aaron Copland's El Salón México for wind ensemble. She holds a Master of Music in Wind Conducting from Oklahoma State University and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. 

Her music is published through Alfred Music, G.Schirmer/AMP, and self-published through Swan Maiden Press. She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). She is also the creator and publisher of Marrying Mr. Darcy, the Pride & Prejudice card game, ​and occasionally advocates and speaks on the topic of arts entrepreneurship, with appearances at the XOXO Festival and in a variety of gaming-related media. Originally from Whitewater, Wisconsin, she currently lives in Menomonie, WI with her husband, designer and graphic novelist Erik Evensen.

LAN THEISEN (b. 4 October 1981) is a composer, saxophonist, author, and educator. Influenced in his youth by the careers of Leonard Bernstein and Quincy Jones, Theisen soon established his personal ethos of creating and sharing new music with joyous enthusiasm across multiple artistic endeavors. He continues this commitment to comprehensive musicianship by tirelessly combining the disciplines of composing, performance, scholarship, conducting, advocacy, and pedagogy.

Theisen's compositions encompass a wide array of genres and instrumentation including chamber music, art song, solo piano, concerti, jazz, pop song, musical theatre, symphonies, improvisational music, and more. Praised as coming from “an extraordinarily talented and prolific composer,” his works are frequently commissioned/performed by musicians around the world to audience acclaim. Though Theisen's official catalogue of over seventy pieces is stylistically diverse, his compositions typically feature memorable melodic ideas, emotional sincerity, complex yet sensuous harmony, and dramatic formal designs. A fundamental characteristic of his music is the hybridization of genres. For example, it is common to hear twelve-tone rows in a new jack swing tune, Medieval organum weaved into improvisational music, film noir score tropes in a band piece, and jazz fusion chord progressions underpinning a string quartet. He regards his aesthetic as “Re-Modernist” – rooted in Modernist classical music from the early and middle 20th century yet also informed by contemporary jazz, hip hop, New Wave, and Motown. (Think Miles Davis meets Lutoslawski, Stravinsky meets Stevie Wonder.) The artistic goal is not ironic quotation and juxtaposition but an earnest desire to create surprising yet coherent musical communication between composer, performer, and audience.

Theisen is a collaborative composer, easily incorporating input from the performers for whom he is writing. His music is often inspired by ritual, history, myth, virtuosity, visual art, place, phantasmagoria, and the uncanny. Some recent premieres of Theisen's music have occurred at National Sawdust (Brooklyn), New Music Gathering, and the World Saxophone Congress (Strasbourg, France), and the North American Saxophone Alliance biennial conference.

An active saxophonist, Theisen concertizes in classical recitals, gigs with jazz bands and musical theater productions, directs multiple ensembles, and premieres/records the music of fellow contemporary composers. National appearances as a classical saxophonist include performances at Scorca Hall in OPERA America’s National Opera Center, at the 39th Festival of New American Music, at the U.S. Navy International Saxophone Symposium, and as guest recitalist at the Wichita State University New Voices Festival. His acclaimed voice/saxophone avant-pop band, MIATp, combines experimental music, multiple pop genres, and theatre in live performances across the United States. To extend his mission as a collaborative performer, he also founded the Resonance Saxophone Orchestra. Theisen’s curated

Emily Rice is an LA-based, British-born composer for film and TV, known for her dark, post-classical score to the Netflix series "The I-Land"(executive produced by and starring Kate Bosworth) and for creating an introspective, bluesy-cello based score for "Miss Juneteenth" starring Nicole Beharie ("Sleepy Hollow", "Black Mirror"), which premiered to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated by the Satellite Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards and Austin Film Critics Association among others; the soundtrack was released by Lakeshore Records. Emily's other recent projects include the Netflix action-adventure anime film "Sol Levante" and documentaries "100 Years From Home", "For the Love of Rutland" and "For Love & Life: No Ordinary Campaign", executive produced by Katie Couric and Phil Rosenthal and featuring Barack Obama.

​

Emily has contributed music and/or orchestration to major Hollywood productions such as "Phoenix Rising" (HBO's documentary mini-series featuring Evan Rachel Wood), "Tomb Raider", "Alita: Battle Angel", "The Mummy", "Altered Carbon" and "Star Trek: Discovery". An alumna of the prestigious Sundance Institute Film Music & Sound Design Lab, Emily began her musical life as a cellist playing in orchestras and rock bands. Her debut instrumental album "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner" was released in 2021 and is available on streaming platforms worldwide.

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Jeff Toyne to the podcast!

https://jefftoyne.com

Join Jason as he welcomes composer David Biedenbender to the podcast!

David Biedenbender (b. 1984, Waukesha, Wisconsin) is a composer, conductor, performer, educator, and interdisciplinary collaborator. David’s music has been described as “simply beautiful” (twincities.com), “striking” and “brilliantly crafted” (Times Argus) and is noted for its “rhythmic intensity” (NewMusicBox) and “stirring harmonies.” (Boston Classical Review) “Modern, venturesome, and inexorable…The excitement, intensity, and freshness that characterizes Biedenbender’s music hung in the [air] long after the last note was played.” (Examiner.com) “Clearly, this is a composer to watch out for.” (Fanfare Magazine) He has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his work is often influenced by his diverse musical experiences in rock and jazz bands as an electric bassist, in wind, jazz, and New Orleans-style brass bands as a euphonium, bass trombone, and tuba player, and by his study of Indian Carnatic music. His creative interests include working with everyone from classically trained musicians to improvisers, acoustic chamber music to large ensembles, and interactive electronic interfaces to live brain data.

David has had the privilege of collaborating with many renowned performers and ensembles, including Alarm Will Sound, the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Stenhammar String Quartet (Sweden), the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the United States Navy Band, the Philharmonie Baden-Baden(Germany), VocalEssence, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Music from Copland House Ensemble, Detroit Symphony Orchestra bass trombonist Randall Hawes and pianist Kathryn Goodson, the Juventas New Music Ensemble, the Washington Kantorei, the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, the Boston New Music Initiative, Ann Arbor Dance Works, Composer’s Inc. (San Francisco), and the Grand Valley State...

Randall Standridge (b.1976) received his Bachelor's of Music Education from Arkansas State University. During this time, he studied composition with Dr. Tom O'Connor, before returning to Arkansas State University to earn his Master's in Music Composition, studying with Dr. Tom O'Connor and Dr. Tim Crist. In 2001, he began his tenure as Director of Bands at Harrisburg High School in Harrisburg, Arkansas. He left this post in 2013 to pursue a career as a full-time composer and marching arts designer.

Mr. Standridge's music is performed internationally. He has had numerous works selected for the J.W. Pepper's editor's choice. His compositions Snake Charmer, Gently Blows the Summer Wind, and Angelic Celebrations have been included in the "Teaching Music Through Performance in Band" series. He has had numerous works performed at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago, Illinois. The Arkansas State University Wind Ensemble premiered his work Art(isms) at the 2010 CBDNA conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and his work Stonewall: 1969 was premiered at the National LGBA conference in 2019. His Symphony no.1: A Ghost Story was premiered in 2023. In addition, Mr. Standridge's "unBroken Project," a musical initiative about mental health, has received widespread acclaim for its musical content and for providing opportunities to normalize discussions about mental health for music students and audiences.

In addition to his career as a composer, Mr. Standridge is the owner and editor of Randall Standridge Music, LLC and Grand Mesa Marching. He is in demand as an arranger/designer for the marching arts. He lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas, with his husband, Steven, and their very, very spoiled pets.

Join Jason as he welcomes THE Gordon Goodwin to the podcast!

Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations.

Here’s another impressive number to add to the list: eighteen. As in the number of musicians in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, one of the most exciting large jazz ensembles on the planet. Populated by L.A.’s finest players, the Big Phat Band takes the big band tradition into the new millennium with a contemporary, highly original sound featuring Goodwin’s witty, intricate, and hard-swinging compositions in a veritable grab bag of styles: swing, Latin, blues, classical, rock and more.

A steady, persistent audio diet of the giants of jazz, pop, rock and funk has nourished Goodwin’s being since childhood. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Tower of Power, among many others, filled the well for the music his band makes today. And like those other bands, Goodwin’s music is nothing less than astonishing when experienced live.

Goodwin’s ability to combine jazz excellence with any musical style makes his writing appealing to fans across the spectrum. That’s why both beboppers and headbangers dig Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.

Established in 2000, the Big Phat Band’s debut recording, Swingin’ For The Fences (Silverline Records), featured guest artists Arturo Sandoval and Eddie Daniels. It made history as the first commercially available DVD-Audio title ever released and the first DVD-Audio title to receive two GRAMMY nominations.

The band’s second album, XXL (Silverline Records), was released on DVD-Audio and compact disc in 2003. Charting its first week, XXL garnered three GRAMMY nominations for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Instrumental Composition (“Hunting Wabbits”) and Best Instrumental Arrangement with Vocals (“Comes Love” with Brian McKnight and Take 6), while winning the Surround Sound Award for “Best Made for Surround Sound Title.” The list of guest artists matched the high quality of the first release and featured, among others, Johnny Mathis and the incomparable Michael Brecker.

The Big Phat Band’s third album, The Phat Pack (immergent Records), with guest stars Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Eddie Daniels and Take 6, received a GRAMMY nomination and spent 31 weeks on the Billboard jazz charts.

Released in September 2008, the Big Phat Band’s fourth recording, Act Your Age, far outsold every other big band record in its path. Produced by acclaimed guitarist Lee Ritenour, it featured a host of terrific guests including Patti Austin, Chick Corea, Dave Grusin and even Ritenour himself, plus a special appearance by the late pianist Art Tatum on a stunning performance that had jaws dropping right and left. The critically acclaimed Act Your Age garnered three GRAMMY nominations.

A keyboardist and woodwind player, Goodwin has built a larger-than-life reputation throughout the music industry for his composing, arranging and playing skills. Ray Charles, Christina Aguilera, Johnny Mathis, Toni Braxton, John Williams, Natalie Cole, David Foster, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, Brian McKnight and Quincy Jones are just a few of the artists with whom he has worked. Goodwin has also conducted world-renowned symphony orchestras in Atlanta, Dallas, Utah, Seattle, Toronto and London.

Goodwin’s cinematic scoring and orchestration craft can be heard on such films as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Escape to Witch Mountain, Get Smart, Glory Road, National Treasure, The Incredibles, Remember The Titans, Armageddon, The Majestic, Con Air, Gone In 60 Seconds, Enemy of the State, Star Trek Nemesis and even the classic cult film Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Goodwin’s soundtrack to Looney Tunes’ Bah HumDuck! – a wacky...

Tyler Arcari (b. 1989) is a composer, arranger, author, and clinician whose music is played around the world. He received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in music education from Troy University where he studied with composer Ralph Ford and Euphonium under Dr. Mark J. Walker. As a teacher, Tyler has taught at both the middle and high school levels. Tyler’s primary focus when writing has been for the young musician. He became passionate about and interested in the needs of developing musicians as a classroom teacher and finds writing for musicians at this level to be very rewarding.

Tyler's music can currently be found published through Excelcia Music Publishing, Wingert-Jones Publications, Kendor Music Publishing and Carl Fischer Music. His original works have been featured across the globe, appear on numerous state contest lists and events such as the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference. As an arranger and commissioned composer, Tyler has worked with many high school, university, and community groups as well as professionals such as Carl Hilding “Doc” Severinsen and vocalist Holly Shelton. As a Clinician, Tyler regularly appears as composer in residence as well as guest clinician for honor bands and festivals.

Currently, Tyler serves as the Director of Music Production and Editing at Excelcia Music Publishing LLC, Wingert-jones Publications, Kendor Music Publishing and RBC Publications. In his spare time, Tyler enjoys playing fantasy-world video games and building his own computers. He is an avid animal lover and lives in Lakeland with his wife Heather, their two rabbits named Maximus and Marshmallow, their peach cat named Otis, and dog named Hilda.

For more information about the music of Tyler Arcari, visit his website www.tylerarcari.com

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Steve Danyew to the podcast!

www.stevedanyew.com

teve Danyew’s music has been hailed as “startlingly beautiful” and “undeniably well crafted and communicative” by the Miami Herald, and has been praised as possessing “sensitivity, skill and tremendous sophistication” by the Kansas City Independent.

Danyew (b. 1983) is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for his work, and his compositions have been performed throughout the world in venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the steps of the US Capitol. Danyew’s recent work Into the Silent Land was named the winner of the 2019 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize. Three of his compositions for wind band are featured in Volume 11 of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band (GIA).

In addition to composing, Danyew is a passionate educator who teaches composition lessons through his own private studio. He also teaches courses focused on helping young musicians craft their own creative careers at the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership. He is the contributing author for the 2nd edition of Ramon Ricker’s book Lessons from a Street-Wise Professor: What You Won’t Learn at Most Music Schools (Soundown, 2018). He is also a frequent guest composer and lecturer at schools throughout the United States.

In 2020, Danyew and his wife Ashley created Musician & Co., a new resource that equips 21st-century musicians to be both artists and business owners. The mission of Musician & Co. is to provide an innovative model for bridging the gap between the practice room and a profitable business.

Danyew grew up in New England, playing the saxophone and improvising music on the piano. After a performance of his own work, the South Florida Sun Sentinel proclaimed him a “saxophone virtuoso par excellence, making the instrument sing as well as shout.” Danyew performed as a saxophonist in the University of Miami Wind Ensemble under the direction of Gary Green, and this formative experience led him to begin composing works for wind band.

Danyew received a B.M. in Composition from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where his primary composition teachers were Scott Stinson and Dennis Kam. He also holds an M.M. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Additionally, Danyew has served as a Composer Fellow at the Yale Summer Music School with Martin Bresnick, and as a Composer Fellow at the Composers Conference with Mario Davidovsky.

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Marie Antoinette Douglas to the show!

Atlanta bred composer Marie A. Douglas mixes and layers genres and textures as a means to inject unprecedented relate-ability and excitement into pieces intended for concert stages. Her compositional choices portray her varied experiences creating a product that is highly artistic, gorgeous yet gritty, robust with innovation and familiarity. Marie’s compositions and arrangements have been performed throughout the United States and Canada, she as been noted for the memorable melodies, multi faceted rhythms, compelling textures, and the complimentary orchestrations present within her works.

Marie got her start in the artistic and culturally rich streets in the inner city of Atlanta. Her style reflects that relationship and proximity to “The Culture” and the unique perspective that it affords her. After high school she attended the Historically Black institution Florida A&M University and participated in the famed Marching “100” band. This period further inspired Marie to infuse attributes of her favorite musical genres and cultural staples into her creations intended for concert ensembles.

Douglas’ compositions have included spirituals, body percussion, spoken word, electronic samples and tons of other elements of sound often comprising the sonic phenomena of the African Diaspora in conjunction with winds and or strings and percussion. Lately she has explored the fusion of Hip-Hop and its sub-genre “Trap Music”, a genre that has its roots in Atlanta, with western art music idioms.

A variety of well-known ensembles have worked with Marie and performed her music; The Albany Symphony-Dogs of Desire, University of Central Florida Symphonic Band, University of Alabama-Birmingham Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band, California All-State Wind Symphony, University of the Pacific Conservatory, and many others. In addition to symphonic and chamber works, her catalogue also includes music for film as well as hip-hop and r&b instrumentals.

Recent projects include: serving as arranger, composer, conductor and musical director of the Live Nation/Big Femme Energy Live Experience tour featuring Ambre, Baby Rose, SayGrace and Teyana Taylor; premieres for her new flute concerto in collaboration with conductor, Erin Bodnar and flautist Sarah Jane Young which was selected to be included on a compilation CD released by the University of North Florida Wind Symphony in 2022, her work for symphonic band centering teen mental health entitled I am Enough was premiered by the California All - State Wind Ensemble in Fresno, California. Additionally, Marie completed the 2023 Jemison Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Composer in Residence at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and arranged on 2022 Grammy Award-Nominated album “Full Circle”.

Among the upcoming performances of her works for the 23’-24' season are world premieres with the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble and the United States Navy Band in Washington D.C. for “SOUL Suite No. 1”, a new piece for wind ensemble as well as a collaboration with the United States Army Soldiers’ Chorus of Washington, DC on a work tilted “Umoja in America”.

Marie serves as an adjunct professor within the Master of Music Technology Program at Southern Utah University where she was awarded the 2022 Influencer Award by the Division of Student Affairs and Professional Development Center. She is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition and conducting from the University of Memphis, where she studies with Kamran Ince, Mahir Cetiz, and Albert Nguyen.

Tag along with composer Jason Nitsch as he spends some time with some of his favorite composers. There will be a little talk about music, a little talk about life, and a whole lot of whatever happens to come up!

Find Alex on the web at https://www.alexshapiro.org

Composer Alex Shapiro aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them will actually sound good next to each other. Her persistence at this activity, as well as non-fiction music writing, arts advocacy, public speaking, wildlife photography, and the shameless instigation of insufferable puns on Facebook, has led to a happy life. Ever-boastful of her terminal degree of a high school diploma (an impressive feat having failed 8th grade algebra), Alex lives in the middle of nowhere on a small rock between the coasts of Washington State and British Columbia, and draws from a broad musical palette that giddily ignores genre. 

Her acoustic and electroacoustic works are published by her company Activist Music LLC, have won almost no awards, are performed and broadcast daily, have rarely been reviewed, and can be found on over thirty commercial releases from record labels around the world. No musician or audience member has yet to contact Alex to request their money back. Emphasis on yet.

In addition to lavish customer refund policies, Ms. Shapiro is noted for her seamless melding of live and recorded sounds, and for her innovative uses of multimedia in performance and music education. A widely published advocate on topics ranging from technology, copyright, diversity, and the music business, and a likable person from whom you can learn details about python breeding, Alex is the Symphonic and Concert writer member of the Board of Directors of ASCAP, and serves on the Board of Directors of the ASCAP Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Music Publishers Association of the United States, representing her company Activist Music LLC. Alex's music as well as her other, sometimes unusual pursuits, can be experienced throughout this slightly-overwhelming-but-at-least-it's-well-organized website.

This pretty much sums things up.

Robert Sheldon (b. Feb 3, 1954) has taught instrumental music in the Florida and Illinois public schools and has served on the faculty at Florida State University where he taught instrumental music education classes, conducting, and directed the university bands. Following seventeen years as Director of Concert Band Publications for Alfred Music, he now maintains an active composition and conducting schedule, regularly accepting commissions for new works. Sheldon received the Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Miami and the Master of Fine Arts in Instrumental Conducting from the University of Florida. In 2020, VanderCook College of Music presented him with an honorary Doctorate in Music Education.

An internationally recognized clinician, his music is performed around the world and frequently appears on many international concert and contest lists. Sheldon has conducted Regional and All-State Honor Bands throughout the United States and abroad. He often appears as a Music Education clinician and has presented sessions and seminars at numerous colleges and universities as well as state Music Education Association conferences. He has served as a conductor and clinician throughout the United States, as well as Japan, Canada, Italy, Taiwan, Germany, Australia and China, and has conducted performances of his works in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Taipei’s National Concert Hall, Matsumoto’s Seiji Ozawa Performing Arts Center, Hamamatsu’s ACT City Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. His teaching career included 28 years in the public schools as well as at the University of Florida, Florida State University, Illinois Central College and Bradley University. He also held positions as conductor of the Alachua County Youth Orchestra in Gainesville, Florida and the Prairie Wind Ensemble in East Peoria, Illinois. He maintains membership in several organizations that promote music and music education, and is lead author for SOUND INNOVATIONS FOR BAND, serving as co-author for MEASURES OF SUCCESS, SOUND INNOVATIONS FOR STRINGS, SOUND SIGHT-READING FOR BAND and MUSIC FUNDATIONS.

His compositions embody a level of expression that resonates with ensembles and audiences alike, and he produces numerous publications for concert band each year. The American School Band Directors Association has honored him with the Volkwein Award for composition and the Stanbury Award for teaching, the International Assembly of Phi Beta Mu honored him with the International Outstanding Bandmaster Award, and he has been awarded membership in the American Bandmasters Association.  With over three million copies of his compositions and books sold, he is one of the most performed composers of wind band music today. A twenty-eight-time recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publisher’s Standard Award for his compositions in the concert band and orchestral repertoire, Mr. Sheldon has been the topic of articles published in The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music and School Band and Orchestra Magazine, The World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) World Magazine, and is one of eleven American wind band composers featured in Volume I of Composers on Composing Music for Band.

After 36 years as a middle and high school band director, Laura Estes (b. 1959) retired in 2018 from the Cobb County School System (GA) and began composing. Her first piece, Kvetchers (Surprises in Controversial Time), was published in Excelcia Music Publishing’s 2020 catalog, and with her composition Walking on Air, Estes was named the winner of the 2021 Women Band Director’s International (WBDI) Composition Competition. Along with original music performed at The Midwest Clinic in Chicago, Estes’ concert works are frequently featured at state music conventions, All-State events, and regional honor bands throughout the United States. In addition to appearing on state festival and contest lists, several of Estes’ band and orchestra compositions have also been designated as J.W. Pepper Editor’s Choice.

A recipient of the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence, Estes’ bands consistently earned Superior ratings at performance evaluations throughout her career, and middle and high school bands under her direction were selected as guest performers at clinics and conventions in the Southeast. Estes has also presented at state conventions, on college campuses, and at the Midwest Clinic.

A South Florida native, Estes earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from The Florida State University, and her master’s degree in music education from Georgia State University. In addition to composing, she continues to serve as an adjudicator, guest conductor, clinician, and mentor. Estes and her husband Gil reside in Marietta, GA, and have 5 amazing children, along with a host of equally amazing grandchildren.

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Anne McGinty to the podcast!

Anne McGinty is known throughout the world as the most prolific woman composer in the field of concert band literature, having written more than 225 pieces, with more than 50 of those commissioned by bands across the United States. Thousands of people have played her music and discovered the joy and beauty of playing music that is both educational (helping instrumentalists learn basic musical skills) and also musical, engaging their imagination and encouraging them to stay in the instrumental music program. In addition to concert band, she has written for solo flute with band, solo clarinet with band, brass band, string orchestra, solo flute, flute with piano accompaniment, and music for flute duet, trio, quartet and choir. All of her compositions and arrangements have been published. Her publishers include Queenwood Publications (now Queenwood/Kjos), C. L. Barnhouse Co., Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard Corporation, Kendor Music, Kjos Publications and Southern Music Company.

After a successful career spanning 30+ years as both a composer and publisher of educational music, Anne is now writing chamber music for brass and woodwinds, all published by McGinty Music. An expert in writing for wind instruments, Anne is also composing for diverse instrumental combinations to showcase their varied timbral possibilities in modern, tonal music.

She began her higher education at The Ohio State University, where Donald McGinnis was her mentor, band director and flute teacher. She left OSU to pursue a career in flute performance, and played principal flute with the Tucson (Arizona) Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Pops Orchestra, and in the TSO Woodwind Quintet, which toured Arizona under the auspices of a government grant. When she returned to college, she received her Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, and Master of Music from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she concentrated on flute performance, music theory and composition. She studied flute and chamber music with Bernard Goldberg and composition with Joseph Willcox Jenkins.

Ms McGinty is a life member of the National Flute Association and served on its Board of Directors. She taught flute at several colleges in the Mid-West, taught flute and chamber music to underprivileged children, and was leader of a Royal American Regiment Fife and Drum Corps. She performed professionally in orchestras, chamber groups and as a flute clinician for a major manufacturer. She also was the editor of a flute column for a music magazine and co-founder of the NFA Newsletter, now known as “The Flutists Quarterly.” Although no longer performing as a flutist, she remains well known as a flute choir specialist and was the first person to convince two major educational music publishers to publish a series for flute choir. As the flute editor at Hansen Publications in Miami Beach, Florida, she arranged and produced the first such flute choir series.

She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and has received annual composition award since 1986. She received the Golden Rose Award from the Women Band Directors National Association and the Outstanding Service to Music Award from Tau Beta Sigma, a national honorary band sorority.

Highlights of her career include being the first woman composer commissioned to write for the United States Army Band. That composition, entitled Hall Of Heroes and premiered in March, 2000, with the composer conducting, featured the U.S. Army Band & Chorus and honored the recipients of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, with words based on a poem by Audie Murphy. She was commissioned to write an original composition (To Keep Thine Honor Bright) for the Bicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point and another (Victorious) for the United States Continental Army (now TRADOC) Band. Another very special

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Ryan George to the podcast!

RYAN GEORGE currently resides in Austin, Texas where he is active as an arranger and composer. His work, ranging from music for the concert stage to music for marching ensembles is performed regularly throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

Ryan completed his first work for concert band in 2007 and since then his works have received performances at the American Bandmasters Association Convention, the MidWest Band and Orchestra Clinic (Chicago), W.A.S.B.E., the Music For All (Bands of America) Concert Band Festival, P.A.S.I.C., Carnegie Hall, the National CBDNA Conference, the CBDNA/NBA Southern Division Conference, The Western Band & Orchestra Clinic (Seattle), and the MidEurope Festival in Schladming Austria. Many of his works, which are aimed at developing performers, have frequented the repertoires of All-State, Region, Inter-Collegiate, and Honor's ensembles throughout the U.S. and Canada. Recent notable performances of Ryan's music have included The "Presidents Own" United States Marine Band (National Tour), the Hiroshima Wind Orchestra (Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic), The Texas Christian University Percussion Orchestra (PASIC National Convention), The United States Air Force Band (A.B.A. Convention), The Lone Star Wind Orchestra (WASBE), and the Finnish Navy Band. He has received commissions for various ensembles including works for the T.C.U. Percussion Orchestra, The Consortium for the Advancement of Wind Band Literature, The Lone Star Wind Orchestra, and the Wan Quan School in Beijing China. 

As a specialist in music design for marching ensembles Ryan's work has been performed by some of the nation's elite programs at state, region, and national venues. His roster of clients include perennial Bands of America (Music for All) regional champions, regional finalist, and Grand National finalist. Some of his clients have included Leander HS (Leander TX), James Bowie HS (Austin TX), Round Rock HS (Round Rock TX), Cedar Ridge HS (Round Rock TX), and the 2018 UIL 6A State Champion Vista Ridge HS (Cedar Park TX). Within the realm of drum corps Ryan is returning for his 8th year as the brass arranger/composer of the Boston Crusaders from Boston, MA. He held the same role with the Academy from Tempe, AZ from 2011-2013. 

Ryan is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. He is an ASCAP artist, a member of TMEA, and the American Composer's Forum. His wife Sarah is a producer and talent buyer for internationally recognized music festivals and they are the proud parents of Sophia, Nyla, and Teller. 

Arthur Breur started seriously studying piano as a child of eight after his grandmother Jocelyn passed away. The two had been very close, and his weekend stays at her home inevitably included him asking her to play piano.

At ten he started taking lessons, having already taught himself a variety of music in those two years, including various movie score themes and ragtime pieces. He gradually discovered that he enjoyed composing and playing his own music more than playing what was assigned to him by his piano teacher.

From the start, his compositions were very affected by the music in movies and on television. It is not in jest that he points to the music performed on such television shows as “Sesame Street”, “The Electric Company”, and “The Muppet Show”—not to mention the superb songs of “School House Rock”—as sources of inspiration. Further, many excellent scores for movies of that time, such as Escape to Witch Mountain, Close Encounters, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek, and others, fascinated him and formed his ideas on how music should “work”—with accessible, easily remembered themes that can be associated with specific things, people, or feelings. His music was also heavily influenced by an excellent music program at his childhood church.

By that time he had been studying piano for eight years, he had composed more than a dozen pieces, and had taken a college-level music theory course. He studied piano performance and composition and got his Bachelor of Music degree from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. His college piano instructor worked with his desire to compose by assigning him works by composers that inspired him. Works by Prokofiev and Ravel in particular influenced his compositional tone considerably. Around this time, Danny Elfman’s film music also came to his attention and provided yet another dimension of sound to pursue.

In the early 1990s, he collaborated with lyricist, comedian, and singer, Cristopher Blake. Between them they wrote more than twenty songs, many of which were performed live at various Los Angeles cabarets and open-mic nights.

Over the more than 35 years he has been composing, he has written more than 120 individual pieces, including works for five weddings, two Christmas revues, numerous videos, and one short film, Leah (2008), directed by Neil H. Weiss.

Arthur Breur currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his husband, Brian, whom he met in 1996.

www.arthurbreur.com

Z. Randall Stroope is an American composer and conductor, having conducted concerts in 26 countries and published over 200 musical works.  Randall is the Artistic Director of two international summer music festivals and has directed music for Vatican Mass 12 times.  Recent guest conducting engagements include Rome, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Dublin, Stockholm, Berlin, and Vienna.  In the United States, Randall has directed 56 performances at Carnegie Hall and Chicago Orchestra Hall, 48 all-state choirs, and numerous other conducting workshops, clinics, and performances at universities and festivals.

Randall is the founder/conductor of The New American Voices, a professional recording/performing ensemble based in Dallas/Fort Worth. This ensemble will be touring northern Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands in the summer of 2024.

All of the major marketing/social media platforms feature Randall’s music, including his own website, www.zrstroope.com. He has created 95 videos for YouTube and his music can be live-streamed through Spotify.  His composition teacher-mentors were Normand Lockwood and Cecil Effinger, both students of the famous French teacher, Nadia Boulanger.  Seven companies publish his works, which have sold over four million copies.   The Conversion of Saul,  Lamentations of Jeremiah,  Amor de mi alma, Christi Mutter, We Beheld Once Again the Stars, The Pasture, Revelation, Homeland, I Am Not Yours, Dies Irae, Hodie! (This Day), Song to the Moon,  and In Paradisum are among those on his best-seller list.

Randall holds a Bachelor of Music Education in Voice and Piano, a Master of Music in Voice Performance, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting.  He did post-graduate work with Margaret Hillis, Chorus Master of the Chicago Symphony.

When not on the road, Randall, Cheryl, and their Sheltie (Haddie) spend time at their home/studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Merritt Island, Florida.

https://www.zrstroope.com/

Steven L. Rosenhaus (b. Brooklyn, NY) is a composer, lyricist, arranger, conductor, author, educator and clinician, and performer. His concert music has been called “clever, deftly constructed and likable” by The New York Times; the Sächsiche Zeitung (Dresden, Germany) declares it “expressive....Its song-like melodic sequences and balladic aspects give it a lyrical beauty, within a newer soundworld.” Back Stage magazine called his music and lyrics for the off-Broadway show "Critic" “sprightly, upbeat, and in the ballad repertory, simply lovely.” His original works and arrangements are performed by such musicians as the New York Philharmonic, the Kansas City Symphony, pianist Laura Leon, violinist Florian Mayer, the Dresden Sinfonietta, the Meridian String Quartet, several U.S. military ensembles including the U.S. Navy Band (Washington, DC), and educational ensembles at all levels throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and the EU. Dr. Rosenhaus holds a Ph.D. from New York University where he serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Composition; other degrees are from Queens College (CUNY). He has over 200 original works and arrangements in print with Excelcia Music Publishing and other publishers. Recordings of his music are on the Musical Tapestries, Richardson, Capstone, and MPP labels. Dr. Rosenhaus is a frequent guest conductor and clinician of service, professional, community, and educational groups at all levels. In addition Dr. Rosenhaus is a dramatruge for Broadway- and off-Broadway-bound musicals. He has consulted on approximately 30% of musicals presented in those venues since 2006. Steven L. Rosenhaus is the author of "The Concertgoer’s Guide to the Symphony Orchestra" (Music Gifts Company) and co-author with Allen Cohen of "Writing Musical Theater" (Palgrave Macmillan). Dr. Rosenhaus is a National Patron of the Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity and has received numerous awards and grants from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, and other organizations.

Erin Keeton-Howard is a Seattle-based educator, conductor, and composer. Community music, and the formation of community through making music, is at the heart of her research interests, educational philosophy, and personal passion. Erin is delighted to engage in this adventure through her work as a guest conductor/composer/clinician and through her recently released book: “Women in Wind Band” published in December 2023 by GIA Publications, Inc. This text is written from the experience of women to foster a more authentic and inclusive future for everyone in the field.

Serving as Director of Upper School Bands at The Northwest School, Erin is currently in her 16th year of teaching. She is a multi-year nominee ​for Teacher of the Year and has been awarded the Sigma Alpha Iota Leadership Award. In 2020 her wind ensemble at Inglewood Middle School was selected to perform at the National Association for Music Education Northwest Region conference. While teaching, Erin maintains an active role in community music. She is a director and founder of Formation Wind Band, Seattle’s all-women wind ensemble. Formation has the honor of performing at the upcoming 2024 Washington Music Educators Association conference. Previous community music involvement includes directing the North Seattle Symphonic Band and Modern Jazz Ensemble at North Seattle College, serving on the artistic staff of Rainbow City Performing Arts, and co-founding the Give Back Brass Band. 

 Erin discovered composing during the pandemic. She enjoys writing music for all levels but is particularly passionate about writing quality music for student musicians to nurture developing skills and specific idiosyncrasies for each instrument. Erin is actively commissioned to write music for ensembles all over the country. Her works include compositions for concert, jazz, pep, and brass bands as well as various chamber ensembles. Erin’s music is published with Murphy Music Press, Carl Fischer, and Randall Standridge Music Publications. To view her catalog, click HERE.

Erin graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri (B.S. in music education) and the University of Washington (M.A. in music education, emphasis instrumental conducting). She has studied conducting with Tim Salzman, Dr. Mallory Thompson, Dr. Chris Bianco, Dr. Tony Maiello, Dr. Emily Moss, and Dr. Steven Davis. Erin is a member of the National Association for Music Education, National Band Association, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. Washington Music Educators Association, and Sigma Alpha Iota International Women’s Music Fraternity. 

In addition to her musical pursuits, Erin is passionate about travel, cooking, the PNW coast, and sudoku. Erin resides in Mountlake Terrace, WA with her wife Felicia.

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Jon Bubbett, a native of Dothan, AL, graduated from Dothan High School (1977). He received his BMEd from Troy State University in Troy, AL, in 1981 and his MMEd in 1989 from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, IL. His career spanned thirty eight years with the last twenty six at Thompson High School in Alabaster, AL. His previous schools were Washington-Wilkes Comprehensive High School in Washington, GA, Demopolis High School in Demopolis, AL and Erwin High School in Birmingham, AL.

His bands have performed in a variety of venues across the southeast, most notably the Thompson High School Wind  Ensemble performed for the Music for All National Concert Band Festival in 2011 and again in 2015. The Thompson High School “Marching Southern Sounds” performed in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2017. The Thompson Wind Ensemble was also selected to perform at the Alabama Music Educators Association In Service Conference (1997, 2009, 2014, 2019), the Alabama Honor Band (2010, 2018), the University of Georgia JanFest (2013), the University of Alabama at Birmingham Honor Band (2016) and the CBDNA / NBA Southern Division Conference (2012). Mr. Bubbett is a seven time recipient of the National Band Association “Citation of Excellence,” as well as a recipient of the NBA Programs of Excellence “Blue Ribbon” Award in 2014. Additionally he received the Phi Beta Mu, Rho Chapter (Alabama) “Bandmaster of the Year” Award for 2015. 

Numerous times Mr. Bubbett has served as a guest clinician and adjudicator  in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. He has served as a clinician participant for both the Alabama Music Educators Association In-Service Conference,  Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic and has served as the rehearsal assistant for the Music for All Honor Band of America since 2016.

https://www.jonbubbettmusic.com/

Brooke Pierson (b. 1987) is a multi-award winning composer, multiple ASCAP+ Award Recipient, conductor, and teacher of the year nominated educator out of Ypsilanti, Michigan (USA). 

Brooke’s music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad by groups such as the West Point Band, the Dallas Winds, the Appalachian Wind Ensemble, and the Banda Musicale Città di Seriate, as well as renowned solo and chamber musicians including Craig Knox (Pittsburgh Symphony). In 2018 his piece for brass ensemble “Rise Up” was selected as a winner of the Dallas Winds fanfare competition. Since 2019, his music has been regularly featured at regional and national conferences, contests, and festivals. In 2020, his work "The Lighthouse Keeps Watch" was selected as winner of the NBA/Alfred Composition Contest. In 2021, he was commissioned by the West Point Academy Band/US Army to write his Symphony No. 2 "West Point", the first piece of this scope commissioned by the academy band since 1952. Brooke regularly serves as a guest and resident composer to institutions.

Brooke holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Michigan State University and is currently Chair of the Music Department at the Washtenaw International High School and Middle Academy, (Ypsilanti, Michigan), teaching Orchestra, Band, Music History, Music Culture, and Music Composition, where he has held this position since the school's inception in 2011. He also served as the music director of Grace Lutheran Church (Howell, MI) for 8 years as organist and musician. 

Brooke is a member of ASCAP and his music can be found with Alfred Music, Excelcia Music Publishing, C. Alan Publications, and his own publishing company Taurus Music Publishing. 

www.brookepierson.com

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Jim Stephenson to the podcast!

Leading American orchestras, instrumentalists, and wind ensembles around the world have performed the music of Chicago based composer James M. Stephenson, both to critical acclaim and the delight of audiences. The Boston Herald raved about “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds,” suggesting “Stephenson deserves to be heard again and again!” A formal sense of melody and tonality characterize his music, each embedded in a contemporary soundscape. These qualities, coupled with the composer’s keen ability to write to each occasion, have led to a steady stream of commissions and ongoing projects.

Most recently, Charles Vernon, Chicago Symphony bass trombonist, asked Stephenson to write a new concerto, a work to be premiered in their 2018/2019 season under the direction of Riccardo Muti. A second bass trombone concerto will receive its orchestral premiere with the St. Louis Symphony and soloist Gerry Pagano, in 2017. “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band commissioned a symphony (the composer’s second in this genre) and gave the work its premiere in 2016 at the prestigious Midwest Clinic, and subsequently recorded the work. Additionally, Compose Yourself!, Stephenson’s landmark young-audience work has now been performed over 300 times since its creation in 2002, engaging children in New Zealand and Canada and across the U.S. Additional premieres include Carnegie Hall in May, 2017 (Chamber Music Charleston) and in the summer, 2017, a Music Academy of the West premiere of “Martha Uncaged” – with the composer conducting – and a west-coast premiere of his violin concerto at the famed Cabrillo Music Festival. The 2017-18 season will see a new “Low brass concerto” with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä.

The Devil’s Tale (2013), a sequel to Stravinsky’s famous “Soldier’s Tale” has become a highlight of Stephenson’s extensive chamber music output, having already garnered much critical praise for its recent recording (“a most remarkable work” – Fanfare Magazine) and numerous performances at noteworthy venues such as Ravinia and Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center.

James M. Stephenson came late to his full-time composing career, having performed 17 seasons as a trumpeter in the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. As such, the composer is largely self-taught, making his voice truly individual and his life’s work all the more remarkable. Colleagues and friends encouraged his earliest efforts and enthusiasm followed from all directions. As his catalog grew, so did his reputation. That catalog now boasts concertos and sonatas for nearly every instrument, earning him the moniker “The Concerto King” from Chicago Symphony clarinetist John Yeh. The vast majority of those compositions came through commissions by and for major symphony principal players, in Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Washington DC, St. Louis, Oregon, Milwaukee, and Dallas, among others. A major break came from the Minnesota Commissioning Club, which led to two works (violin concertos) receiving premieres in 2012—by Jennifer Frautschi with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä and by Alex Kerr with the Rhode Island Philharmonic under Larry Rachleff. Other international soloists for whom Stephenson has composed include saxophonist Branford Marsalis and trumpeter Rex Richardson, whose concerto has been performed on five continents. With such prolific output, Stephenson’s music is well represented in recordings. Nearly all of his solo brass...

Join Jason Nitsch as he welcomes composer Dana Wilson to the podcast!

The works of Dana Wilson have been commissioned and performed by such diverse ensembles as the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Formosa Quartet, Xaimen Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, Voices of Change, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Syracuse Symphony, Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, the trio STRATA, and Canadian Brass. Many college ensembles and faculty members have performed and recorded his music.

Solo works have been written for such renowned artists as hornists Gail Williams (international soloist, formerly with the Chicago Symphony) and Adam Unsworth (international soloist, formerly with the Philadelphia Orchestra); clarinetist Larry Combs (international soloist, formerly with the Chicago Symphony); trumpeters James Thompson (formerly with the Atlanta Symphony), Rex Richardson (international jazz soloist), and Frank Campos; oboists David Weiss (international soloist, formerly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Michael Henoch (principal with the Chicago Symphony); saxophonist Steven Mauk; bassoonists Michael Krroth and Kristin Schillinger; flutists Wendy Mehne, Alison Parramore, and Kate Steinbeck; violinists James Stern and Susan Waterbury; trombonist Thomas Ashworth; tubist Aaron Tindall; soprano Rachel Schutz; cellist Deborah Pae; jazz pianist Nicholas Weiser, drum set player Greg Evans; and contrabassist Nicholas Walker.

He has received grants from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Arts Midwest, and Meet the Composer. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and East Asia. They have received several prizes, including the Sudler International Composition Prize and the Ostwald Composition Prize, as well as awards from the International Trumpet Guild, the Flute New Music Consortium, and the International Horn Society; are published by Boosey and Hawkes, Alfred Music Publishers, the American Composers Forum, and Ludwig Music Publishers; and can be heard on over twenty recording labels, as well as on national radio broadcasts such as "Performance Today".

Dana Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and is Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus at the Ithaca College School of Music. He is co-author of Contemporary Choral Arranging, published by Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster, and has written articles on diverse musical subjects. He has been a Yaddo Fellow (at Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York), a Wye Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Charles A. Dana Fellow, and a Fellow at the Society for Humanities, Cornell University.

Join Jason this week as he welcomes composer Catherine Joy to the podcast!

With a passion for music and collaboration, Catherine Joy is a composer for film, media and live performance. She recently won Best Documentary Score for the uplifting feature documentary Gold Balls, and in 2014 won the Independent Music Vox Pop Award for her soundtrack for the film All Things Hidden. Catherine is the Executive Director for the Alliance for Women Film Composers. She plays many instruments including violin, piano, and guitar.

Catherine has scored award-winning films, including the feature documentary Gold Balls which won Best Documentary at Southampton International Film Festival. She composed the music for the integral song in Ellen Gerstein's short film Come Away With Me which has won many awards including Best Sound and Music at Australia's Connect Film Festival. Catherine also scored the video game The Hole Story which won the 2016 ID@Xbox Rising Star Award.

Catherine was recently part of the music teams for four documentary projects premiering at Sundance 2018. She arranged and orchestrated on the Netflix doc series Wild Wild Country, music edited the Joan Jett: Band Reputation feature and and was both orchestrator and score supervisor on the documentaries RBG and Dark Money. Catherine also scored the popular web series Capitol Hill which is now televised through Europe and Canada. Catherine is currently scoring the video game The Endless Mission, the documentary Naughty Books and the horror film The Parish.

Catherine is originally from Tasmania, Australia and moved to the States to pursue a career in music. She lives in Los Angeles with her two cats Bondi and Bronte.

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Adam Gorb to the show!

Adam Gorb was born in 1958 and started composing at the age of ten. At fifteen he wrote a set of piano pieces – A Pianist’s Alphabet – of which a selection was performed by Susan Bradshaw on BBC Radio 3. In 1977 he went to Cambridge University to study music, where his teachers included Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway. After graduating in 1980 he divided his time between composition and working as a musician in the theatre. In 1987 he started studying privately with Paul Patterson, and then, from 1991 at the Royal, Academy of Music where he gained an MMus degree and graduated with the highest honours, including the Principal’s Prize in 1993.

His works have been performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. Notable pieces include Metropolis for Wind Band (1992), which has won several prizes including the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize in the USA in 1994. Prelude, Interlude and Postlude for piano, won the Purcell Composition Prize in 1995. Kol Simcha, a ballet given over fifty performances by the Rambert Dance Company and Awayday (1996) for Wind Band which, along with Yiddish Dances, (1998) also for Wind Band have had thousands of performances world-wide, and many commercial recordings. Yiddish Dances also exists in arrangements for piano duet and guitar quartet. A Violin Sonata was premiered at the Spitalfields Festival in London in 1996. Reconciliation for Clarinet and Piano was commissioned for the Park Lane Young Artists New Year series in 1998, and Elements, a Percussion Concerto written for Evelyn Glennie and the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Ensemble in 1998 was released on CD in 2001.

In 1999 his Clarinet Concerto for Nicholas Cox was premiered with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2000 A Distant Mirror for Brass Band at the Cheltenham festival, Weimar for chamber ensemble, 2000 and Downtown Diversions, a trombone concerto, in Texas in February 2001. Other works include String quartet no. 1 for the Maggini Quartet, which was premiered at Bromsgrove music club in February 2002, and Towards Nirvana, which received its first performance by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Ensemble in October 2002, winning a British Composer award in the Wind and Brass ensemble category in 2004. Diaspora for eleven strings was given its premiere by the Goldberg Ensemble in February 2003, and November 2003 saw the first performance of Dances From Crete at the Royal College of Music in London.

2004 saw the premieres of French Dances Revisited in Minnesota, USA, and La Cloche Felee for soprano and piano in the Purcell Room. Burlesque for clarinet ensemble, was first played in the USA in 2005. 2006 was notable for the first performance of Awakening for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Adrenaline City for the USA Air Force Academy Band. This work went on to win another British Composer Award in 2008. Fasolt’s Revenge for the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble and A Better Place for the Zephyr Ensemble of Great Britain were also premiered in 2006.

In 2007/8 a cantata Thoughts Scribbled on a Blank wall (based on the experiences of the political prisoner John McCarthy who co-wrote the libretto with Ben Kaye) received several performances in prestigious venues including...

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Daniel Montoya Jr. to the podcast!

Daniel Montoya Jr. is a proud and rare native of Austin, an ’80s, ’90s, & ’00s music aficionado, and fully embraces his unstoppable rise to “zaddy” status. He also, occasionally, writes music (since being musically moved by his first viewing of the James Cameron film Titanic and wanting to write the music to the sequel, Titanic 2: Jack of Spades: Jack Dawson’s Revenge: This Time It’s Personal). His oeuvre spans several genres, including original pieces and arrangements for wind band, percussion ensemble, and the marching arts. His works, which resound with bristling energy and color, have won numerous awards from national organizations. His education includes a master’s degree in wind conducting from Texas State University where he studied with Dr. Caroline Beatty, a master’s degree in music composition from Central Michigan University where he studied with David R. Gillingham, and a baccalaureate degree in music composition from Texas State University (he fully expects to be called Grand Master Montoya, or “Montstro“). He has also studied and participated in masterclasses with such composers as Kevin Beavers, William Bolcom, Michael Ippolito, Cindy McTee, Kevin Puts, Russell Riepe, and Roberto Sierra.

While not tending to Mont Shoemore, his outlandish and somewhat offensive collection of sneakers, Montoya travels around the country as an adjudicator, keynote speaker, clinician, and guest conductor. His music has been performed by ensembles and institutions across the United States, including Baylor University, Brigham Young University, Central Michigan University, Indiana University, Michigan State University, Purdue University, Temple University, Texas State University, Texas Tech University, University of Alabama, University of Central Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at El Paso, and The United States Army Field Band. Performances of his music have included concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Percussive Arts Society International Conference, the Texas Music Educators Association Conference, the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, and the Texas Bandmasters Association Conference, among others. When in attendance at these events, he can usually be identified by his sneakers and/or his man purse (or “murse”).

Although the closest he’s been to being a man in uniform was as a member of “The Pride of the Hill Country” and possibly some ill-advised Halloween costumes, he served as the arranger for the U.S. Army All-American Marching Band in 2012 & 2013. His involvement with marching bands engages him throughout the nation. Among the organizations that have used his compositions and arrangements on the field are champions and finalists at various state- and national-level competitions, and major Division I intercollegiate bands. Montoya has written and designed for the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps (Madison, WI), Colts Drum & Bugle Corps (Dubuque, IA), Spirit of Atlanta (Atlanta, GA), Guardians Drum & Bugle Corps (Dallas/Fort Worth, TX), and Revolution Drum & Bugle Corps (San Antonio, TX). His innovative approach to field arrangement involves imbuing new vitality and dramatic elements into his charts creating a new and vibrant musical object rather than a mere transcription of the original.

When not reviewing sneakers on his YouTube channel, The Shoemmelier, Montoya enjoys engaging in the indigenous Austinite culture where till his dying day he will constantly correct and promote the...

Katherine Bergman (b. 1985) is a Minnesota-based composer who draws on environmentalism, literature, and found materials to create music that has been described as hypnotic and visceral. She has received commissions and performances from leading ensembles throughout the United States and abroad, including the U.S. Coast Guard Band, Estonian Police and Border Guard Orchestra, Hub New Music, Zeitgeist, Seen/Heard Trio, The Dream Songs Project, and many others. Her works have been presented at ISCM World Music Days, The Midwest Clinic, North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, College Band Directors National Association Conference, and The Upper Midwest Chamber Winds Symposium, and her compositions have received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, the Metro Regional Arts Council, and New Music USA.

​Katherine holds a master’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa School of Music, where she studied composition with Jonathan Schwabe and Alan Schmitz. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota with composition instructors including Michele Gillman and Steve Wright. She has studied extensively with Mary Ellen Childs, and has received individual instruction from Samuel Adler.

Katherine’s work is published under Katherine Bergman Music, and her works for large ensemble are distributed by Murphy Music Press. Recent and upcoming projects include new works for 10th Wave Chamber Collective, Duo Leon, Nautilus Music-Theater, Isle Royale National Park, and a concerto for trombone and symphony orchestra commissioned by the Oneota Valley Community Orchestra. 

Katherine is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Spitting Image, a composer collective that brings together composers, listeners, and performers to strengthen the Twin Cities contemporary music community. 

https://www.katherinebergman.net/

The innovative and highly energetic music of Rob Smith is frequently performed throughout the United States and abroad. His music has received numerous awards, including those from the Aaron Copland House, ASCAP and the National Band Association. Commissions have come from the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program, the American Composers Forum (as a part of their Continental Harmony project) and several nationally renowned university wind ensembles, among others.

In 1997, he was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to Australia, which led to a teaching position at the University of Wollongong in 1998. Currently, he teaches at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and director of the AURA Contemporary Ensemble. From 2003-2014 he served as one of the artistic directors of Musiqa, a Houston-based contemporary chamber ensemble.

Commercial recordings of his music are available by the Society for New Music (Syracuse, NY), the University of Houston and Rutgers University Wind Ensembles, saxophonist Jeremy Justeson, Austrian toy pianist Isabel Ettenauer, and the University of Houston and Texas Christian University Percussion Ensembles. Boosey & Hawkes, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, C-Alan Publications, TRN and Skitter Music Publications publish his music.

Jorge Luis Vargas  was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila in 1971 and currently resides in Eagle Pass, Texas.  His full time job is a band director at Memorial Junior High, where he teaches beginner band, concert band, and Mariachi. His writing career started when he was asked to arrange  several mariachi mariachi songs for the local high school.  After several years of honing his skills as a mariachi composer and arranger, He wrote his first marching band show for CC Winn High School in Eagle Pass.  

After a few years of writing for marching band, he decided to take a chance and submit a string orchestra arrengement of Cielito Lindo to Grand Mesa Music. The arrangenmet was published and is on the J W Pepper  Editor's choice list.   In  2018, Red Giant, his first composition published by Alfred music was released. Since then, Jorge has released several band works published by Alfred Music, Randall Standridge Music, Wingert-Jones Music, and Excelcia Music. Several of his band compositions have been added to the Editor's Choice list, and his band compositions, and some of his peces have also been played at Midwest.

His education includes a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from The University Of Texas-San Antonio, and a Master’s degree in Education from  from  Lamar University

https://jvargasmusic.com/

Mark Adler brings to his work as a composer a broad background in both film and music. At age 16 he created an award-winning animated short which the New York Museum of Modern Art acquired for its permanent archive collection. A year later, he was the recipient of an American Film Institute grant for his original screenplay. He studied piano privately for fifteen years, and was initially a music major. His return to music followed graduation from film school at UCLA, where he studied film scoring with David Raksin. In the early '80s Mark played keyboards for a number of groups in Northern California, including a stint with the Heart of Gold Band, fronted by former Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux. (He reunited with Donna in 2004, and has periodically toured with her since.)

The 1980s were a renaissance for documentary film in the San Francisco Bay Area and Mark was soon scoring many of those projects. During this time, he also worked briefly as a music editor for such directors as Milos Forman, David Lynch, and Francis Ford Coppola. (His music editing credits include "Amadeus," "Blue Velvet," and "Godfather III").

Mark's feature film scores include the Oscar-nominated "Food, Inc.," directed by Robert Kenner, its sequel "Food, Inc. 2," directed by Kenner and Melissa Robledo, and "Bottle Shock," starring Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, and Bill Pullman. He has been a regular at the Sundance Film Festival, having scored ten Sundance films over the years. These include the Audience Award-winning Miramax film "Picture Bride." His soundtrack for that film was released by Virgin Records and the Main Title was featured in the soundtrack compilation, "Miramax Films Greatest Hits." Other credits include Paramount Classics' "Focus," based on the novel by Arthur Miller and starring William H. Macy and Laura Dern, with the soundtrack released by Milan Records; the Wayne Wang films "Eat A Bowl of Tea" and "Life Is Cheap"; numerous National Geographic Specials; and four Oscar-nominated feature documentaries.

He won a Primetime Emmy for his work on HBO's "The Rat Pack," which featured Ray Liotta, Joe Mantegna and Don Cheadle. Other TV movie scores include Hallmark Entertainment's "Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone," starring Aidan Quinn and Nigel Hawthorne (for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination), "Flowers For Algernon" starring Mathew Modine, and four Hallmark Hall of Fame productions.

He wrote and produced source music for the Philip Kaufman films, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Henry and June," and was involved as a producer in the recreation of indigenous Brazilian music for the Saul Zaentz production "At Play in the Fields of the Lord." He composed original music for "The Road To Memphis," directed by Richard Pearce, as part of the Martin Scorsese-produced series, "The Blues." This range of experience has resulted in an eclectic musical style, often drawing on jazz, folk, world music, and traditional orchestral idioms.

Mark is a former vice-president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and is a member of The Academy or Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As a performer, he can be heard playing piano on his scores for "Eat A Bowl of Tea," "Picture Bride," "Focus," "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School," and "The Lost Valentine."

www.markadler.com

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Jennifer Jolley to the podcast!

Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a composer, conductor, and professor person. Her work is founded on the belief that the pleasures and excesses of music have the unique potential to engage political and provocative subjects. Addressing a range of topics such as climate change, #MeToo, feminist history, and the abuses of the Putin regime, Jennifer strives to write pieces that are equally enjoyable and meaningful.

Jennifer’s works have been performed by ensembles worldwide. She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Quince Ensemble, and many others.

Jennifer received degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She is now an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition in the Department of Music at Lehman College in the Bronx and was a Fulbright Scholar to Egypt in 2023. She has been a composition faculty member at Interlochen Arts Camp since 2015.

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Dominik Scherrer to the Podcast!

Dominik first won the prestigious British Ivor Novello Award and received a Royal Television Society (RTS) nomination for his riveting score on Ripper Street. He earned two additional Ivor Novello nominations for Amazon’s The Collection and the British crime series Agatha Christie’s Marple.

Dominik recently reunited with the Williams brothers to score Amazon’s thriller series The Widow, starring Kate Beckinsale. He also scored the landmark dramas An Inspector Calls and Monroe.

Equally accomplished in film scoring, Dominik’s credits include The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz for which Dominik won the Best Music Award at Spain’s Estapona Film Festival; Alice Through The Looking Glass starring Kate Beckinsale; Alina Marazzi’s Tutto Parla Di Te (All About You); and Scenes of a Sexual Nature starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Bonneville. He scored Appetite starring Ute Lemper, and wrote the film’s title song which reached No. 2 on the UK classical charts.

Dominik also created, directed and composed the kinetic opera Hell for Leather, which premiered at Sundance and won 10 awards on the festival circuit. 

In addition to scoring film and TV, he produces sound design and composes for fine art installations - most notably for artist Suki Chan - and creates performance music for theatre.

Dominik is a British-Swiss composer and works from his studio in London.

Ryan Fraley (b. 1973) is an accomplished composer, arranger, producer, music engraver, and engineer. Ryan's compositions and arrangements have been performed worldwide by jazz ensembles, orchestras, and bands of all levels. His work is published by The FJH Music Company inc. (Fort Lauderdale, FL) and his own imprint, HXmusic, LLC. He is the co-founder of Wave Mechanics Union, a studio jazz orchestra with two albums released. Ryan has provided orchestrations for Jon Anderson (vocalist from the band Yes) for Jon's various solo projects, and music for media of all types. Ryan is a member of The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; is a frequent recipient of ASCAP Plus Awards; and a voting member in the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Ryan received a master's degree in composition from the State University of New York at Potsdam, and a bachelor's degree in music theory and composition from Ball State University.

https://ryanfraley.com/

Larry Clark (b. 1963) is the founder and President of Excelcia Music Publishing as well as President of Wingert-Jones Publications, Kendor Music Publishing, and RBC Publications. His company focuses on educational music for band, choral, Jazz ensemble and orchestra along with related methods and books. Prior to Larry starting his own publishing company he served for nineteen years as Vice President, Editor-in-Chief for Carl Fischer Music, and before that an Instrumental Music Editor for Warner Bros. Publications. He travels the world presenting clinic/workshops and guest conducting appearances. His diverse background as a former middle school and university band director at Syracuse University, combined with his composing and editing, have placed Larry at the forefront of music for school ensembles.

His music is some of the most popular and most performed by concert bands and string orchestras of all ability levels. Larry is equally adept at writing music for beginners as he is for high school and college ensembles. His music is characterized by rhythmic verve, tuneful melodies, contains a fresh harmonic perspective, is well scored and stretches the musicianship of the performers. He prides himself on producing music that is not only intriguing to performers and audiences alike but that contains a playability that comes from a keen understanding of the technical difficulties inherent in all instruments. His pieces have been performed internationally and appear on numerous contest/festival performance required music lists. He is an ASCAP award-winning composer, has over 400 publications in print and is in demand to write commissions for bands and orchestras across the country.

Larry's music has been influenced by a variety of composers and teachers. He credits his father, a long time band director in Florida, for teaching him the joy of music. He was influenced early in his writing career by composer Robert W. Smith. His decision to pursue composition and arranging was influenced further by Dr. John Hillard, composition professor at James Madison University. Dr. Pat Rooney, director of bands at James Madison University, gave Larry his first performance opportunities by performing his arrangements with the popular Marching Royal Dukes. Larry considers himself to be a product of the school band movement. His works are highly influenced by the standard band repertoire of composers such as Holst, Grainger, Schuman and Persichetti.

Larry is in demand as a clinician and guest conductor around the country. He has presented clinics recently at the Midwest Clinic, the New York State School Music Association conference, the Texas Music Educators Association conference, the Ohio Music Educators Association conference, the Florida Music Educators Association conference and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association conference as well as numerous guest-conducting appearances internationally.

He is co-author with Sandy Feldstein of the innovative band method The Yamaha Advantage. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Music Education from Florida State University and Masters Degrees in Conducting and Composition from James Madison University in Virginia.

Harrison J. Collins (b. 1999) began composing at the young age of thirteen. Since then, he has made a name for himself across the United States as a skilled composer. He combines his musical studies in academic settings with years of self-teaching and a strong intuition to write music that challenges and connects to performers and listeners alike.

Their works for wind ensemble, orchestra, and chamber ensembles are published by Murphy Music Press, C. Alan Publications, and more, and have been performed across the United States and internationally. They are a winner of numerous composition competitions, including the Sinta Quartet Composition Competition, the Dallas Winds Fanfare Competition, and the National Young Composers Challenge. Harrison is a proud representative and board member for the Millennium Composers Initiative, through which he seeks to provide opportunities for other composers to grow and reach new heights. In 2022, they founded the Aurora Tapestry Collective with their friends Kevin Day, Josh Trentadue, and Katahj Copley.

Harrison spent several years at Illinois State University, where he studied composition with Dr. Roy Magnuson and Dr. Roger Zare. Harrison currently studies at Texas Christian University with Dr. Neil Anderson-Himmelspach and Dr. Martin Blessinger, where he is seeking a degree in music composition.

https://harrisonjcollins.squarespace.com/

Join Jason as he welcomes Dutch composer and conductor Johan de Meij to the podcast!

Dutch composer and conductor Johan de Meij (Voorburg, 1953) received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, where he studied trombone and conducting. His award-winning oeuvre of original compositions, symphonic transcriptions and film score arrangements has garnered him international acclaim and have become permanent fixtures in the repertoire of renowned ensembles throughout the world. His Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings was awarded the prestigious Sudler Composition Prize and has been recorded by myriad ensembles including The London Symphony Orchestra, The North Netherlands Orchestra, The Nagoya Philharmonic and The Amsterdam Wind Orchestra. His Symphony No. 2 The Big Apple, Symphony No. 3 Planet Earth, Symphony No. 4 Sinfonie der Lieder as well as his solo concertos, T-Bone Concerto (trombone), UFO Concerto (euphonium) and Casanova (cello) have been enthusiastically received at many of the world’s finest venues.

Before devoting his time exclusively to composing and conducting, Johan de Meij enjoyed a successful professional career as a trombone and euphonium player, performing with major orchestras and ensembles in The Netherlands. He is in high demand as a guest conductor and lecturer, frequently invited to speak about and perform his own works. In 2010, he was appointed regular guest conductor of the Simón Bolívar Youth Wind Orchestra in Caracas, Venezuela – part of the celebrated Venezuelan educational system El Sistema. He currently maintains posts with both the New York Wind Symphony and the Kyushu Wind Orchestra in Fukuoka, Japan as their principal guest conductor. Johan is founder and CEO of his own publishing company Amstel Music, established in 1989.

When not traveling, Johan divides his time between his Hudson Valley home and Manhattan- and Amsterdam apartments with his wife and muse Dyan, cats Lenny, Gustavo, Tosca & Lulu and doggy Lucy.

Murat Selçuk is a composer, music producer, and classical clarinetist originally from Turkey and currently based in Los Angeles. 

Murat's most recent project is the highly anticipated upcoming Netflix series 'Dead Boy Detectives’ co-composed with Blake Neely.

In his music, he experiments with orchestral and electronic instruments to create unique textures and compelling sonic worlds. 

Growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, Murat developed a very eclectic taste and sensibility towards music and film. Influenced by the electronic music scene of the 80’s and 90’s, he started producing music on his first synthesizer as a teenager. During the same time, his love for classical music led him to study classical clarinet at Istanbul University State Conservatory. As a clarinetist, he performed with Istanbul’s leading orchestras both nationally and internationally. 

After graduation, he moved to France to study composition at Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régionale d’Annecy, where he collaborated with directors from Cinédoc Paris Films, and wrote music for animation projects from ArtFx Studios, École Pivaut and Gobelins.

Murat obtained his Master’s degree in film scoring from the University of Southern California in 2014, where he was mentored by James Newton Howard.

His additional writing credits include the football drama series 'All American' and 'All American: Homecoming’, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Batwoman.

https://www.murat-selcuk.com/

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Robbie Teehan to the podcast!

www.robbieteehan.com

Robbie (Rob) Teehan is a JUNO-award nominated Canadian composer, known for his nuanced and melodic scores to film, TV, and video games, and broad musical experience. He scored the critically-acclaimed Canadian film SCARBOROUGH, hailed by NOW Magazine as “A New Canadian Cinema”, and winner of 8 Canadian Screen Awards including “Best Motion Picture”; BELOW THE BELT, which recently premiered in New York City with Executive Producer Hillary Rodham Clinton in attendance; and BOTTLE CONDITIONED directed by Academy Award nominee Jerry Franck. 

Robbie’s scoring credits include additional music on three seasons of hit TV series ELEMENTARY and two seasons of JESSICA JONES alongside his mentor, 4-time Emmy Award-winning composer Sean Callery (24, HOMELAND, BONES, THE MEDIUM, HALO, etc.), with whom he apprenticed for five years in Los Angeles.  Robbie created a heartfelt orchestral score for the animated short LOVE LETTERS FROM EVEREST, which received two Canadian Screen Award nominations, and a Ukrainian-folk inspired score for the feature documentary THE BABUSHKAS OF CHERNOBYL, lauded by the Chicago Tribune as “provocative, powerful, poignant, and frankly, unforgettable” and award-winner at nine film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival. 

Classically-trained, Robbie has composed and arranged for artists and ensembles across North America including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Toronto, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.  His orchestral composition, “Dreams of Flying,” was hailed as “fresh and tuneful” by MacLean’s Magazine and nominated for a JUNO award for “Classical Composition of the Year.”  Robbie has performed thousands of shows around the world with a diverse array of musical projects, and his work as a composer, arranger, band member, session musician, and record producer has earned him four JUNO and eight Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.  He is currently active with his indie folk singer-songwriter project, Gentle Sparrow, releasing two EPs on streaming platforms and performing throughout his home province of Ontario, Canada.

Robbie is also the founder and CEO of The Pro Composer, a boutique career coaching firm and online community serving and supporting thousands of professional media composers around the world.