Zach Shemon is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. Additionally, he serves on the music faculties at the Interlochen Arts Camp and Interlochen Saxophone Summer Institute.

Shemon was awarded first prize at the inaugural International Saxophone Symposium and Competition in Columbus, Georga.

The music of composer Marilyn Shrude is characterized by its warmth and lyricism, rich timbre, multi-layered constructions, and complex blend of tonality and atonality. The result is a bright, shimmering and delicately wrought sound world that is at once both powerful and fragile. Her concentration on color and the natural resonance of spaces, as well as her strong background in Pre-Vatican II liturgical music, give the music its linear, spiritual, and quasi-improvisational qualities.

David Skidmore is an ensemble member and Executive Director of Third Coast Percussion.

As a chamber musician, David has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center Festival, Kimmel Center, EMPAC, June in Buffalo, Klangspuren Schwaz, the Ojai Music Festival, the Bang On a Can Marathon and three Percussive Arts Society International Conventions. David was a member of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble from 2007-2011 and Ensemble ACJW from 2008-2010.

Josh Skinner is the Manager of the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho. He has served as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and professor of Double Bass and Jazz Studies at Utah State University and BYU-Idaho. Skinner has been involved with planning every aspect of jazz festivals for over ten years, including the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, the UNC-Greeley Jazz Festival, and the Head of the Lakes Jazz Festival.

Spektral Quartet actively pursues a vivid conversation between exhilarating works of the traditional canon and those written this decade, this year, or this week. With its most recent album described by Gramophone as “highly-interactive, creative and collaborative... unlike anything its intended audience — or anyone else — has ever heard,” Spektral is known for creating seamless connections across centuries, drawing in the listener with charismatic deliveries, interactive concert formats, an up-close atmosphere, and bold, inquisitive programming.

Weston Sprott enjoys an exciting career that includes orchestral, chamber, and solo performances, as well as numerous educational and outreach efforts. He is currently Acting Principal Trombone of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, of which he has been a member since 2005. He has been recognized as “an excellent trombonist” with a “sense of style and phrasing [that] takes a backseat to no one”.

An exceptionally versatile cellist, Eric Stephenson’s style ranges from classical to jazz to rock and folk. He has performed with numerous orchestras like the IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, Tennesee and the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder. Eric was also a regular substitute for the Cleveland Orchestra.

Chicago area composer James Stephenson’s works have been performed by leading American orchestras and around the world, and have been hailed by critics as having “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds” and “Stephenson deserves to be heard again and again!” (Boston Herald). His music incorporates a fresh and energizing sound scape that engages the audience while maintaining integrity and worthwhile challenges for the performing musicians. This rare combination has rewarded Stephenson with a host of ongoing commissions and projects.

A New York City native and Eastman School of Music graduate, Curtis Stewart has performed as a soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. He has made chamber music appearances at Zankel Hall and the Rochester International Jazz Festival, holding his audiences “spellbound” with his “warm, clear sound…sparkling rhythmic energy” and “prodigious technique” (New Amsterdam Times, SoundWordSight).

Winner of "Ettore Pozzoli" International Piano Competition in Italy, pianist Anna Stoytcheva is described this way: “Stoytcheva’s tonal palette was a whirl of fabulous colors. Her agility was stunning at lighting speed” (Coral Gables Gazette). Currently Ms. Stoytcheva is the Co-Chair of Executive Board of “Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York” series, held at the Bulgarian Consulate and at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She is also the pianist of American Chamber Players five-member ensemble, which performs extensively throughout the United States.

Taimur Sullivan enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. His performances have taken him from the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to engagements in Russia, Germany, and throughout Latin America.

The New York Times praised him as “outstanding… his melodies phrased as if this were an old and cherished classic, his virtuosity supreme.”

“Their rock star status in the classical crossover world is well deserved. Their classically honed technique mixed with grit and all out passionate attack transfixes the audience...” That is how The Sarasota Herald Tribune described Sybarite5, the first string quintet ever selected as winners of Concert Artists Guild International Competition in its 60 year history. Sybarite5 has taken audiences by storm all across the US, forever changing the perception of chamber music performance.

Third Coast Percussion is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY®-nominated composer collective. For over fifteen years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience.

Marcus Thompson, violist, has appeared as soloist, recitalist, and in chamber music series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East. He has been a soloist with the orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis; The National Symphony, the Boston Pops and the Czech National Symphony in Prague. He performed the west-coast premiere of the Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Chicago premiere with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and the Boston premiere with the New England Conservatory Honors Orchestra.

Hailed by The Mercury News (San Jose, CA) as "a pianist with insight and passion, practically vanishing into the notes…" Jingwen Tu has forged a chamber and solo career throughout North America and Europe. Recent performances have taken her to such venues as Alice Tully Hall, the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center, The DiMennaCenter, The Morgan Library and Museum, the Banff Center, and Matav Music Hall in Budapest, among many others.

Its name derived from creation mythology found in Native American Folklore, the Turtle Island Quartet, since its inception in 1985, has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and most recently, the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet esthetic with contemporary American musical styles, and by devising a performance practice that honors both, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined.

British-born cellist Sally Singer Tuttle, noted by The Strad Magazine for her “transforming sweep of gossamer beauty,” has performed as a soloist with the Pleven Philharmonic, Bulgaria, the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, New York, the Danbury Symphony, Connecticut, the Washington-Idaho Symphony Orchestra, Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra, Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, Russia, amongst others.

Committed to both contemporary and standard repertoire, Cristina Valdes is known for presenting innovative concerts with repertoire ranging from Bach to Xenakis. She has performed across four continents and in a multitude of venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall, and the Kennedy Center.

Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, Kristin Vining grew up in Olympia, Washington. After graduating from North Thurston High School in Tacoma, she moved to Walla Walla, attended Walla Walla University and Whitman College, graduating from Whitman in 1998.

Kristin teaches music at all three of Walla Walla's colleges.

The four members of Vital Quartet, violist William Frampton, cellist Alberto Parrini, and violinists Philip Payton and Orlando Wells, perform with a multitude of arts organizations in New York City and indeed around the world.