The New York Staff Band represents the finest in Christian brass band performance.  Holding the distinction of being the first ‘staff band’ in Salvation Army [SA] music history, the NYSB meets the challenge of maintaining the highest standards of musical practice and Christian ministry expected of such a model group. When the band released its first 33-rpm ‘long play’ [LP] back in 1957 under Staff Bandmaster Richard Holz, it was heralded as ‘America’s Foremost Brass Band.’  The liner notes stated boldly: “From the ‘greatest city in the world’ comes one of the greatest bands of the world. The description of the band by a leading New York music critic over 70 years ago–“amateur musicians who play like professionals”–can easily be underscored and endorsed in the second decade of the 21st century. The NYSB has been and continues to be a trailblazer in SA and brass band music making.

Based at Ohlone College in Fremont, California, the Ohlone Wind Orchestra has performed at the American Bandmaster’s National Convention, the Fresno State Wind Festival, and the CMEA Winter Conference, and was invited to play at the 2008 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The OWO has also recorded several highly acclaimed disks on the Johnson Digital Audio label.

In the history of Jazz music, there is only one bandleader that has the distinction of having his orchestra still performing sold out concerts all over the world, with members personally chosen by him, for nearly 30 years after his passing. Pianist and bandleader William James “Count” Basie was and still is an American institution that personifies the grandeur and excellence of Jazz. The Count Basie Orchestra has won every respected jazz poll in the world at least once, won 18 Grammy Awards, performed for Kings, Queens, and other world Royalty, appeared in several movies, television shows, at every major jazz festival and concert hall in the world. Some of the greatest soloists, composers, arrangers, and vocalists in jazz history such as Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Frank Foster, Thad Jones, Sonny Payne, Freddie Green, Snooky Young, Frank Wess, and Joe Williams, became international stars once they began working with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. This great 18 member orchestra, today directed by Scotty Barnhart, is still continuing the excellent history started by Basie of stomping and shouting the blues, as well as refining those musical particulars that allow for the deepest and most moving of swing.

Born July 22, 1925 in New York, Hal worked with most of the great musicians of the Big Band and Great American Songbook era. Schaefer was a longtime protege of jazz legend, Duke Ellington and, at 18, was the pianist for jazz great Benny Carter in a group with such other renowned jazz artists as Max Roach and J.J. Johnson. He later joined big bands fronted by Harry James and Boyd Raeburn.

Carl Lenthe, Professor of Music at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, was born into a musical family in 1956 and grew up in the Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania. His love of good music, inspired by concert bands and recordings of the great orchestras, was nurtured by both the school and church music programs in his hometown of Springfield. Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music led him to a career in music, which commenced at the age of 20 with his engagement as principal-trombonist under Wolfgang Sawallisch at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany. His 17-year tenure there, during which he was named “Bavarian Chamber Virtuoso” by the Ministry of Culture, was followed by his appointment as principal-trombonist with the Bamberg Symphony, where he also served on that orchestra’s executive committee.

Composer Judith Cloud’s gift for vocal writing was born out of her own rich experiences as an accomplished mezzo-soprano soloist. Born in 1954 in Reidsville, NC, Cloud sang with her musical family in church services, where her first mentor, Dr. Ruth Graham, introduced her to music ranging from Bach to Britten. Later, Cloud entered the North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied voice, conducting and composition. Her composition studies were with Robert Ward and Roy Johnson. Vocal instruction was with Janice Harsanyi, a champion of 20th-century American composers and an amateur composer, herself.

Daniel Asia (b. 1953, Seattle, WA) is one of a small number of composers who have traversed both the realms of professional performance and academia with equal skill. As testament to this he is a 2010 recipient of a major American Academy of Arts and Letters award. Elliott Hurwitt writes in a Schwann Opus review of the composer’s music, “Daniel Asia is a genuine creative spirit, an excellent composer… He is a welcome addition to the roster of our strongest group of living composers.”

The Eastman Wind Ensemble is America’s leading wind ensemble. Its core of about 50 performers includes undergraduate and graduate students of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Like his mentor and hero, Pierre Monteux, Sir Neville Marriner began life as a violinist, playing first in a string quartet and trio then in the London Symphony Orchestra, during which period he founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. After his studies in America with Maestro Monteux, he began his conducting career in 1969, when he founded the Los Angeles Chambre Orchestra, at the same time developing and extending the size and repertoire of the Academy, and guest conducting orchestras all over the world.

Clark Terry’s career in jazz spans more than seventy years. He is a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, composer, writer, trumpet/flugelhorn designer, teacher and NEA Jazz Master. He has performed for eight U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz Ambassador for State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz festivals have featured him at sea and on land in all seven continents. Many have been named in his honor.

George Theophilus Walker was born in Washington, D.C. June 27, 1922 of West Indian-American parentage.  His father emigrated to the United States, where he became a physician after graduating from Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia.  George Walker’s mother, Rosa King, supervised her son’s first piano lessons that began when he was five years of age. His first teacher was Miss Mary L. Henry. Mrs. Lillian Mitchell Allen, who had earned a doctorate in music education, became his second piano teacher.

Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, has established himself among the world’s most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spans almost six decades.  Now, at 89 years old, he continues to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated and robust teaching career.   Born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1923, Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel.  Pressler’s world renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler’s extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, Helsinki and many others.   After nearly a decade of an illustrious and praised solo career, the 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Menahem Pressler’s debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established Pressler’s reputation as one of the world’s most revered chamber musicians.  With Pressler at the Trio’s helm as the only pianist for nearly 55 years, The New York Times described the Beaux Arts Trio as “in a class by itself” and the Washington Post exclaimed  that “since its founding more than 50 years ago, the Beaux Arts Trio has become the gold standard for trios throughout the world.”  The 2007-2008 season was nothing short of bitter-sweet, as violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Antonio Meneses and Menahem Pressler took their final bows as The Beaux Arts Trio, which marked the end of one of the most celebrated and revered chamber music careers of all time.  What saw the end of a one artistic legacy also witnessed the beginning of another, as Pressler continues to dazzle audiences throughout the world, both as piano soloist and collaborating chamber musician, including performances with the Juilliard, Emerson, American, and Cleveland Quartets, among many others.  Of his recent solo performance in Austria, Die Presse wrote: “he struck a tone that was long believed lost already, a tone we perhaps last heard from Wilhelm Kempff.” His upcoming solo concertizing engagements include performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra de Paris and the Concertgebow Orchestra, among others.   For nearly 60 years, Menahem Pressler has taught on the piano faculty at the world-renowned Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he currently holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of Music as the Charles Webb Chair.  Equally as illustrious as his performing career, Professor Pressler has been hailed as “Master Pedagogue” and has had prize-winning students in all of the major international piano competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth, Busoni, Rubenstein, Leeds and VanCliburn competitions among many others.  His former students grace the faculties of prestigious schools of music across the world, and have become some of the most prominent and influential artist-teachers today.  In addition to teaching his private students at Indiana University, he continuously presents master classes throughout the world, and continues to serve on the jury of many major international piano competitions.   Among his numerous honors and awards, Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Nebraska, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts, six Grammy nominations (including one in 2006), lifetime achievement awards from Gramophone magazine and the International Chamber Music Association, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the German Critics “Ehrenurkunde” award, and election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  In 2007 Pressler was appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music. In 2005 Pressler received two additional awards of international merit: the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award.  His more recent honors and awards include the prestigious Wigmore Medal (2011), the Menuhin Prize given by the Queen of Spain (2012), inductions into the American Classical Music and Gramophone Magazine Halls of Fame (2012), and the Music Teachers National Association Achievement Award.   In addition to recording nearly the entire piano chamber repertoire with the Beaux Arts Trio on the Philips label, Menahem Pressler has compiled over thirty solo recordings, ranging from the works of Bach to Ben Haim.