William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973 until 2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.
Fred Hemke, DMA(néFrederick Leroy Hemke Jr.; July 11, 1935 – April 17, 2019) was an American virtuoso classical saxophonist and influential professor of saxophone at Northwestern University. Hemke helped raise the popularity of classical saxophone, particularly among leading American composers and helped raise the recognition of classical saxophone in solo, chamber, and major orchestral repertoire. For a half century, from 1962 to 2012, Hemke was a full-time faculty music educator at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music. In 2002, Hemke was named Associate Dean Emeritus of the School of Music. Hemke retired from Northwestern University in 2012. From the start of his career in the early 1960s, building on the achievements of earlier influential American teachers of classical saxophone — including those of Larry Teal, Joseph Allard, Cecil Leeson, Sigurd Raschèr, and Vincent Abato — Hemke, and a handful of peer American saxophonists — including Eugene Rousseau and Donald Sinta — helped build American saxophone repertoire through composers that included Muczynski, Creston, Stein, Heiden, and Karlins. Journalist and author Michael Segell, in his 2005 book, The Devil's Horn, called Hemke "The Dean of Saxophone Education in America." Hemke died on April 17, 2019.
John C. Worley was a saxophonist, conductor, professor, and a composer of classical, as well as more contemporary music for saxophone. He was born in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1919 and died on February 16, 1999. He served as conductor and director for many performing ensembles during his long teaching career, as well as a featured performer of saxophone and clarinet.
Donald J. Sinta is an American classical saxophonist, educator, and administrator. Mr. Sinta earned a Master of Music degree in saxophone performance from the University of Michigan in 1962.
Larry Teal is considered by many to be the father of American orchestral saxophone.
Cecil B. Leeson, a musician and teacher, was widely credited with establishing the saxophone as a legitimate concert instrument in the U.S.
John E. Ferritto was an American composer, conductor, and music professor.
Phillip Wayne Barham is a classical and jazz saxophonist was the professor of saxophone at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee until October 2018.
Oscar G. Zimmerman was an American musician, teacher and double-bass player.
Brett Mitchell is an American conductor who currently serves music director of the Colorado Symphony. He previously served as Associate Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra from 2013 to 2017, Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France from 2006 to 2009, Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony from 2007 to 2011, Music Director of the Moores Opera Center in Houston from 2012 to 2013, and Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra from 2010 to 2015.
Alan Baer is an American tuba player who is Principal Tuba for the New York Philharmonic. He has also been principal tuba with several other orchestras including the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, he has performed and recorded with the Cleveland Orchestra led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, performances with the Peninsula Music Festival of Wisconsin, New Orleans Symphony, Los Angeles Concert Orchestra, Ojai Festival Orchestra (California), Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has performed as a featured soloist, touring several countries in Europe, including Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and France.
Debra Richtmeyer is an American classical saxophonist born June 19, 1957, in Lansing, Michigan.
Loris Ohannes Chobanian is an American-Armenian composer of classical music, conductor, and guitar and lute teacher and performer. He served as Professor of Composition as well as Composer-in-Residence at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory.
Arnaldo Cohen is a Brazilian pianist.
Daniel William McCarthy is an American composer, author, conductor, professor, and black belt martial artist. He has been Professor and Chair of Music Composition and Theory Studies at The University of Akron: School of Music and held the Theodor Dreiser Distinguished Research/Creativity Award at Indiana State University School of Music. He is co-author of "Theory for Today's Musician" with Ralph Turek, published by Routledge Francis & Taylor, NYC? His career as a conductor included serving on the conducting staff of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, four seasons as Music Director of the Interlochen Festival Orchestra, Interlochen, Michigan, as well as conducting the University of Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Terre Haute Symphony Youth Orchestra. McCarthy, a dedicated martial artist, was promoted to 3rd Degree Black Belt in Chun Ma Tae Kwon Do in May 2012. A student of Grand Master Jeon Gyeong Ho, Akron, Ohio, he pursued additional studies in Asian Weapons, American Kenpo, and Chin Na Kung Fu with Grand Master Sifu James Adkins in Traverse City, Michigan.
James DeSano is a retired orchestral trombonist. He served as associate principal trombone of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1970 to 1989 and as principal trombone from 1989 to his retirement in 2003. As a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, he performed Henri Tomasi's Trombone Concerto. Prior to his tenure in Cleveland, DeSano was principal trombone of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra from 1964 to 1970.
Timothy M. Ries is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate/conservatory level. Ries is in his fourteenth year as a professor of jazz studies at the University of Toronto. His universe of work as composer, arranger, and instrumentalist ranges from rock to jazz to classical to experimental to ethno to fusions of respective genres thereof. His notable works with wide popularity include The Rolling Stones Project, a culmination of jazz arrangements of music by the Stones produced on two albums, the first in 2005 and the second in 2008.
Andrew J. Allen is an American classical and contemporary saxophonist and pedagogue who is currently an assistant professor of music at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia.
Timothy McAllister is an American classical saxophonist and music educator, who, as of 2014, is Professor of Saxophone at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
Darryl Yokley II is an American tenor and alto saxophonist, composer and music conservatory teacher. Darryl started to learn jazz after extensive studies in classical saxophone. As a bandleader of Sound Reformation, Yokley has gained recognition as an inventive composer and soloist after releasing its debut album The Void (2012). He has performed with Motown legends The Four Tops, The Temptations, and The O'Jays, and other notable music artists.
