Stanley Clarke is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fusion bassist to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and have recordings reach gold status.
John McLaughlin, also known as Mahavishnu, is an English guitarist, bandleader, and composer. A pioneer of jazz fusion, his music combines elements of jazz with rock, world music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues. After contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s, McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. He then moved to the U.S., where he played with drummer Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his electric jazz fusion albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, and On the Corner. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences.
Michael Abels is an American composer best known for the opera Omar, co-written with Rhiannon Giddens, and his scores for the Jordan Peele films Get Out, Us and Nope. The hip-hop influenced score for Us was short-listed for the Oscars and was even named "Score of the Decade" by TheWrap. Other recent media projects include the films Bad Education, Nightbooks, Fake Famous, and the docu-series Allen v. Farrow. His most recent releases include Beauty which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Netflix, Breaking which premiered at Sundance, and his third collaboration with Jordan Peele, Nope.
John Schneider is a Grammy® Award winning and 4-time Grammy® nominated American classical guitarist. He performs in just intonation and various well-temperaments, including Pythagorean tuning, including works by Lou Harrison, LaMonte Young, John Cage, and Harry Partch. He often arranges pieces for guitar and other instruments such as harp or percussion.
Mark O'Connor is an American fiddle player, composer, guitarist, and mandolinist whose music combines bluegrass, country, jazz and classical. A three-time Grammy Award winner, he has won six Country Music Association Musician Of The Year awards and was a member of three influential musical ensembles: the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength in Numbers.
Pepe Romero is a classical and flamenco guitarist.
KUSC is a listener-supported classical music radio station broadcasting from downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. KUSC is owned and operated by the University of Southern California, which also operates student-run Internet station KXSC (AM) and San Francisco's classical station KDFC. It is the largest non-profit classical music station in the country and one of the two classical music stations in the Greater Los Angeles Area along with KMZT.
The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) is an American classical guitar ensemble that was formed in 1980. It consists of John Dearman, William Kanengiser, Douglas Lora and Matthew Greif. They play nylon string guitars to imitate a variety of instruments and effects.
Luciana Souza is a Brazilian jazz singer and composer who also works in bossa nova, pop, classical and chamber music. She won a Grammy Award in 2007, and has been nominated for seven others, most recently in 2024. Souza is considered to be one of jazz's leading singers and interpreters. The New York Times called her voice "smooth-surfaced, coolly sensuous and dartingly agile."
Andrew York is an American Grammy Award winning classical guitarist and composer.
Sérgio Assad is a Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger who often performs with his brother, Odair, in the guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad, commonly referred to as the Assad Brothers or Duo Assad. Their younger sister Badi is also a guitarist. Assad is the father of composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad. He is married to Angela Olinto.
John Dearman is a Grammy Award-winning classical guitarist and one of the founding members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ). Known to LAGQ fans as the group's seven-string virtuoso who supplies the deep-bass lines for numerous pieces in the quartet's eclectic repertoire.
Jason Vieaux is an American classical guitarist. He began his musical training in Buffalo, New York at the age of eight, after which he continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1992, Vieaux was awarded the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner.
Scott Tennant is an American classical guitarist and composer. Tennant is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.
Robert Alan Cutietta is best known as an educator, author, researcher, composer, and arts leader. He is the author or co-author of five books and over fifty referereed research articles in the area of music psychology and education. He is also a composer, having written for television shows and movies.
Brian Head is an American composer, guitarist, and music theory and composition professor.
William Kanengiser is a classical guitarist. He is one of the founding members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ).
Angel Romero is a Spanish classical guitarist, conductor and former member of the guitar quartet Los Romeros. He is the youngest son of Celedonio Romero, who in 1957 left Spain for the United States with his family.
Darek Oleszkiewicz, also known as Darek Oles, is a jazz bassist, composer, arranger, and educator.
Adam del Monte, born as Adam Kofler is a guitarist, composer, and educator known for his contributions to flamenco and classical music.
