The Assembly Quartet is a professional chamber music ensemble whose mission is to promote music education and expand the enjoyment of music for people of all ages. Committed to furthering the saxophone quartet repertoire, this ensemble has commissioned and premiered works by David Maslanka, Simon Fink, Benjamin Taylor, Girard Kratz, Sophocleous Charalambos and Peter Kay, Marilyn Shrude, Kurt Isaacson, and Shawn Allison.
Assembly Quartet: Jeffrey Heisler, soprano saxophone – Ian Jeffress, alto saxophone – Matthew Younglove, tenor saxophone – Adam Estes, baritone saxophone
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Brave New Works is a vibrant performing ensemble of ten musicians dedicated to performing and promoting new music. The mission of Brave New Works is to engage, enrich and educate through contemporary music. A not-for-profit organization since 2003, Brave New Works was nurtured by the rich artistic landscape of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and formed in 1997 by three students at the University of Michigan: percussionists Chris Froh and Eli Shapiro, and conductor Chris Younghoon Kim. The concept was simple; to make great music, discover new sounds and ideas, and perform with kindred spirits.
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Chris Buzzelli was a member of the music faculty at Bowling Green State University from 1984 to 2015, where he was Professor of Guitar and Jazz Studies, director of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and founding director of the New York Voices Vocal Jazz Camp. He has also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and has presented clinics and masterclasses at regional and national conferences and other colleges and universities around the nation. He has written articles for Jazz Educators Journal, Just Jazz Guitar, and American String Teacher, and has published a number of solo guitar arrangements and guitar ensemble compositions.
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Eugene Albulescu is an award-winning musician who combines a blazing technique with the artistic integrity and originality to express musical emotions at their most personal level. He has worked as conductor and soloist with numerous major orchestras including the New Zealand Symphony, the Romanian National George Enescu Philharmonic, the New York Chamber Orchestra, Christchurch Symphony as well as the Orchestra Wellington.
Eugene Albulescu is a Steinway Artist who teaches on the music faculty at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
The Ionian Piano Quartet is comprised of Spiros Gikontis (violin), Andreas Georgotas (viola), Giannis Toulis (cello) and Lambis Vasiliadis (piano). The ensemble specializes in researching and interpreting music from classical to contemporary. This artistic and versatile ensemble has received accolades in Europe and the United States, receiving excellent reviews in international magazines and the press including BBC Magazine, American Record Guide, the Listener Magazine, Fanfare Music Magazine, Journal of the American Viola Society, and e Strad.
Jeffrey Heisler, an award-winning saxophonist and soprano chair of the Assembly Quartet, serves on the faculty of Oakland University (Rochester, MI) as Professor of Saxophone and Conducting. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree specializing in contemporary music (2010) and a Master of Music degree in saxophone performance (2006) from Bowling Green State University where he studied with Distinguished Research/Artist Professor John Sampen. In addition, he earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree (2003) from Central Michigan University where he studied saxophone with John Nichol.
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John Sampen is one of America’s leading concert saxophonists and is particularly recognized as a distinguished artist in contemporary literature. He has commissioned over one hundred new works, including compositions by Adler, Babbitt, Bolcom, Cage, Rzewski, Rands and Shrude and has premiered saxophone versions of music by Lutosławski, Stockhausen and Tower. He has recorded with Belgian and Swiss National Radio and is represented on the Orion, CRI, Albany, AMP and Capstone record labels.
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Kevin Schempf has appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Mr. Schempf’s new music engagements include 9 years as solo clarinetist with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, among many others, Mr. Schempf is Professor of Clarinet at Bowling Green State University.
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Laura Melton, Professor of Piano and Chair of Music Performance Studies at Bowling Green State University, has won competitions and awards including the Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin and a Fulbright Grant for study in Germany (Freiburg Musikhochschule). She has performed with major orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center in Washington, DC), the San Francisco Chamber Players and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today in celebration of the birthday of composers, John Corigliano and Samuel Adler.
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Matthew Ardizzone has performed throughout the US and Canada as a soloist, with orchestra, and in a variety of chamber music settings. The Pittsburgh Tribune has described his “sensitive nuances” and the NYC Guitar Society his “incredible tone, marvelous technical facility, and poetic phrasing.” He has collaborated with such major artists as flutist Leone Buyse, violinist Movses Pogossian, soprano Audrey Luna, and with members of the faculty at the University of Michigan.
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Matthew Younglove is an award-winning concert saxophonist and pedagogue. He has performed concerts and recitals across the United States, France, Croatia, and the UK and currently serves on the faculty of Tennessee Technological University as Assistant Professor of Saxophone. As an expert interpreter of contemporary music, Younglove has commissioned and/or premiered works by many composers, including Jon Anderson, George Fetner, Simon Fink, Ruby Fulton, Claudio Gabriele, Girard Kratz, Marc Mellits, Gabriela Ortiz, John Fitz Rogers, Marilyn Shrude, Gregory Wanamaker, Amy Williams, and Eric Wubbels.
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Marilyn Shrude is a celebrated composer and pianist and an active proponent of contemporary music in America. Her music is performed on a number of AMP Recordings releases as well as being a featured artist.
She is a Distinguished Artist Professor at BGSU and has been honored with awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy and the Rockefeller Foundation. Shrude has performed as collaborative pianist with John Sampen since 1972.
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Nathan Nabb maintains a vibrant and diverse international schedule as a performer, clinician and teacher. A regular performer with the St. Louis and Houston Symphonies, he has worked with renowned conductors Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Robertson, Hans Graf, Marin Alsop, Michael Stern, and Keith Lockhart. His solo and chamber recordings on the Amp, BIS, and Innova labels have clearly positioned Nathan as a bold champion of new music, featuring acclaimed performances of composers ranging from Luciano Berio and Milton Babbitt to Philip Glass and Mari Takano.
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Nina Assimakopoulos is an internationally acclaimed flutist and Altus Performing Artist. She has been hailed as “…a marvel!” (Münchner Merkur).
A champion of contemporary music, Nina Assimakopoulos is credited with over 50 international world-premiere performances and commissions, as well as multimedia collaborative projects and concerts integrating baroque through contemporary flute music with visual and digital arts, dance, and theater.
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Pianist Russell Schmidt has performed with such jazz luminaries as Carl Allen, Eddie Daniels, Tim Hagans, John Hollenbeck, Joe Lovano, Gerry Mulligan, Arturo Sandoval, and Clark Terry. As a composer and arranger, he has written for artists as wide-ranging as saxophonists Bob Berg and Michael Brecker, the Ying String Quartet, and the chamber music group Rhythm & Brass.
Most recently Russ was the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah, and previously held faculty appointments at Bowling Green State University, Northern Arizona University, and the Eastman School of Music in New York.
Sax 4th Avenue iis an exciting and innovative saxophone quartet from the Toledo area. Since its formation in 1991, the quartet has entertained audiences throughout the Midwest with its unique brand of virtuosity, showmanship, and humor. The quartet’s high-energy performances feature the classics of Bach, Haydn, and Bizet; the unique jazz-fusion of Phil Woods; and the progressive rock of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Sax 4th Avenue’s expanding repertoire includes the finest in saxophone literature, original compositions, jazz standards, and music that incorporates improvisation and choreography.
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Stephen Miahky is the Joseph Joachim Professor of Violin and First Violin of the Blair String Quartet at Vanderbilt University. As a sought-after interpreter of contemporary music, Miahky has performed with the new music groups Brave New Works and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and has worked closely with the most influential compositional voices of our time. He can be heard in world premiere recordings on the Naxos, Albany, AMP Recordings, New Dynamic and Edition Modern record labels.
Tom Gorman & Tom Del Greco are an acoustic rock/pop songwriting duo from Hickory, NC & Bowling Green, OH. The duo formed in 1999 and in 2014, Phil Bennett on bass and Masten Cloer on drums joined the duo to form the band.
Del Greco and Gorman use their life experiences to write awesome original tunes. With their strong harmonies, meaningful lyrics, and camaraderie with each other and the crowd, they will impress and please any audience.
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Vincent Corrigan has been an active performer, on both piano and harpsichord, throughout the Midwest. He has received degrees in piano, harpsichord and musicology from Carnegie-Mellon University and Indiana University, and studied harpsichord with Fernando Valenti and Marie Zorn.
As a chamber performer he has frequently collaborated in concerts of both early music and new music. He is professor emeritus and Bowling Green State University where he taught in the Composition/History Department and served as Graduate Coordinator.
The Westhuizen Duo’s performances have been described as “…music-making that rewards you seventy times seven.” The duo has appeared in major festivals and venues throughout the USA, and has presented concerts in all the major concert halls of South Africa.
The Westhuizen Duo resides in the Cleveland area, where Pierre has recently been appointed as the President and CEO of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Sophié has joined the faculty of The Cleveland Music Settlement.
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