Dr. BJ Brooks was born in Portales, New Mexico in 1975. He has composed hundreds of works for ensembles, solo performers and the electro-acoustic medium. His scores have been honored with numerous awards, included as educational material at several universities, included in the acclaimed book series Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, found on several repertoire lists including Texas’ PML, and have been featured at numerous conventions such as TMEA, TBA, CBDNA, The Midwest Clinic, and the International Society for Contemporary Music. Dr. Brooks is the Assistant Artistic Director of the Amarillo Youth Choirs and Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.

David Campo is a composer, conductor and educator with 30 years of experience teaching and composing for ensembles at the middle school, high school and university level. His compositions reflect his deep understanding of wind band at all levels and his works range in difficulty from easy to professional level. In addition to his compositional activities, he is in demand as a clinician and adjudicator.

Japanese-born composer Asuka Kakitani’s deep love for nature inspires her to transform her vision into musical stories. Her mostly-programmatic music results from the inspiration evoked by her surroundings interweaved with her perspectives and imagination. Kakitani’s projects span jazz big bands, orchestras, chamber ensembles, soloists, and collaborations with choreographers. Kakitani was described as “[a] musical impressionist and supreme colorist” (Hot House Magazine) and her music as “the overflowing world of inspirational melody” (DownBeat Magazine) and “absolutely superb” (All About Jazz). Kakitani’s 2013 debut record, Bloom, was acknowledged as one of the year’s best debut albums by DownBeat Magazine Critics’ Poll and NPR Music Jazz Critics’ Poll.

Founder of Alias Press, adventurer-composer Stephen Lias’s music (b. 1966) is regularly performed in concert and recital throughout the United States and abroad by soloists and ensembles including the Arianna Quartet, the Anchorage Symphony, the Oasis Quartet, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, the Ensamble de Trompetas Simón Bolívar, the Boulder Philharmonic, and the Russian String Orchestra. His pieces are regularly featured at major national and international conferences including the International Trumpet Guild, the North American Saxophone Alliance, the Midwest Clinic, and the ISCM World Music Days. He has an extensive collection of works inspired by National Parks.

Preston Parker (b. 1989) is a composer, conductor, and music educator from Jacksonville, Texas. He currently serves as Assistant Band Director for his former high school in Jacksonville ISD, where he specializes in teaching low brass. Parker attended Tyler Junior College and The University of Texas at Tyler, with an emphasis in Music Composition and Music Education, and later received his Master’s degree at Stephen F. Austin State University in Music Composition where he studied under Dr. David Campo and Dr. Stephen Lias.

The compositions of Joseph C Phillips Jr are not limited or defined by any one genre but rather are an amalgamation, transmuted into a singular and individual style. Phillips calls his style, mixed music; the term is inspired by mixed race people who have traits and characteristics that come from each individual parent, from the melding of the two, and their own uniqueness. Mixed music is an organic fusing of various elements from many different influences, forming compositions that are personal, different, and new.

Dr. Paul Rudy (DMA) has been called “The High Priest of Sound” and “Sage.” In addition to composing instrumental and electronic art, he practices sacred sound, sound immersion, sound healing, and leads meditations. His music and sonic art balance conservatory training with shamanic practices, subtle energies, and technology, each of which guide his intuitive performances and compositions, bridging science and spirituality. He is a Rome Prize (2010), Guggenheim (2008), Fulbright (1997) and Wurlitzer Foundation (2007 and 2009) Fellow, and his music has won two Global Music Awards (2012, for Innovation in Sound and Mixing/Editing), the Sounds Electric ’07 (Dublin), EMS Prize (Sweden), and Citta di Udine (Prize ex aequo, Italy) competitions, to name a few. He is a Curators’ Distinguished Professor and Coordinator of Composition at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Conservatory, where he received the Kauffman Award for Artistry (2008) and Service (2018). Six CD’s in his series “2012 Stories” are available for streaming and purchase online.

Christopher Alan Schmitz composes solo, chamber, and ensemble music that is “sublimely gorgeous” (Fanfare) and “pensive…hard-driving…and whimsical” (American Record Guide). His compositions have been performed and recorded internationally by the London Symphony Orchestra, the USAF Airmen of Note, and many others, in venues ranging from New York City (Carnegie Hall) to Alaska (Denali National Park) to London (St. Luke’s Church). Christopher’s educational music has appeared in concert programs at all levels of development and his recent solo and chamber works have been performed by the Cortona Trio, Svyati Duo, Terell Stafford, Amy Schwartz Moretti, and Denson Paul Pollard, among others.