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.

Blake Dylan Buehler (b. 2000) is an internationally performed composer, educator, and artist-activist with a passion for innovative music and the betterment of society through music. He has collaborated with acclaimed groups including Transient Canvas, the Texas New Music Ensemble, the Furman Symphonic Band, and Unheard-of//Ensemble. His music has been featured at the Texas New Music Festival, New Music Gathering, and the Alba Music Festival. His work is showcased on the albums CCI//Sessions, Vol. 5 (2023) and Unmeasured Light (2024).

Ben Davis holds a Bachelor of Music Education and a Master of Music Composition from Northern Arizona University. Mr. Davis has 39 years of teaching experience and 17 years as a head high school director. He retired in May of 2020 as Director of Bands at Lindale Junior High School in Lindale, Texas.  Mr. Davis’ bands are consistent UIL Sweepstakes winners and have been selected twelve times as a Texas Music Educators Association Region Honor Band, advanced to the T.M.E.A. State Honor Band Contest multiple times and finished as high as tenth place. His ensembles won first place honors in the ATSSB Outstanding Performance Series State Contest.  In 2019, Texas Bandmasters Association named Mr. Davis and the Lindale Junior Band as Texas’ Exemplary Middle School Band Program for that year.

Mr. Davis is a former state officer for the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association, the International Association of Jazz Educators – Arizona Unit, and a TMEA Region Officer. His professional associations include Texas Music Educators Association, Texas Bandmasters Association, the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, Texas Music Adjudicators Association, and Phi Beta Mu - International Bandmaster Fraternity.  

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.

Chris Prather (b. 1995) was drawn to music at an early age. Music’s healing power offered a place of belonging through his, at times, turbulent adolescence. The obsessive, inseparable nature of his relationship with music has led to a variety of successes as a composer. One of these being the 2022 Opera on Tap-OKC premiere of his opera No Justice, No Peace (2022). Critics have described this work as “complex, swirling, at times nearly inscrutable, but peppering moments of familiarity and cultural reference points throughout.” Recently, Prather’s piece Hope on the Horizon (2024) was given its world premiere by the University of Central Oklahoma Wind Symphony under the baton of Dr. Brian Lamb. Prather also serves as a voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs).

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.

Jack Wilds is a composer and educator whose works have brought him into collaboration with musicians aged 5-95. Ranging from children's choirs to collegiate wind ensembles and professional chamber groups, Jack's music draws on visual art, philosophical and religious texts, poetry, and absolute musical influences to create vibrant works that meet performers where they are while inspiring authentic, artistic music making.

His chamber music has been performed by the Attacca Quartet, the University of Texas New Music Ensemble, the Austin Saxophone Ensemble, and members of the New York Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony. His works have also been featured at international festivals and composition workshops including the International Trombone Festival, the Slider Asia Clinic in Hong Kong, the American Trombone Workshop, the International Horn Symposium, New Music on the Bayou and The Wyoming Festival.