Kristin Blatzheim dancing artist, Eclectic Edge Ensemble, Minneapolis

Kristin Blatzheim has performed with Kinetic Evolutions and the Christopher Watson Dance Company.

In 2008, Kristin finished a 2-year program to obtain a Minnesota teaching license in K-12 Dance. She has taught dance at Apple Valley, Bloomington Kennedy and Jefferson high schools. Kristin also teaches at Premiere Dance Academy and Bauer Fine Arts Academy and is a freelance teacher and choreographer in the Twin Cities metro area.

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Laurie Frink renowned trumpeter and educator

The late Laurie Frink was considered the first great woman lead trumpeter in jazz. She worked with jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Benny Goodman, George Russell, and Mel Lewis. Frink continued to study jazz trumpet and lead playing from Carmine Caruso. Her diverse career included several Broadway shows, radio and television jingles, movie soundtracks, and guest appearances with artists such as the Talking Heads, David Bowie, and David Sanborn. Her versatility as an artist led to performances with the Manhattan Brass Quintet, the Saturday Brass Quintet, the Gramercy Park Brass, and Concordia. Read more about Laurie Frink

Rachel Curry apprentice, PGK Dance Project

Rachel Curry
Rachel Curry

Apprentice, PGK Dance Project, San Diego. Rachel premiered work by Kendra Portier and Jeff Curtis in Lincoln.

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Richard Fountain assistant professor of collaborative piano, Wayland Baptist University, Plainview, TX

Richard Fountain has been a featured soloist with the Marion Philharmonic, the UNL Symphony Orchestra and Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra. He holds the position of Principal Keyboard with both Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra and the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as section pianist for the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra. An accomplished collaborative pianist, Fountain was the principal rehearsal and performance pianist for the world premiere of the musical Broadcast, by Scott Murphy and Nathan Christensen. Read more about Richard Fountain

Shelley Brackhan Fritz Owner, DelRay Ballroom & Dance Instructor

Shelley Brackhan Fritz
Shelley Brackhan Fritz
Shelley Fritz, owner of The DelRay Ballroom, has taught dance and competed professionally since 1984. She opened her first studio, Brackhan Dance Directive, in 1994 and expanded seven years later when she opened The DelRay Ballroom in a renovated warehouse in the Historic Haymarket. She has received numerous teaching and performing awards, including Top Teacher in both the Midwest and Northwest Regions and 1st Place in the Fred Astaire Midwest Regional Championships. Read more about Shelley Brackhan Fritz

Emily Fullerton director, En Pointe Dance Academy

Fullerton has worked with a number of nationally known artistic directors and choreographers from around the world.

She has performed in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Fullerton was rehearsal director for the Moscow Ballet Dance Company, who performed with over 70 youth from Lincoln and surrounding areas in November 2004. She also taught and did choreography across the U.S. for the National Dance Alliance from 2001 to 2006.

At UNL, Fullerton produced Trepidations, a grant-funded senior dance concert incorporating video with dance.

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Katie Heckman dancing artist, Megan Lynn Asterial Dance, New York

At UNL, Heckman worked with fellow students Megan Dutenhoffer and Lindsey Zentic to choreographed “Femmebot,” a dark exploration of women roles.

She has had the honor of presenting as well as performing works at multiple ACDFA conferences in the Midwest Region and has premiered works presented by Troika Ranch, Jenna Riegel and professors Susan Levine and Noelle Bohaty.

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Kathryn Hibbard dance artist

Kathryn Hibbard
Kathryn Hibbard
Kathryn Hibbard lives in New York where she is work-study at the Mark Morris Dance Center. She started dancing at age four in the back of an old church in London and trained in ballet in the Cecchetti method. Through the Cecchetti Society, she was also exposed to other dance forms that included modern, jazz, Irish, flamenco, mime and tap dance. Throughout college she also attended the White Mountain Summer Dancer Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and American Dance Festival. Read more about Kathryn Hibbard

Derek Mosloff violist, New World Symphony

Derek Mosloff
Derek Mosloff
Derek Mosloff is an avid solo and chamber musician and was an active performer in the Boston area, serving as the principal viola of the Orchestra of Indian Hill, as well as a violist in the Discovery Ensemble, among others. In 2008, he was awarded a fellowship to Tanglewood Music Center, and he was invited to return for the 2009 and 2010 seasons and as a New Fromm player for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Mosloff completed his master’s degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston in 2013. Read more about Derek Mosloff

Eugene O'Brien Executive Associate Dean; Professor of Music (Composition), Indiana University

Eugene O'Brien
Eugene O'Brien
Eugene O'Brien has received the Academy Award in Music of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome, as well as awards from BMI, ASCAP, the League of Composers, and the International Society for Contemporary Music. He has earned Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts and other fellowships. O’Brien has been commissioned by the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, and the Meet-the-Composer / Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund. Read more about Eugene O'Brien

Rob Salistean music teacher and band instructor, Lincoln North Star High School

Salistean has been the director of instrumental music at Lincoln North Star High School since 2005.

He has also worked as an adjunct professor in orchestra direction at Nebraska Wesleyan University, and he led the North Star Middle School band in 2005-06.

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Laurie Scott assoc. professor of music and human learning, University of Texas at Austin

Laurie Scott
Laurie Scott
Laurie Scott is co-author with William Dick of the textbook Mastery for Strings, Level One and Two, and Learning Together: Sequential Repertoire for Solo Strings or String Ensembles, co-authored with William Dick and Winfred Crock. Her latest publication, From the Stage to the Studio: How Fine Performers become Great Teachers, is co-authored with Cornelia Watkins and was published by Oxford University Press in April 2012. Read more about Laurie Scott

Robert C. Snider retired, United States Navy Band, freelance percussionist

Photo of Robert Snider
Robert C. Snider
Robert Snider retired from the United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C., after 30 years of service. While there, he served as National Tour Director, Support Staff Chief in Charge, percussionist and later timpanist with the Concert Band and drummer for the Country Current, country/bluegrass band. He has performed as a percussion soloist/clinician for the American Bandmasters Association, the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Western International Band Clinic, the American Band College and on three Percussive Arts Society International Conventions. Read more about Robert C. Snider

Richard Svoboda principal bassoon, Boston Symphony Orchestra, member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Richard Svoboda has been principal bassoonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players since 1989. He is on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center. He has also taught at the Sarasota Music Festival, the Grand Teton Orchestral Seminar, the Popkin-Glickman Bassoon Camp, and the Symphony School of America, and has given master classes throughout the world. Prior to his BSO appointment, he performed for ten seasons as principal bassoonist of the Jacksonville Symphony. Read more about Richard Svoboda

Stephanie Taylor Entertainment and music industry attorney, Bone McAllester Norton, Nashville, TN

Stephanie Taylor portrait photo
Stephanie Taylor

Stephanie Taylor is an entertainment and music industry lawyer for clients involved in the creation, production and management of creative works.

She specializes in entertainment law and understands the special needs of the entertainment industry, including copyright law, music publishing, record labels, media and general business matters. Taylor represents record labels, recording artists, songwriters, producers, artist managers, music publishers, promoters and music industry entrepreneurs.

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Frank Tirro Former Dean and Professor Emeritus, Yale University School of Music

Frank Tirro
Frank Tirro
Frank Tirro is a specialist in both the music of the Renaissance and the history of jazz. In addition to his most recent publication, The Birth of the Cool of Miles Davis and His Associates (College Music Society and Pendragon Press), Tirro is also the author of Jazz: A History (W. W. Norton), Renaissance Musical Sources in the Archive of San Petronio in Bologna (Haenssler-Verlag), and Living With Jazz (Harcourt Brace). Read more about Frank Tirro

Molly McConkey Vergil Owner and Artistic Director, Cultivate Dance Conservatory

Molly McConkey Vergil founded Cultivate Dance Conservatory in Alliance, Neb., to share her personal dance philosophy: individual expression through the art of dance brings self-confidence, positive change, and perpetual movement.

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Dr. Alan Wenger Professor of Trumpet at the University of Central Missouri

Dr. Alan Wenger
Dr. Alan Wenger

 Alan Wenger is Professor of Trumpet at the University of Central Missouri, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2003. A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Dr. Wenger's education includes a Bachelor of Music Degree in Trumpet Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, graduate studies at Boston University, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees in Trumpet Performance from the University of North Texas.

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