As an actress and singer, B.J. Ward has worked with such composers as Stephen Sondheim, Maltby & Shire, Barry Manilow and Jerry Herman. She began singing opera as a teenager, but took an Off-Broadway detour to play The Girl in The Fantasticks. After spending three years with The Groundlings, B.J. went on to TV where she has played an assortment of doctors, lawyers, newscasters, moms, neighbors, and numerous victims of heinous crimes. Many shows later she decided to return to her first love, but with a new approach–combining opera with stand-up comedy. 
     B.J. claims to be the only living opera singer to hold a pilot’s license, to have been a former Playboy Bunny and to currently be the voice of Betty Rubble and Winnie Woodpecker (in addition to hundreds of other cartoon voices). 
     B.J. has studied voices for many years with Lee Sweetland. She has been to the opera several times but has never had really good seats.

     Tony Monaco has been playing music since he was eight years old. When he was twelve, He was given a Jimmy Smith album and instantly knew that Jazz Organ was his calling. 
     Tony began to play in Jazz night clubs around Columbus, Ohio while he was still learning the art of the Hammond B3 organ. He was influenced by hometown Organists such as Hank Marr and Don Patterson. Tony's newfound fascination led him to jazz organ legends Jimmy McGriff, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Charles Earland, Jack McDuff, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Here He found an unlimited source of inspiration; he just couldn't get enough! 
     On Tony's sixteenth birthday, he received a return phone call from Jimmy Smith. This was a great honor and really boosted his enthusiasm as an organist. Jimmy Smith continued to give Tony Jazz Organ secrets over the phone while Tony was playing around Columbus. When he was twenty, Jimmy Smith invited Tony to come play with him at his club in Woodland Hills L.A., California. 
     Tony has expanded his playing to regional and national tours. He usually plays with two great musicians from Columbus, Louis Tsamous on drums and Robert Kraut on guitar. In 2001, The Tony Monaco Trio performed every major festival and outdoor concert in Central Ohio, including the Jazz and Ribs fest, Confest, Art fest, etc.. 

     Meet Joe Trio,  CAMERON WILSON on violin, LAURA McPHEETERS on cello, and on piano ALLEN STILES. A most agreeable band and perfectly stimulating company by any measure. They’ve never trashed a hotel room or torched their instruments at a concert—not that you would expect that kind of behaviour from a classical trio. But Joe isn’t your typical trio.
     The Vancouver Sun called Joe Trio “a new breed of classically trained musicians; talented, intensely musical, and unhindered by old fashioned ideas about what constitutes acceptable repertoire.”
     What sets Joe Trio apart is their voracious eclecticism. They mingle television themes with achingly beautiful adagios by Mahler, the Pinball Wizard with Cape Breton fiddling, and Bluegrass music with the theme from Zorba the Greek. The music is played with rock concert attitude and concert hall grace.
  Set ’em Up, Joe is the name of their current release on CBC Records. The quirky compositional genius of Joe Trio’s violinist, Cameron Wilson, is at the heart of what they do on this CD. With the exception of the two beautifully played excerpts of Antonin Dvorak’s Dumky Trio, every piece on Set ’em Up, Joe is a clever arrangement or original composition. The word “arrangement” hardly does justice to Cam’s knack for transforming the theme from The Simpsons into an epic fantasy weaving in over a dozen quotations from popular symphonic works into a remarkable postmodern concoction called D’eau a Simpsymphony. Other arrangements, such as Jerome Kern’s The Way You Look Tonight and Maurice Lennon’s Celtic ballad If Ever You Were Mine, allow the music to speak freely. Also look for Vince Guaraldi’s enormously popular Linus and Lucy. It will have adults and kids alike dancing like Snoopy around the hi-fi set. And, who knows, if last year’s Finjan appearance at the AMPPR conference is any indication, Joe Trio may also have delegates dancing in the aisles.

     Of Swiss and Hungarian heritage, Heidi Lowy, a native New Yorker, enjoyed a childhood enriched with extended stays abroad, where she became fluent in German, French, and other European musical sensibilities. 
     She began her early piano studies at the Julliard School, where she was a student of Leland Thompson, continuing at the Oberlin Conservatory, where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree under the tutelage of John Perry. Thereafter, she studied with Cecile Genhart at the Eastman School of Music, graduating with a Master of Music degree as well as the Distinguished Performer’s Certificate.
     Her discography includes Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas, released individually by Musicians Showcase and now available as a six-CD set through Musical Heritage Society. Heidi's latest recordings include the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel. Her next recording project, entitled A 20th Century Sampler, will feature selected works of Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg. 
     A respected teacher and adjudicator, Heidi is a frequent contributor in various music publications and recently gave a duo piano master class at the National University of Singapore. 

    The Romantic Hours radio program is a unique presentation of stirring music and passionate writings, hosted by renowned concert pianist and Steinway artist Mona Golabek. 
     The Grammy nominated pianist has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize and the People's Award of the International Chopin Competition. She has been the subject of numerous PBS television documentaries, including More Than the Music, winner of the grand prize in the 1985 Houston Film Festival, and Concerto for Mona, featuring Golabek and conductor Zubin Mehta. Her recordings include the best-selling Carnival of the Animals; Poulenc's Babar the Elephant; Arensky/Tchaikovsky's Piano Trios and Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos.
     Currently, Mona Golabek is a regular contributor to Victoria Magazine, Women. com, and Deepak Chopra's My Potential. com. Her first book, The Children of Willesden Lane, a tribute to her late mother, pianist and teacher Lisa Jura, is published by Warner Books. 

     Dennis James has made a performing career out of the delight in discovery by taking up obscure and challenging musical instruments that have fallen into disuse but for which there remains a viable repertoire. Emerging as a “curious musician with curious instruments” on the international scene in 1991 with over fifty music festival appearances that year, he has since developed a concert, recording, and lecture career that keeps him traveling over two-thirds of the year.Dennis James has maintained an active international career in music since 1967, performing to acclaim around the world in solo recitals and with chamber ensembles and major orchestras in concert halls and for music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the South Pacific. 
     He is a graduate of Indiana University with both bachelors and masters degrees in organ performance. Evolving to become a harbinger of both unfamiliar music and unusual music instrument revival, Dennis James has now become a preeminent concert performer and recording artist. He currently has seven solo record albums and three solo compact disc issues, plus has many appearances on various other recording artists' projects to his credit.

    The Musica Curiosa collection of over fifty music instruments emphasizes the vitality of conservation and modern-day reuse of historical cultural artifacts plus the celebration of dynamic new musical inventions. The collection includes devices that represent both failure and success during the last four centuries of music instrument development. Examples range from the Medieval psaltery to Don Buchla's late 20th century inventions, the Lightning and Thunder. Also included are forgotten instruments now being subject to current international revival, such as Benjamin 
Franklin's 1761 Glass Armonica and the Theremin, the 1919 Soviet electronic instrument played by waving one's hands in the air. There are also instruments that have not yet been placed within the confines of either success or failure, such as the Baschet Brothers' Cristal (the 1950s avant-garde glass & steel sound sculpture from Paris, France) and Leopold Rollig's Orphika (the 1815 Viennese miniature fortepiano).