Celebrating 40 years in music, NEA Jazz Master and three-time GRAMMY® award-winning drummer, producer, and educator, Terri Lyne Carrington started her professional career in Massachusetts at 10 years old when she became the youngest person to receive a union card in Boston. She was featured as a “kid wonder” in many publications and on local and national TV shows. After studying under a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music, Carrington worked as an in-demand musician in New York City, and later moved to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for both the Arsenio Hall Show and Quincy Jones’ VIBE TV show, hosted by Sinbad.

Brenden Lowe started playing classical piano at the age of 5. He then switched to jazz in 7th grade and became extremely frustrated by the lack of organization, direction and systematic education.

He continued his journey and graduated from The New School University in Manhattan, NY, with a jazz piano performance degree.  He has now dedicated himself to delivering easy, clear and structured jazz piano education through his jazz piano education business at Jazzpianoschool.com so that jazz students can avoid the guessing, frustration and constant feeling of being lost while making more progress with ease. He is now coaching other performing artists in business to create stable income streams.

New York Times described Meg Okura’s music as “grandiloquent beauty that transitions easily from grooves to big cascades to buoyant swing.” Jazz composer and violinist, Meg Okura, is the recipient of the 2018 Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  Since the founding of the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble in 2006, Okura has used composition as a tool to negotiate her conflicting identities: a violinist in jazz, a Japanese immigrant Jew by choice, and a mother of a black Jew.

Native of Tokyo and formerly a concert violinist, Okura toured all of Asia as the soloist and concertmaster of the Asian Youth Orchestra as a teen. She moved to the U.S. in 1992 and made her solo debut at Kennedy Center with the late Alexander Schneider’s New York String Orchestra. She then earned B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School as a classical violinist, only to make a difficult shift to becoming a jazz musician.

Her Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble has performed nationally and internationally, including Winter Jazz Fest, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Blue Note New York, KL Jazz Festival (Malaysia), Levitt Pavilion in Los Angeles, and the Kennedy Center.

Her credit as a violinist, erhu player, and composer appear on over 50 recordings and soundtracks, including David Bowie, Lee Konitz, Diane Reeves, and she has toured with Michael Brecker, Steve Swallow, Tom Harrell, Cirque du Soleil, and others.

In 2018, she placed No. 6 Jazz Violinist in the International Critics Polls.

Hi! I’m Tracy Friedlander, horn player, ensemble creator, host of the Crushing Classical podcast and a visibility and audience building coach for musicians. After 20+ years as both a freelancer in a big city and a full-time “extra” musician in an orchestra for 10 seasons, I needed something to change in my career.

Over the course of 4 years, I navigated the online world and became visible through my writing and content creation online. I now help my clients overcome their blocks to becoming visible, own their expertise and authority through their writing and other content, and navigate the world of online networking by using social media strategically to grow their audience and attract their ideal clients online.

Business coach Jennifer Rosenfeld collaborates with top musicians to create profitable and impactful online education businesses that enable her clients to win back their time and pursue their dream creative projects. A leading arts entrepreneurship educator and speaker, Rosenfeld has worked with non-profits, university music programs and conservatories, and professional musicians on developing a wide range of educational and artistic projects. She received her JD/MBA from Stanford University.

Glory St. Germain ARCT RMT MYCC UMTC – Founder/CEO, Course Creator, Coach, and Author of the Ultimate Music Theory Series with Over 50 books to her credit plus the creator of the music theory app. She is THE ultimate music theory expert!
Glory brings her remarkably successful business experience to the development of the Ultimate Music Theory Program, Ultimate Music Teachers Membership, and Online Courses including the Ultimate Music Theory Certification Course for Teachers.
Glory is a Neuro-Linguistic Practitioner (NLP) which she incorporates into her teacher training. She has served as President for many Music Teachers organizations and associations. The Ultimate Music Theory YouTube Channel features new video training by Glory every week. Glory is also a contributing author to the Amazon International Best Selling POWER OF WHY Series.
Glory’s passion for teaching excellence sets a new standard of achievement in Music Education in producing continuous training and coaching through her Exclusive UMTC ELITE EDUCATOR Program – Empowering Teachers to Elevate their Income, Impact their Teaching and Grow their Expert Music Teaching Business.
Ultimate Music Theory Workbooks, App and Online Courses – A Proven Step-by-Step System on the Way To Score Success!
“Enriching Lives Through Music Education”

Multifaceted American jazz pianist and composer Emmet Cohen is in the vanguard of his generation’s advancement of music and the related arts. A recognized prodigy, Cohen began Suzuki method piano instruction at age three, and his playing quickly became a mature melding of musicality, technique, and concept. Downbeat observed that his “nimble touch, measured stride and warm harmonic vocabulary indicate he’s above any convoluted technical showmanship.” Cohen notes that performing jazz is “about communicating the deepest levels of humanity and individuality; it’s essentially about connections,” both among musicians and with audiences. He leads his namesake ensemble, the “Emmet Cohen Trio,” is a vibrant solo performer, and is in constant demand as a sideman. Possessing a fluid technique, an innovative tonal palette, and an extensive repertoire, Cohen plays with the command and passion of an artist fully devoted to his medium.

Stanichka Dimitrova, whose playing has been described as “wonderfully full in tone and exuberant in performance” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, was a winner of the 2010 Concerto Competition at Stony Brook University, which resulted in a solo performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. She has also been a First Prize winner in the “Barbara Krakauer Scholarship Award” Competition at the Associated Music Teachers League in New York City, “Hopes, Talents, Masters” International Competition in Dobrich, Bulgaria, “Svetoslav Obretenov” National Competition in Provadia, Bulgaria, and was a Top Prize winner of the National Competition for Austrian and German Music in Burgas, Bulgaria. Ms. Dimitrova is a graduate from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Sally Thomas. She recently received her doctoral degree at Stony Brook University, studying with Philip Setzer, Pamela Frank, Soovin Kim and Philippe Graffin.

   In 2017 Stanichka made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of of Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York and St. Cyril and St. Methodious International Foundation. 

​    Stanichka is the founder and artistic director of PhiloSonia chamber music series, designed to create a personal connection between audience members and classical music and was most recently featured in Guernica Magazine. For more information about PhiloSonia visit: www.PhiloSonia.com

     In addition she is currently a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic’s Philharmonic Schools Program, where she participates in a variety of outreach activities and performances in public schools throughout New York.

is one of the most dynamic musicians of the millennial generation. An award-winning composer, producer, entrepreneur, educator and trombonist, Finzer is bringing the joy and power of Jazz to traditional fans and the most modern 21st century audiences. He’s on a mission to be a passionate voice defining the sound of Jazz in this age.
Born into the musical world (his mother, Sherry Finzer, is a flutist), Finzer developed a fascination for the music of Duke Ellington and found himself, in high school, performing at the annual Essentially Ellington competition of Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was then that he decided to pursue a life in music himself. His budding talent was recognized by Wycliffe Gordon who began a mentorship by writing four pieces for the young Finzer while he attended the Eastman School of Music. Nick went on to get his masters at Juilliard’s prestigious Jazz program where he was mentored by trombone legend Steve Turre.
2020 saw two new honors for Nick; a Grammy nomination with Anat Cohen’s Tentet and topping the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll in the “Rising Star Trombone” category. Finzer’s 5th album as a leader “Cast of Characters” with his sextet Hear & Now was welcomed to critical acclaim, and a nationwide album release tour.

Acclaimed concert artist, transformational speaker, and unexpected 2020 Independent Presidential candidate, Jade Simmons, brings a fresh vision and a new lane of experience to the table, eschewing the traditional path of artists and politicians who have come before her.

Named one of the “Best Keynote Speakers of 2019” (Northstar Meetings) and 2020 (BigSpeak Speaker Bureau), Jade spent the first few years of her career performing as a classical concert pianist. Following an artistic epiphany, she pivoted from playing the piano to impressing audiences, to using the piano as the vehicle by which to provide the inspiration, information, and entertainment that profoundly moves them instead. Her performances have taken her to renowned halls like New York’s Town Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center with the Dallas Symphony, and has included the hallowed halls of the White House and the US Supreme Court. Jade’s innovative performances have garnered her the nickname “Classical Music’s #1 Maverick” and has won her the honor of being named one of the “Best of South by Southwest 2014”.

No stranger to pushing boundaries to see bold results, this concert pianist turned world changer is brought in by the likes of corporations like Mass Mutual, Royal Bank of Canada, DOW, Raytheon, the Hershey Company, Genentech, Valic, Pfizer, and Nationwide to redefine purpose, inspire seismic shifts in mindset, and activate audiences to go out and instantly start living more consequential lives of impact.