Though he’s best known as the arts writer for the Colorado Springs Gazette, for which he’s written more than 1,400 articles, Mark was trained as a pianist and composer. His compositions range from the tuneful pastiche of “All About Love,” a musical based on Plato’s “Symposium,” to the thorny atonality of “In Memoriam S.J.,” a theater piece for string quartet. Other compositions include the historical musical “Iron & Gold” (in progress); “Theme and Meditations” for chamber orchestra; “In-a-Gadda-da-Ballgame” for theater organ; and numerous songs and scores for plays.

On piano, Mark was a semifinalist at the 2004 and 2000 Rocky Mountain Amateur Piano Competitions. He is a freelance writer on the piano. His articles include “Yakov Kasman: Portrait of an Artist,” in International Piano (forthcoming); “Distant Sounds,” liner notes to a compilation of 91 performances of Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp Minor issued by Greenhouse Enterprises (forthcoming); “Josef Hofmann’s Controversial Playing on ‘Live’ Recordings, liner notes to Marston CD 52037-2(2003); “Egon Petri Remembered” (co-written with Gordon Rumson), and “Egon Petri: The Complete Recordings,” in International Piano, March/April 2003; “Serge Prokofiev: The Composer as Interpreter,” in Three Oranges Journal, May 2002; “Why Couldn’t They Play With Their Hands Together?,” a paper on romantic piano interpretation, in the Friends of Gunnar Johansen Newsletter (1998).

Mark also has extensive experience as a jazz musician, mostly playing bebop on guitar, vibraphone and piano.

Yelena Balabanova was raised in the Moscow region of Russia, where she began her musical training at the age of four. She received a Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy Summa cum Laude from the Moscow Gnesins’ Music College at the age of 19. She holds a Master's degree in piano performance, pedagogy, chamber music and accompanying Summa cum Laude from the Russian State Academy of Music in Moscow and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she studied with Prof. Larry Graham.

Currently she is the MTNA Colorado Chairman for performance and composition competitions, as well as the NFMC Junior Festival Chairman and composition judge.

Dr. Balabanova has taught at the State School of the Arts in the Moscow region of Russia, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and at the Renaissance Music Academy of Virginia, also frequently performing and judging state and international competitions. She is a sought –after clinician on such issues as injury prevention, artistry, and performance practice.

Dr.Balabanova received the National Teacher Recognition Certificate from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts for the exceptional artistic achievements of her students both in performance and composition.

Dr.Balabanova founded the International Conservatory Studio, Inc. (ICS) in Colorado Springs in 2001. Dr Balabanova’s students have been recognized with many state, national, and international awards, and have also received scholarships to such schools as Peabody Conservatory, BWU, CU-Boulder, Cleveland Institute of Music, Wheaton Conservatory in Chicago, and others.
 

Born in Haifa, in 1955, Israel, Ofer Ben-Amots gave his first piano concert at age nine and at age sixteen was awarded first prize in the Chet Piano Competition. Later, following composition studies with Joseph Dorfman at Tel Aviv University, he was invited to study at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland. There he studied with Pierre Wismer and privately with Alberto Ginastera. Ben-Amots is an alumnus of the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany, where he studied with Martin C. Redel and Dietrich Manicke and graduated with degrees in composition, music theory, and piano. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Ben-Amots studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Ph.D. in music composition. Currently on the faculty of Colorado College, Dr. Ben-Amots is an Associate Professor of music composition and theory.

Ofer Ben-Amots' compositions are performed regularly in concert halls and festivals Worldwide. His music has been performed by such orchestras as the Zürich Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, ÖRF - Austrian Radio Orchestra, The Bruckner Orchestra of Linz, Brooklyn Philharmonic, The Moscow Camerata, Heidelberg, Erfurt, Brandenburg, the Filarmonici di Sicili, the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, The Portland Chamber Orchestra, and the Colorado Springs Symphony among others. His compositions have been professionally recorded by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony, the BBC Singers, and the renowned Czech choir Permonik. Ben-Amots has received commissions and grants from the MacArthur Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Maurice Amado Foundation, Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, Fuji International Music Festival in Japan, Delta Ensemble from Amsterdam, Assisi Musiche Festival, and many others. Ofer Ben-Amots is a the Musical Advisor Ensemble Meitar and currently serves as their Composer-in Residence.

Carlton Gamer's music has been featured in concert halls throughout the United States, including such prestigious venues as New York's Carnegie Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Among its presenters have been the International Society of Contemporary Music, Society of Composers, Current and Modern Consort, and College Music Society. His works have been heard at the San Diego International Computer Music Conference, WNYC Festival of American Music, Grand Teton Music Festival, Southwestern Composers Conference, Contemporary Music Festival, and Colorado College Summer Music Festival.In New York City he founded a new-music group, The Seven, and was the music director for Ilka Suarez and Company. He joined the music faculty at Colorado College in 1954. For two years he served as accompanist for Hanya Holm in her summer dance workshops at the college, retiring from that position to study composition with the eminent composer Roger Sessions and to join the Princeton Seminars in Advanced Musical Studies.

Mr. Gamer has enjoyed various fellowships and teaching positions. He was an Asia Society Fellow at the University of California and in Kyoto, Japan in 1962-3, a Senior Fellow of the Council of Humanities at Princeton University in 1976, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow that same year. He taught at Princeton University in 1974, 1976, and 1981, the Salzbug Seminar in American Studies in 1979, and at the University of Michigan in 1982. He retired from Colorado College in 1994.

Mr. Gamer is a music theorist as well as a composer. He has published widely as a theorist in the Encyclopedia Britannica, The Journal of Music Theory, The Musical Quarterly, and Perspectives of New Music. An article on "Microtones and projective planes," which he wrote with the mathematician Robin Wilson, is scheduled for publication by the Oxford University Press in a forthcoming book on mathematics and music. Recordings of his works have been issued on Capstone, Crystal and MMC labels.

Mr Gamer was born in Chicago in 1929. He grew up in Urbana, Illinois, where his father taught at the University of Illinois and where he began to study piano and composition at the age of eight with Tanya and Hubert Kessler. He later acquired degrees in music from Northwestern University and Boston University.

Margaret Miller began her viola studies in the Detroit area public schools, continuing at Indiana University where she studied with David Dawson, Georges Janzer, and Leonard Davis. She received a Certificate in Chamber Music and a Master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was teaching assistant to Jerry Horner, violist of the Fine Arts Quartet. Ms. Miller has toured Germany and Italy as a member of the Novello Quartet, and has appeared on live radio broadcasts in Chicago with members of the Fine Arts Quartet.

Margaret has an active private studio, and is also Instructor of Viola at Colorado College.

Leonard Rhodes' career has spanned over 30 years as pianist, composer, teacher, arranger, musical director, and organist. He received his diplomas from the Royal Academy of Music and the London College of Music. He also studied with a protégé of Olivier Messiaen at the University of London. Rhodes' affiliations include the Incorporated Society of Musicians (UK), ASCAP (USA), Colorado Composers Forum, the Music Teachers National Association, and the Pikes Peak Arts Council. He is the Executive/Artistic Director of the Pikes Peak Young Composers, Inc. and a Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration Steering Committee member. Rhodes is a private instructor of classical piano, organ, composition, voice, and music theory. He was Director of Theory and Composition Studies at the Colorado Springs Conservatory, and Music Advisor at Madison County Day School, Madison, Wisconsin.

Rhodes' many compositions and commissions include My Head and My Heart; The Adventures "Musical" of Pericles (in honor of the 10th Anniversary of the Virginia Sharkespeare Festival); The Waterbabies; Incidental Music for A Christmas Carol; Salonika; Private Lives; and educational pieces for Trinity College London. Rhodes also arranged music for, and produced the BBC Radio (UK) Choirgirl of the Year. His compositions may be found on his website: www.lenrhodesmusic.com.

Rhodes has musically directed live performances of I Do! I Do!, The Boyfriend, Private Lives, A Christmas Carol, Beehive, The Rocky Horror Show, Leader of the Pack, Doonesbury, Marat/Sade, Something's Afoot, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In the USA, Rhodes has served as a state and regional panel member for the Colorado Council on the Arts; U.S. Coordinator and Representative for Trinity College London; and Teaching Artist for the Texas Institute for Arts in Education.

In the UK, Rhodes served as the Head of Music at various schools. He was the Founder and Director of the Oxney Theatre Centre, and Director of the Tenterden Choral Society in Kent, England. He was also, at one time, the youngest employed church organist (age 13) in England. He has held many church positions for over thirty years as a professional musician. Rhodes was signed to CBS Records as keyboardist for the band, Key West. Leonard Rhodes' biography can be found in 2000-2001 edition of the International Who's Who in Music, Volume One - Classical and Light Classical.

Curtis Smith is a Senior Instructor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs where he teaches Music Theory, Music Appreciation and a variety of topics courses. Off campus he maintains a class of private piano and compositions students. Mr. Smith is also known for writing the program notes for the Colorado Springs Symphony and his award winning radio program, "Kids Know the Score." As an active composer, his book of modern and postmodern piano pieces, "For the Twentieth Century Young (at heart!)" is published by Boston Music.

As guest conductor, Maestro Smith has appeared with virtually every major orchestra in the United States, including the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Honolulu, Quebec and Saint Louis Symphonies and the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics. He has also conducted at the Eastern Music Festival and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. He became Principal Guest Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 1997.

No stranger to the world of international conducting, Maestro Smith has appeared abroad with the Orquestra Sinfonica de Tenerife and with symphonies in Spain, Mexico and South America. In 1996-97 he conducted five performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 throughout Japan.

In March 1999, Maestro Smith recorded for BMG Classics with the Warsaw Philharmonic in Poland. In the summer of 1986, he became the first American conductor to record with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. The resulting set of recordings, entitled “The Moscow Sessions”, featured the music of Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Glazounov and Shostakovich, and was issued to great critical acclaim by the audiophile label Sheffield Lab. With The Louisville Orchestra, he has led a number of its series of First Edition Recordings of American contemporary composers, including works by Gould, Harris, Rorem and Piston. He made his RCA recording debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and clarinet soloist Richard Stoltzman.

On the operatic stage Maestro Smith has led performances of Salome, Norma, Lucia di Lammermoor. The Pearl Fishers, Le Coq d’or, La Bohème and, in Colorado Springs, conducted the Opera Theatre of the Rockies 2003 production of the Daughter of the Regiment. New York City appearances include two Absolute Concerto programs at Avery Fisher Hall, a Carnegie Hall concert with the American Composers Orchestra and soloist Emanuel Ax; and a program at Alice Tully Hall with violinist Itzhak Perlman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Known for his commitment to working with student musicians, he has also led performances at both the Manhattan School of Music and the Yale University School of Music.

In fact, in April 2004, with a much-heralded performance of Mahler’s 7th Symphony, Maestro Smith concluded his eleven year tenure as Conductor-in-Residence at Yale, where he was head of the orchestral conducting and teaching program and led the Yale Philharmonia.

A native of Portland, Oregon, Maestro Smith initially trained as a pianist and went on to perform both as a soloist and a recital partner for such celebrated vocalists and instrumentalists as Renata Tebaldi, Franco Corelli, Sherrill Milnes, Walter Trampler, Ruggiero Ricci and Pinchas Zuckerman. He began his conducting career at the Tanglewood Music Festival as a musical assistant to Erich Leinsdorf. He also spent time at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he worked under the guidance of George Szell.

Maestro Smith has been a music staff member of the Metropolitan Opera, the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music. He is the recipient of several honorary doctorates and, with The Louisville Orchestra, fourteen awards for adventuresome programming from the American Composers, Authors and Publishers. He received the Ditson Award for service to American music from Columbia University.

When time permits, Maestro Smith puts his pen to paper where he has produced a number of compositions for orchestra, chamber and solo instruments, including the Sunriver Variations for Orchestra, Three Pieces for Piano, and the Sonata for Flute and Piano, written this past year for performance by his wife Leslie and himself. He is a full time resident of Colorado Springs.