Satik Andriassian is a classical guitarist and ethnomusicology scholar Satik Andriassian is the recipient of several awards and scholarships including the distinguished Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Scholars Award for her guitar performance and her scholarly achievements. Satik Andriassian is a lecturer of classical guitar at California State University Los Angeles where she runs a successful and progressive classical guitar

studio and ensemble. Ms. Andriassian studied Classical guitar with Loris Chobanian, Sharon Isbin and Ron Purcell.

Ms. Andriassian is Founder and Director of CSULA Gohar & Ovanes Andriassian Classical Guitar Festival and Competition. Since 2016, the festival has attracted many young talented classical guitarist participants and gained sponsorship of several major organizations and companies including Yamaha Guitars, La Bella Strings, Addario Strings, Guitar Solo International and California State University Entertainment Alliance. The 2018 Festival is proud to present the addition of Junior High and a High School Classical Guitar Clinic in addition to the Solo Competition, Composition Competition, masterclasses and concerts.

Ms. Andriassian has been a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Players since 2009. Her solo career spans concertizing throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East. She specializes in promoting new music written for the guitar by American composers and has performed works of George Crumb, Leslie Bassett and John M. Kennedy, among others. Since 2013 she has been

the master guitar teacher at the renowned Malta International Music Festival and Competition where she serves as one of the committee of international judges for all instruments. In Italy she participates annually at the Settimana della Musica - Proloco Murlo as well as the Solarino Guitar Festival as a soloist, chamber music performer and teaching masterclasses. During the summer of 2018 she launched her first Guitar Ensemble European Tour, visiting and concertizing in several European cities, including London, Rome, Sicily and Malta. Currently, she is working on a Performers and Composers Workshop which will take place in Siena, Italy.

Satik Andriassian resides in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, composer, John M. Kennedy and her two children, Taleen and Tadeh.

American composer and scholar John M. Kennedy produces an eclectic range of work from mixed ensemble and solo pieces to multi-media compositions, all reflecting his early background as a rock and jazz bassist. In 2017 he received a Fulbright Scholar Award, supporting an invitation from the University of Malta to teach music composition and seminars on American music. While in Malta, he was asked to write a work for brass and percussion commemorating the arrival of the SS Ohio to Malta, breaking a WWII blockade of the island nation. The work was premiered in Malta on the 75th anniversary of the arrival. Over the last 18 months, he has completed 7 works for solo and chamber music combinations including “Breath, Smoke, Crystals” for solo saxophone by Tong Yang of China at the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb, Croatia. Also in Zagreb was the European premiere of “Lamentations: Hayasdan” for saxophones and piano by Dionisios Russos of Greece. In the Fall of 2018, his solo double bass piece, “Syrinx: Requies I, D.M.” was published in the UK by Recital Music and his solo ‘cello work, “Fury” will be premiered in New Zealand in January, 2019. Upcoming performances in 2019 include a new work for the TM+ ensemble of France, a work for solo trumpet and fixed media, and a work for chamber winds and Chinese suona. In February 2019 he will be featured as bassist in a concert of works by Los Angeles composers at the Wende Museum, including a solo realization of a graphic score of William Roper and a work of Jack Van Zandt with soprano Stacey Fraser and Grammy Award-winning pianist Nadia Shpachenko.

Recent compositional highlights include premieres by Interensemble of Padova, Italy; the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble in Moscow; the Soundwaves Festival in St. Petersburg, performances at the Malta International Music Festival and Competition in Valletta; the 2012 World Saxophone Congress, St. Andrews, Scotland, and new music festivals in Bangkok, Thailand, Kwang-ju, Korea, and Daegu, Korea. His commissions include the Olympia Youth Orchestra, the Baldwin-Wallace College Wind Ensemble and the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra. Early recognition for his work includes the Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a Young Composer Award from ASCAP. His work receives continuing recognition with ASCAPlus Awards and grants from Meet the Composer, Inc. (now New Music America), the American Composers Forum, Los Angeles, and several Creative Leaves and Grants from Cal State Los Angeles. Kennedy attended the University of Michigan where he received his MM and DMA studying with Leslie Bassett, William Albright, Fred Lerdahl and Eugene Kurtz. Since 1994 he has taught at California State University, Los Angeles, where he was honored with an Outstanding Professor Award in 2013. For more information on his work, please visit www.johnmkennedy.net, or follow him on Twitter (@composerkennedy) and Facebook (@johnmkennedycomposer).

Sevag Derderian is an accomplished baritone, pianist and organist, is the founder and director of the Music Education Department of the Association of Armenian Church Choirs of the Western Diocese (AACCWD). During his time as Chairman, the AACCWD has launched two music scholarship funds, developed a music curriculum for the Christian Education Council & HyeCamp, held masterclasses, workshops, trainings, and expanded the online sacred music library. Currently, he is leading a project for the first comprehensive collection of Armenian Apostolic Church Hymns and variable compositions.

A native parish member of Saint Peter Armenian Apostolic Church ( Van Nuys, CA), Derderian serves as a guest musical conductor and artistic director at his home parish where his concerts have attracted hundreds of parishioners with ever-expanding orchestral and choral works. Derderian is a proud board member of the CSULA Gohar & Ovanes Andriassian Classical Guitar Competition, Festival & Symposium and union member of the American Federation of Musicians (Local #47). Derderian pursued his vocal training with Professor Juliana Gondek of UCLA as well as Leslie Delehanty and Howard Austin.

Vasil Chekardzhikov Born in 1979 in Varna, Bulgaria, Vasil endeavored the journey in music at the age of 5 learning to play the Accordion. Following the example of his brother Nikola and sister Petya, he picked up the guitar as his main instrument in 1987, and along with his twin Petar formed the youngest professional guitar quartet in the world at the time, touring Europe under professional management from 1994 until 1997 under the name of Four Of a Kind, releasing their first cd album in 1994. In 1998 he graduated the guitar class of Liuben Haralambiev from “ Dobri Hristov” School of the Arts and went to complete his undergraduate degree in Pedagogy from the Academy of Fine Arts, Music and Dance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He was the only student that was able to complete four different concentrations in Guitar, Solfegio, Ethnomusicology (playing the tambura), Voice and took extended training in, Choir, Winds and Orchestral conducting! He completed his MM Degree in Guitar Performance under the guidance of Prof. David Grimes in 2006, and studied orchestral conducting under Prof. Kimo Furumoto ! Since then Vasil has launched along with his brothers one of the most innovative programs for educating young guitar rising stars at the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana , CA. Currently he is a recording, and touring professional with his brothers as a member of one of the finest guitar trios on today’s stage TRIADA. He has won over a dozen international guitar competitions, performed with numerous orchestra and with over a 1000 appearances across the globe, he is among the most respected educators and performing artists in the modern guitar scene today! Currently Vasil is serving on the Faculty of Encore High School of The Arts, Riverside.

Gabriel Almazan is a music composer and performer in classical and commercial music genres. He has his Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from California State University, Los Angeles where he studied under Dr. John M. Kennedy, Dr. Sara Graef, and Prof. Steve Wight. He plays bass guitar, classical and electric guitar, drums, piano, and has performed some vocal work. As a performer, Gabriel has recorded self-produced demos and one studio-produced full-length LP, and he has performed numerous shows around Southern California. As a composer, Gabriel has written music for classical guitar, strings, piano, brass, percussion, electronics, winds, voice, and he has written and co-written numerous pop and rock songs.In 2017, Gabriel was awarded the Gohar & Ovanes Andriassian Classical Guitar Composition Competition for his guitar quartet, Party Person. In 2018, the CSULA Classical Guitar Ensemble under the direction of Prof. Satik Andriassian with Gabriel as a member were chosen to perform at the 5th Solarino Classical Guitar Festival in Sicily, as well as give two performances in Malta. In these performances, Gabriel had his European premiere of Party Person. Following the tour, Gabriel was also selected to compose for and participate in the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival & Academy in Virginia, where he premiered two works: a film score segment, The Boat, for mixed chamber ensemble (flute, b-flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) and an art song, Remember, for soprano and piano. In October of 2018, Gabriel was selected to perform in the Electronic Music Midwest Festival in Illinois,

where he premiered his solo electric bass and electronics piece, New Mexico.

Scott Detweiler is an award-winning artist who was born and raised in New Orleans. Now based in Woodland Hills, he performs regularly in the Los Angeles area with his N.O. Jazz Funksemble, solo, and as cantor at Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino. He has performed Asia, Europe and South America. Scott is a prolific lyricist and composer of jazz standards, blues, opera, chamber music, ballets, sacred, etc, in the grand tradition of American composers such as Bernstein, Marsalis and Gershwin. He also has a large catalog of music composed for acoustic guitar. In L.A. he studied with Henri Mancini, Pulitzer Prize winning composer Dr. Albert Harris and lyricist K.A. Parker. In N.O. he studied as a private student in

the home of Ellis Marsalis, guitar at Loyola University and music composition and voice at U.N.O. (He currently studies guitar under the tutelage of Robert Conti). As a composer, his orchestral debut was with N.O. Symphony, and as for dance, he has composed and collaborated with Gabriel Masson Dance Company (New York), Martin Dancers (North Hollywood) and Ballet Memphis (Memphis). He is a compelling performer and is known for his funk-infused arrangements of blues, gospel and soul classics and for performing his self-arranged horn standards, for guitar. Scott is a writer of hundreds of songs not only for his own releases, but also for other artists, including funk band sensation, Orgone. He has released over 20 (twenty) albums under his own name, including

his recent “Magnificat In Blue”, a blues/jazz based oratorio based on a bible story. Detweiler is the recipient of The Congressional Certificate of Recognition, has been honored by Billboard Music Awards, The Nashville City Song Festival, Utah Composer’s Guild and is a sought-after consultant by leading international music instrument and product manufacturers.

Kevin Cooper is a classical and baroque guitarist from central California with an affinity for the extremes of modern and early music. He performs and records regularly with Agave Baroque and Ensemble Mirable. He has also appeared with Tesserae, Musica Pacifica, Les Suprises Baroque, Live Oak Baroque Orchestra, and the Corona del Mar Baroque Festival Chamber Orchestra. Kevin’s publications range from guitar quartet arrangements like Carlo Farina’s Cappricio Stravaganteto a collection of folk and children’s songs entitled Snakes, Snails, and C Major Scales. His recordings include projects with Agave Baroque and Ensemble Mirable as well as Night of Four Moons,a CD of modern music for voice and guitar with mezzo-soprano Catherine Cooper on the Doberman-Yppan label. In 2006, he was honored as the Outstanding Doctoral Graduate in music from the University of Southern California, where he studied with William Kanengiser and James Tyler. Currently he leads the guitar program at Fresno City College.

Sheldon Mehr was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended public schools there. He enrolled at Northwestern University as a Music Major and later transferred to UCLA where he earned a BA Degree in Music and a California Teaching Credential. He began teaching music for the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1955 and completed requirements for the MA Degree at the University of Southern California and California State University, Northridge.

During his fifteen-year tenure with the Los Angeles School District, Sheldon served as Director of Instrumental Music, Department Chairman, Training teacher at Belmont, Van Nuys and Granada Hills High, and Assistant Conductor/Manager of the District Honor Orchestra. His performance groups earned numerous awards at festivals and contests, participated in demonstrations and clinics throughout southern

California.

Mehr joined the faculty at Moorpark College in 1970 where he founded and directed the Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra, Concert Band and Chamber Ensembles. He taught courses in Music History, Fundamentals, Theory and Appreciation. He served as Chair of the Performing Arts Faculty.

Mehr has composed more than fifty works for band, orchestra, voice, chamber ensembles, piano, and jazz ensembles. He is the author of two textbooks; Music Fundamentals and The Music of the Media: An Innovative Approach to Music Appreciation. His children’s book on music, Sarah P. Reinhardt’s Band was published in 2006, and The Dilemma of Harold T. Finch was published in 2010. A book of short stories, The Walls of Jericho was published in 2009, and the second book of short stories, The Buck Stops here, the same year.

He has served a guest conductor, adjudicator, lecturer and clinician throughout Southern California and has presented papers on Film Music, Music Appreciation and Adjudication Techniques for the Music Educators National Conference as well as the Music Association of Southern California Community Colleges. Mehr is a member of the American Society of Composers and Publishers, a life member of Musician’s Union, Local 47, and Phi Mu Alpha. Mehr retired from teaching in 1991 and continues to actively participate in the musical climate of Los Angeles.

Sara Carina Graef’s music has been performed around the United States as well as in Canada, Turkey, and the Czech Republic. She was awarded the inaugural Northridge Composition Prize for her orchestral score, night shows to my eyes the stars, and won the Premio Citta’ di Pescara Composition Competition in Italy for her piano solo, Nottanosti. She was the recipient of the Sadye J. Moss Endowed Musical Composition Prize and the Hans J. Salter Award for Composition, and was elected to membership in Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Kappa Lambda. She has held residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Ernest Bloch Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers’ Symposium. In the summer of 2014 she served on the faculty as Composer-in-Residence at the Luzerne Music Center in New York.

Her recent song cycle, Stone, for soprano, trumpet, and piano, was commissioned by performers Nancy Maria Balach and John Schuesselin, both of whom serve on the faculty of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), where they premiered the work in the spring of 2014. The piece was subsequently performed by faculty at the Luzerne Music Center, and will be recorded in the spring of 2015 as part of a grant from the Presser Foundation awarded to trumpet player Paul Futer. Other 2014 premieres included Brass Bucket, for brass quintet, which was commissioned by the Luzerne Music Center Faculty Brass Quintet and was recently named a finalist in the University of Wisconsin, River Falls Workshop and Competition. Her piano solo, Nottanosti, was recently chosen to be recorded by New York pianist Jai Jeffryes as part of a CD of new piano works, to be released by Steel Wig Records in 2015. Dr. Graef’s most recent commission comes from celebrated “Red Mendelssohn” violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn, who will premiere the piece in New York in November of 2014.

Dr. Graef is a Professor of Music at California State University, Los Angeles. She earned her Bachelor of Music in flute performance and composition from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from the University of Southern California, where her principal teachers were James Hopkins, Morten Lauridsen, and Erica Muhl.

Alexander Elliott Miller is a composer and guitarist whose music has been described as "wild...unearthly...lyrical...a voice worth listening to" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and "deceptively laid back in an LA way...inventive....unconventional" (LA Times).

Miller has collaborated with Grammy nominated musicians including pianists Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay and soprano Tony Arnold, as well as many contemporary classical ensembles and organizations such as HOCKET, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Earplay New Chamber Music, the Boston New Music Initiative, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet and the Panic Duo, among others. In 2017, pianist Vincent Craig performed one of his compositions at Carnegie Hall.

In the fall of 2018, his album TO….OBLIVION: Historic Landmarks Around Los Angeles was released; the work is a collection of pieces inspired by six lost landmarks in LA, each of some social significance, scored for solo electric guitar, sound effects and video.

Miller is on the faculty of California State University Long Beach and Chapman University, where he teaches music theory and composition. He holds degrees from USC, the Eastman School of Music and the University of

Colorado at Boulder.

Sean Samimi completed his music studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California (BM, MM, GC in classical guitar performance, and courses in Audio Engineering and Arts Management).

Sean joined the Los Angeles office of the renowned artist agency Opus 3 Artists, LLC in 2009 and assisted its management with a large number of distinguished instrumental soloists and conductors—in the process building up a network of music industry professionals from around the world. He joined the Philharmonic Society of Orange County in 2013 as an Artistic Administrator, overseeing operations and programming of instrumental soloists, chamber music ensembles, and orchestras. As a Board Member and Artistic Advisor of the Laguna Beach Music Festival (in partnership with Laguna Beach Live!), he led the 2015 festival’s programming and production to its first ever sold-out performances in their 13-year history. Having earned the confidence and trust of many artists combined with a vast knowledge of ‘Artists and Repertoire’ that he has become known for, Sean founded Aranjuez Artists, Inc. in 2015 to represent them nationally and internationally. He is frequently invited to give lectures on music business industry topics related to Arts and Non-profit Management, Artist Management, Careers in Music, and Developing Entrepreneurial Skills. He’s been invited to give music business and entrepreneurship lectures at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, 2016 Guitar Masters Festival and International Competition (Wrocław, Poland), 2018 Miami International GuitART Festival and Chapman University’s Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music where he’ll be returning again in fall of 2017 in addition to California State

University, Los Angeles’s school of music invitation to serve as panelist on the topic of music industry and entrepreneurship panel discussion with industry experts. His background in audio recording, A&R, and artist management has made him a favorite candidate among festivals and competitions to invite for jury duty. Recent distinguished festival and competitions jury duty invitations include Olsztyn Guitar Festival (Poland), 2016 Guitar Masters International Competition, 2018 Miami International GuitART Festival, 2018 The JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, and 2018 Gohar & Ovanes Andriassian Classical Guitar Competition at Cal State LA.

Charles Suovanen received his Bachelor’s Degree in Guitar Performance and Master’s Degree in Music from California State University, Northridge.His primary teachers were the guitar faculty at CSUN under the leadership of Dr. Ronald Purcell. He furthered his education through master classes under the direction of Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Alirio Diaz, Elliot Fisk, Robert Guthrie, Oscar Ghiglia, John Mills, John Duarte, Alice Artz and Manuel Barrueco. In 1977, he was selected from among his classmates to perform for the great Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia.

Mr. Suovanen and the other outstanding guitar faculty of LACC have developed one of the most comprehensive classical guitar programs found in any community college district in the State of California.

David Tanenbaum recognized internationally as an outstanding performing and recording artist, a charismatic educator, and a transcriber and editor of both taste and intelligence, David Tanenbaum is one of the most admired classical

guitarists of his generation. He has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, the former Soviet Union and Asia, and in 1988 he became the first American guitarist to be invited to perform in China by the Chinese government. He has been soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, the Oakland Symphony, Vienna’s ORF orchestra, with such eminent conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, Kent Nagano and John Adams. David Tanenbaum has been a featured soloist at many international festivals, including those of Bath, Luzern, Frankfurt, Barcelona and Vienna, as well as numerous guitar festivals. In 1989, as President of the Second American Classical Guitar Congress, he commissioned five new works, including Rosewood by Henry Brant for a large guitar orchestra. He has subsequently conducted Rosewood more than a dozen times on four continents. While his repertoire encompasses diverse styles, David Tanenbaum is recognized as one of today’s most eloquent proponents of new guitar repertoire. Among the many works written for him is Hans Werner Henze’s guitar concerto An Eine Aolsharfe, which he premiered throughout Europe and recorded with the composer conducting, Terry Riley’s first guitar piece, Ascención, four works by 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis, two pieces by Roberto Sierra, and a suite by Lou Harrison. He is currently working with Terry Riley on a series of 24 guitar pieces. He has toured extensively with Steve Reich and Musicians, was invited to Japan in 1991 by Toru Takemitsu, and has had a long association with the Ensemble Modern. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with, among others, the Kronos, Shanghai, Alexander and Chester String Quartets, dancer Tandy Beal and guitarist Manuel Barrueco. He is currently a member of the Pacific Guitar Ensemble and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. David Tanenbaum’s three dozen recordings, which reflect his broad repertoire interests, can be found on Naxos, New Albion, EMI, Nonesuch, Ars Musici, Rhino, GSP, Albany, Audiofon, Bayer, Acoustic Music Records, Bridge, Stradivarius and others. His 2002 recording as soloist with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adam’s Naive and Sentimental Music was nominated for a Grammy as the Best New Composition. His most recent recording, of the complete guitar works of Sofia Gubaidulina, was released on Naxos in June, 2015. He has produced many editions of guitar music, including the David Tanenbaum Concert Series for Guitar Solo Publications. He has also written a series of three books, The Essential Studies, which analyze the etudes of Sor, Carcassi and Brouwer and compliment his recordings of those works on GSP, and his chapter on the Revival of the Classical Guitar in the 20th Century appears in the Cambridge Companion to the Guitar. David Tanenbaum is currently Chair of the Guitar Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the 1995 Oustanding Professor Award, and he has been Artist-In-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music. He is in demand for master classes worldwide. Mr. Tanenbaum’s students have won many international competitions, and his former students hold teaching positions internationally. David Tanenbaum studied guitar with Rolando Valdez-Blain, Aaron Shearer and Michael Lorimer, attending the San Francisco Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory. Further studies included work with pianist Jeanne Stark-Iochmans and harpsichordist Laurette Goldberg. He participated in the 1981 New York master class with Andres Segovia.