Board of Directors

Ed Sarath, President
Flugelhornist, composer.  Professor of Music and founding faculty in the Department Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at The University of Michigan School of Music. Also Director of the Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies at UM. Designed the ground-breaking BFA in Jazz and Contemplative Studies curriculum at UM.  Performances and masterclasses nationally and internationally. His most recent CD release is New Beginnings, featuring the London Jazz Orchestra performing his large-ensemble compositions.   Many publications on the theoretical, pedagogical, and transpersonal dimensions of the creative process.  His Music Theory Through Improvisation: A New Approach to Musicianship Training is published by Routledge.  He is currently completing Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: An Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society, one of the very first applications of Integral Theory to music.  

www.edsarath.com

Karlton Hester, Vice President

Karlton E. Hester, Ph.D. (composer/flutist/saxophonist), began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of "Jazz" Studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous and electro-acoustic composition. A performer on both flute and saxophone, his formal study included Harry Nelsova and Paul Renzi on flute, Joe Henderson and John Handy in "jazz" improvisation, composition with Bruce Saylor and Robert Starrer, as well as lessons with Frank Chase and Bill Tremble on saxophone.

LaDonna Smith

As Violinist and violist, LaDonna Smith has been on the international new music scene for well over 20 years. She is an active performer, as well as an educator and native of Birmingham, Alabama. By networking with organizers and musicians from other cities, and through her work with the improvisor, she has been responsible for keeping improvised music alive in the South Eastern United States. She has performed at practically every major improvisation festival and many of the New Music Festivals. She has toured Europe on numerous occasions, playing solo and in collaboration with local musicians. Her travels have taken her to the former USSR, Siberia, and Japan.

India Cooke

India Cooke, violinist, composer and educator, plays a wide range of music - from classical to jazz. India has performed in San Francisco Bay Area symphony and opera orchestras, chamber ensembles, and Broadway shows. As one of California's most respected contract artists, she has performed as featured soloist with Joe Williams and the Louie Bellson Orchestra, and has played with Sarah Vaughn, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and many others. Her continuing jazz and improvisation experiences include performances with Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Cecil Tayor, Pauline Oliveros and many others. As an educator, Ms. Cooke was an Artist-in Residence at the San Francisco School of the Arts, and currently teaches at the San Francisco Community Music Center, Mills College, Santa Clara Children's Shelter and at her private studio. She has conducted lecture/performances in Bay Area public schools, colleges, and other educational programs.

Stephen Nachmanovitch, Treasurer

Stephen Nachmanovitch performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of music, dance, theater, and multimedia arts. He is the author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Born in 1950, he studied at Harvard and the University of California, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970’s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin. He has presented master classes and workshops at many conservatories and universities. He has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in a variety of fields since 1966, and has created computer software including The World Music Menu and Visual Music Tone Painter. He lives with his wife and two sons in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bill Johnson

An artist, entrepreneur, and public radio executive, Bill Johnson’s career has many facets.  As a trumpet player and member of Hesterian Musicism he has recorded six albums with the group.  As co-founder and managing partner of African-American Innovators he pursues a progressive education and economic empowerment agenda for artists and other creative professionals.  As station manager of WRTI-FM in Philadelphia, one of the largest public radio stations in the country, he is at the heart of the issues challenging jazz and classical music broadcasting and public media in America.  As former executive director of the African-American Museum in Philadelphia he worked to broaden the reach of African-American artists in the school system and the public at large.  As a young executive in downtown Manhattan he learned to deal with the pressure of being responsible for processing over $100 million a year in money.

His experience in arts management, corporate America, the performing arts, higher education, information technology, board service, and fundraising have given him a unique perspective on the interrelatedness of his work.  He uses this interdisciplinary approach to define new solutions to difficult problems.  His current projects include modeling and building an online community for creative learning, teaching, collaboration, and experimentation, exploiting new technologies such as HD Radio and Internet2 for public radio as well as tackling the information technology challenges and opportunities presented by digitized music, and working with fellow artists to explore alternative sustainable economic models for the music popularly known as jazz.

Jin Hi Kim

Jin Hi Kim is highly acclaimed as both an innovative komungo (Korean fourth century fretted board zither) virtuoso and for her cross-cultural compositions. Kim has introduced the Korean indigenous komungo for the first time into Western contemporary music scene through her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, avant-garde, cross-cultural ensemble, multi-media, and avant-garde jazz improvisations. Kim is “Meet The Composer Music Alive” Composer-In-Residence with New Haven Symphony Orchestra for 2009-2011 seasons.

Kim has performed her own works at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art, Asia Society, Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Expo Zaragoza (Spain), and many significant new music festivals around the world. Kim’s komungo solo works represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Her new komungo compositions are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. Kim has co-designed the world's only electric komungo and created live interactive pieces with a MIDI computer system. Using MAX/MSP, the komungo sound is processed through a personal computer program in live that is triggered by MIDI foot pedal. Staying true to the nature of the instrument, her solo interweaves from old timeless mind to space-age blips.

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