Hailed for her "superb command of color and nuance" by Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Elise Blatchford is a flutist involved in many projects. She has toured Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, a group committed to international co-operation and understanding through orchestral music. In October of 2009, she traveled to the Dominican Republic with the group Traveling Notes in a project supported by the U.S. Embassy and the Dominican Ministry of Culture to mentor chamber musicians in Santo Domingo. She is currently an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the flutist for the Civic Orchestra Wind Quintet.

Past highlights have included performing with the contemporary-music-focused Jolas Quintet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Elise was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Frank Bowen Flute Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2003, Elise performed Joan Tower's Flute Concerto at the Aki Festival for New Music in Cleveland. In 2007, Ensemble Parallele featured Elise in Lou Harrison's opera Young Caesar at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Aside from new music ventures, Elise has performed with the National Orchestral Institute and freelanced with orchestras in the Chicago area, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon.

Elise has received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her teachers have included Tim Day, Michel Debost, and Kathleen Chastain.

Midwest native Lauren Cook is a graduate student of clarinet performance and literature at Northwestern University.  Prior to Northwestern, she studied at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN and St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN where she graduated magna cum laude and with distinction in 2009 with a bachelor of music degree in clarinet performance.

Lauren has played the clarinet since age 10.  After winning first place in the John Shildneck Young Artist Competition and soloing with the Lincoln Municipal Band, she became an active member of the ensemble.  As an undergraduate student, she held positions as principal chair in the St. Olaf Band and Orchestra, and frequently performed in the Indiana University Wind Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony Orchestra.  She was principal clarinet of the the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute Orchestra in Washington, D.C.,  as well principal clarinet as in the Opera Orchestra for the Martina Arroyo Foundation in New York City.  She was featured as tour soloist with the St. Olaf Band on their 2009 California Tour, and has also performed in China, Spain, and nearly 20 U.S. States.  In addition to soprano clarinet, Lauren played bass clarinet in the St. Olaf Orchestra and various orchestras in Nebraska.

Lauren is an active teacher and presenter.  She has been teaching clarinet privately since high school, and has been a guest presenter on clarinet playing and audition techniques.  She was also a teaching assistant in the upper levels of Aural Skills and guest conductor of the St. Olaf Clarinet Choir.   Her teachers include Steve Cohen, Jun Qian, Howard Klug, and Christy Banks.

David Wegehaupt is a saxophonist passionate about the promotion and development of contemporary music. As a soloist and chamber musician, David has been active in commissioning and performing new music for saxophone. His world premiere performances include pieces by Aaron Einbond, Gael Tissot, Mikel Kuehn, and Claudio Gabriele and his regional premieres include works by Bruno Mantovani, Thierry Alla, Ivan Fedele, and Vincent Bouchot. He has played recitals as a soloist and a chamber musician around the United States, in Belgium, Greece, Germany, France, Canada, and Thailand. He has been invited to perform at festivals worldwide, including Synthermeia Music Festival in Thessoloniki, Greece, MANCA New Music Festival in Nice, France, and Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften in Berlin, Germany. In April 2010, David organized and performed the North American premiere of Bruno Mantovani's saxophone concerto Troisième Round with the Arizona Contemporary Music Ensemble.

David was the only American to reach the semi-final round of the 4th International Adolphe Sax Competition in Dinant, Belgium in November 2006. In May 2007 David graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in Music Performance and a minor in recording technology. While there, he studied with Dr. John Sampen. He was a Fulbright grant recipient in 2007-2008 during which he studied at Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt with Jean-Michel Goury. In May 2010 he completed a MM in Music Performance at Arizona State University where he studied with Tim McAllister.

David is a founding member of the Anubis Quartet, a new generation modular saxophone ensemble committed to the creation, progression and performance of new music. Musicians of Anubis Quartet regularly perform on all members of the saxophone family, resulting in engaging and varied performances which exponentially increase the possibilities of expression through sound. In the upcoming season, Anubis will perform at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexica and as a guest artist for the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music's "Music At The Forefront" Concert Series. The quartet will perform world premieres by Piotr Grella-Mozejko, Ian Crutchley, and Charles Stolte as part of the Tonus Vivus Society for Contemporary Music's 25th Anniversary Season and present the first performance of RYOT PROJECT, a collaboration between composers and performers in an attempt to investigate boundaries between improvised and composed music.

Brett Johnson is the trombonist of the Chicago-based quintet Axiom Brass. In residence at the Music Institute of Chicago, this group performs all across the world. Axiom Brass was recently featured in a week of master classes and performances at the Grand Teton Music Festival. This past December, Axiom performed with Chris Martin, principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony, at the Midwest Band Clinic. In addition to a heavy performance schedule, Axiom Brass is also dedicated to education. This ensemble frequently works with musicians of all ages in hopes of spreading the joy of music.

Brett has attended Yale's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop in addition to a number of other seminars. Equally at home in many styles, Brett regularly performs around the Chicago-land area with ensembles ranging from classical music to jazz and hip-hop. He often performs with new music ensemble Dal Niente, has performed with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, and has performed with Rotini and the Rainmakers as the opening act for N*E*R*D and The Decemberists. Brett has collaborated with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Brett Johnson began his studies on the trombone and piano at the age of 10. He soon continued his trombone studies under the tutelage of Dr. Russell Widener, principal trombone of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. Brett currently attends Northwestern University where he is pursuing degrees in both Jazz Studies and Trombone Performance. His primary teachers include Michael Mulcahy, Charlie Vernon, Peter Ellefson, and Elliot Mason.

An avid sports fan, Brett enjoys watching the Jayhawks (University of Kansas Basketball team). He also enjoys listening to music, playing tennis and has recently begun learning the viola.

Andrew Nogal grew up in Lemont, Illinois.  He has performed with the Chicago and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras.  A committed advocate for new music, he has been featured on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series and at the Lucerne Festival Academy, both under the direction of Pierre Boulez.  At the invitation of eighth blackbird, he performed at the Ojai Music Festival 2009.  He has been a member of Contempo, the new music ensemble in residence at the University of Chicago, and the Tomorrow Music Orchestra, an avant-garde jazz group.  His primary teachers include Ray Still and Michael Henoch, and he has also studied with members of the Ensemble InterContemporain and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.  He has been in residence at the Banff Centre and at Carnegie Hall for a workshop on Varèse and Messiaen conducted by David Robertson.
 
Nogal accepted a production internship at Minnesota Public Radio in Saint Paul after the completion of his undergraduate studies.  He holds degrees in Art History and Music Performance from Northwestern University and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 2006.

Leander Star has most recently performed with the New Mexico Symphony, Chicago Chamber Musicians, and Dal Niente New Music Ensemble. He is a founding member and performer with the City of Tomorrow Ensemble in Chicago, Illinois and a recent member of the the Chicago Civic Orchestra.

Leander began his career early; immediately upon finishing high school, he won positions with the Columbia Symphony of Portland, Oregon and the Vancouver Washington Symphony Orchestra. Leander held positions as principal horn for the Vancouver Washington Symphony, the Newport Symphony Orchestra (where he was also an educator for the Educational Outreach Program), the Oregon Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Rose City Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared with the Eugene Symphony, the Monterey County Symphony Orchestra, the Astoria Music Festival Orchestra, the Portland Opera in the Parks Orchestra, and other ensembles throughout the west coast. Additionally, he has recorded and collaborated with the bay-area band "The Monolith" and with New York-based singer-songwriter Jason Anderson.

As a soloist, Leander has given several recitals; the most recent, entitled "Horn on Tap", was produced by Classical Revolution PDX, an organization devoted to bringing classical music into unusual venues such as bars, clubs, and cafes.

Leander is an avid educator and has maintained private music studios and given seminars on brass playing in Chicago, Illinois and throughout the west coast.

Leander holds degrees in horn performance and literature from Northwestern University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His primary teachers include Gail Williams, William Barnewitz, Jonathan Ring, Robert Ward, and William Stalnaker.