COMPOSERS
Katahj Copley
Georgia native, Katahj Copley (he/him/his) premiered his first work, Spectra, in 2017 and hasn’t stopped composing since. As of now, Katahj has written over 100 works, including pieces for chamber ensembles, wind ensembles, and orchestra. His compositions have been performed and commissioned by universities, organizations, and professional ensembles, including the Cavaliers Brass, California Band Director Association, Admiral Launch Duo, and “The President’s Own” Marine Band. Katahj has also received critical acclaim internationally with pieces being performed in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, and Australia.
Katahj received two Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of West Georgia in Music Education and Composition in 2021. In 2023, he received his Masters in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin - studying with Omar Thomas and Yevgeniy Sharlat. He is currently studying music composition at Michigan State University.
Aside from composing, Katahj is an excited educator who teaches young musicians the joy of discovering music and why music is a phenomenal language.
“Music for me has always been this impactful thing in my life. It can soothe, it can enrage, it can quiet, and it can evoke emotions that are beyond me and this world we live in. I believe that music is the ultimate source of freedom and imagination. The most freedom I have had as a musician was through composing. Composition is like me opening my heart and showing the world my drive, my passion, and my soul.”
Nicole Piunno
Nicole Piunno (b. 1985) is a composer who views music as a vehicle for seeing and experiencing the realities of life. Her music reflects the paradoxes in life and how these seemingly opposites are connected as they often weave together. Her harmonic language and use of counterpoint mirrors the complexity of our world by acknowledging the light and dark, past and present, beauty and brokenness, confinement and freedom, chaos and order, spiritual and physical, life and death.
Piunno holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition and a Master of Music degree in theory pedagogy from Michigan State University. Her composition teacher was Ricardo Lorenz. She earned a Master of Music degree in composition at Central Michigan University, studying with David Gillingham. Nicole earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and her emphasis was on instrumental music.
Dr. Piunno is a frequent guest at universities and festivals in the United States. Her works for wind ensemble have been performed by ensembles around the world, including “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the United States Coast Guard Band, and the United States Air Force Band of the West. Her large ensemble music has also been featured at multiple regional CBDNA conferences, TMEA, the Midwest Clinic, and numerous all-state concerts and state conferences.
Her chamber music has been performed around the world and showcased at conferences such as the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the International Trumpet Guild Conference, the International Trombone Festival, and the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference.
Her works are represented on many commercially released recordings that can be found on Naxos, DAG Klassical, Mark Records, and others.
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa (6 November 1854, Washington, D.C. – 6 March 1932, Reading, Pennsylvania) was America's best known composer and conductor during his lifetime. Highly regarded for his military band marches, Sousa is often called the "The March King" or "American March King".
Sousa was born the third of 10 children of John Antonio Sousa (born in Spain of Portuguese parents) and Maria Elisabeth Trinkhaus (born in Bavaria). His father played trombone in the U.S. Marine band, so young John grew up around military band music. Sousa started his music education, playing the violin, as a pupil of John Esputa Jr. and G. F. Benkert for harmony and musical composition at the age of six. He was found to have absolute pitch. When Sousa reached the age of 13, his father enlisted him as as an apprentice of the United States Marine Corps. Sousa served his apprenticeship for seven years, until 1875, and apparently learned to play all the wind instruments while also continuing with the violin.
Several years later, Sousa left his apprenticeship to join a theatrical (pit) orchestra where he learned to conduct. He returned to the U.S. Marine Band as its head in 1880, and remained as its conductor until 1892. He organized his own band the year he left the Marine Band. The Sousa Band toured 1892-1931, performing 15,623 concerts in America and abroad. In 1900, his band represented the United States at the Paris Exposition before touring Europe. In Paris, the Sousa Band marched through the streets including the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe – one of only eight parades the band marched in over its forty years. Sousa died at the age of 77 on March 6th, 1932 after conducting a rehearsal of the Ringgold Band in Reading, Pennsylvania. The last piece he conducted was "The Stars and Stripes Forever", his most famous work and the US's national march.
Sousa wrote 136 independent marches, while a host of other marches and dances have been adapted from his stage works. Despite the genre's relatively limited structure, Sousa's marches are highly varied in character. The vast majority are in the quickstep dance style and a third of their titles bear military designations. His earlier marches are best suited for actual marching, while later works are increasingly complex. He also wrote school songs for several American Universities, including Kansas State University, Marquette University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota.
Michael Martin
A native of Marietta, Georgia, Michael Martin joined the trumpet section of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops as fourth/utility trumpet in October 2010. Martin attended Northwestern University where he received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in trumpet performance studying with Barbara Butler and Charles Geyer. Martin was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2006 and 2008, and received the Roger Voisin Trumpet Award both summers. He has performed with orchestras across the country and around the world including the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Chicago Symphonies, and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming. He has performed as guest principal trumpet with the Honolulu Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic and with the Malaysian Philharmonic of Kuala Lumpur. From 2006 to 2009, Martin was a regular member with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A champion of new music, Martin has performed with acclaimed contemporary music groups Eighth Blackbird and the Pacifica Quartet and has also performed with members of the CSO as part of their "MusicNow" series at the Harris Theater. An award-winning composer, Martin also studied composition at Northwestern University and orchestration at University of Chicago with renowned composer, orchestrator, and conductor Cliff Colnot; he has received commissions from members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
In addition to being the first brass player in 25 years to win the Northwestern University Concerto Competition, in 2006 Martin was also the winner of the National Trumpet Competition in Washington, D.C. and was subsequently invited to perform at the Kennedy Center representing Northwestern University as part of "The Conservatory Project," an initiative aimed at highlighting the nation's most distinguished collegiate musicians. A devoted teacher, Martin has taught students ranging from ages 10 to 24 in middle and high school concert and marching band programs around the country. Martin is also a brass instructor with the Drum Corps International World Champion Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps of Rockford, Illinois. He currently consults with the Arizona Academy of the Performing Arts of Tucson. Prior to joining the Boston Symphony, Martin enjoyed a dynamic freelance career with a diverse group of ensembles and performing artists including Sufjan Stevens, the Burning River Brass, and the Still Swingin' Big Band of Atlanta, Georgia. He has been a finalist for positions in the President's Own United States Marine Band, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic as well as the symphonies of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, and San Francisco. Martin is also co-artistic director of the National Brass Symposium.
Aaron Perrine
Aaron Perrine creates vividly colorful and rhythmically infused layers of music, inspired by the soundscapes and unparalleled allure of the natural world. He is a two-time winner of the American Bandmasters Association Sousa/Ostwald Award for his compositions: Only Light in 2015 and Pale Blue on Deep in 2013. Another one of his compositions—Temperance—won the 2017 CBDNA Young Band Composition Contest. His music for winds has been featured at ABA Conventions, CBDNA National and Regional Conferences, TMEA, The Midwest Clinic, The Western International Band Clinic, and at numerous all-state concerts and state conferences.
Perrine’s works for solo instruments with winds have garnered much attention in recent years. Drifting, for euphonium and wind ensemble, was awarded the 2023 ITEA Harvey Phillips Award for Excellence in Composition. In 2018, Perrine’s saxophone concerto—It Has to Be Beautiful—was premiered by Kenneth Tse with the Symphonic Wind Orchestra of Croatian Armed Forces at the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2024, Tse performed the concerto at the International Saxophone Symposium with the United States Navy Concert Band, conducted by Captain Kenneth Collins. Later that year, Carolyn Braus and the United States Air Force Concert Band performed It Has to Be Beautiful numerous times on tour.
A native of Minnesota, Perrine’s education includes a doctorate from the University of Iowa, a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, Morris. He was elected to the membership of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association in 2024. For more information, please visit www.aaronperrine.com.
J. Scott McKenzie
Scott McKenzie (b. 1971; reportedly still alive, unusual for a composer) is a composer, arranger, and conductor currently serving as a band officer in the United States Army. His oath and personal ethics stipulate that he can’t use his grade or position for personal gain, so that’s all he can say about that.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Virginia Tech and a Master of Music degree in composition from George Mason University, where he was a student of Dr. Glenn Smith and Mark Camphouse. He previously studied music education and conducting at Old Dominion University and the Peabody Conservatory. Prior to doing a crazy thing and enlisting in the Army, he taught band, chorus, and general music at the middle school level for four years. If you taught middle school general music for any length of time, you might not think joining the Army was that crazy, either.
Scott has won accolades and the occasional prize for his work. He is the only two-time winner of the Columbia Summer Winds Outdoor Composition Contest (even though he does most of his writing indoors): Keynote Address recently won the 2016 prize, while A Summer Breeze took the 2012 title. His Fanfare for Enduring Freedom was a 2007 winner of the Dallas Winds’ ‘Call for Fanfares,’ which he conducted with the combined members of that ensemble and The United States Army Field Band. He enjoys serving as an adjudicator and guest conductor for honor band festivals and other events.
Scott and his wife, Anne have three children, Jimmy, Colleen, and Allie. (The kids were so named so that everyone in the family has at least one double letter. Why do this? No particular reason.) Jimmy is currently a masters candidate in wind conducting at Appalachian State University, and Colleen is a professional ballet dancer at Connecticut Ballet. Our youngest, Allie, is learning everything she can so that one day she can rule the universe, or at least be fabulously wealthy. In any case, there will be a lot of cats.
