Principal works include a Requiem, a stage musical 'A Fine Time for Wine' (words by Jonathan Posner), from which several songs are widely performed, 'Chaconne Syncopations' for brass quintet, 'Free Spirit' in memory of Princess Diana, 'Jazz Contrasts' and 'Spinning Reels' for string orchestra (commissioned by Robert Turrell/The Soloists Ensemble).

My compositions and arrangements in the Faber 'Stringsets' series include 'Suite and Light' and 'Bytes And Pieces'. I am widely known for my works for double bass, which include three concertos, many ensemble and solo pieces performed and published by David Heyes (Recital Music/Bass-Fest). Works commissioned by American soloist Barry Green (author of 'The Inner Game of Music')include 'Jazz-Suite', Yiddish-Klezmer Medley,and an extensive work for double bass and marimba. Several pieces for younger players are included in major graded-examination lists.

In 1989 Ms. Ouspenskaya was accepted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory where she earned her Masters degree. In 1991 she made her first trip to the United States, winning Second Prize in the Bach International Piano Competition in Washington, DC. Since that year Anna was coming to US every year to perform and give master classes which took her to 18 states. In 1993 Ms. Ouspenskaya was a finalist at the Bach International Piano Competition in Germany. She made her first CD in 1995 with Altarus records, and her second is on its way on Ramsey records due for release this summer. Both CDs represent Russian music: the 1st of Rodion Shchedrin and the 2nd of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

From 1996 to 1998 Anna Ouspenskaya lived and worked in Luxembourg at Dudelange Conservatory, also giving performances in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Scotland.

Her music has been performed in England, Japan, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Turkey, Laos, Thailand and the US. A CD of her piano music, “Exposed on the Cliffs of the Heart” features 5 piano pieces (1992-1998) performed by Francisco Monteiro for AM&M Records, Portugal. Claire and Antoinette Cann, the English duo pianists have premiered three of her two-piano works and have recorded her Pianophoria #3 for Apollo Records. Her most recent commission was Elegy for Violin and Guitar for Duo 46 and was recorded live in a concert in Istanbul. It will soon be available on a CD of new music.

Owens’s music has been described as "... hauntingly beautiful ... with a magnetic quality which draws both performer and audience into a different world. " The Bangkok Times specially noted the "remarkably evocative sonorities" of her music. The Portuguese Fusões Luso-Inglesas called her music “delicate and intimate (with) remote references to Satie's sound universe …”

Todd Oxford was invited to join the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet in 1988 and performed some 600 engagements with the group through the 2001 season. The Quartet presented concerts in affiliation with Columbia Artists Management, Midwest Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Honolulu, Sacramento, CA, Rochester, MN, and Dallas, TX. In addition, the group performed on hundreds of university/college campuses, radio/television programs, orchestral pops series, and as featured artists with wind ensembles.

Mr. Oxford has received many performance awards to include the Dallas Concerto Competition First Prize, Best Instrumental Collaborator (Sidney Wright Award), the University of Texas Concerto Competition, and was recently a finalist in both the Coleman Chamber Music Competition and the Roy Crane Award for Excellence in Music. He has been involved in numerous world premiers and collaborations with prominent composers and performers such as Gunther Schuller, Karel Husa, Warren Benson, David Maslanka, Michael Daugherty, Michael Colgrass, Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, Warren Barker, Oliver Knussen, Daron Aric Hagen, Shulamit Ran, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, David Holsinger, Allen Vizutti, Jeff Tyzik, Julie Budd, Kenny Rogers, the Manhattan Transfer, and the 5th Dimension. Mr. Oxford may be heard as a featured artist on a number of recordings available on the Mark Records label by ensembles such as The Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, the TEX-SAX Saxophone Ensemble, the United States Air Force Band of the West, and the University of Texas Wind Ensemble. His solo CD, Finesse, is available on the Equilibrium label and is distributed nationally by Albany Records. He most recently worked as a recording artist with the Barbwire New Music Project - StephenBarber.com.

Christopher has furthered his studies with classes and consultations with Edward Gregson, George Benjamin, Robert Saxton, Robert Simpson, Samuel Adler and Marek Stachowski.

Michał won the first prize at the Hilarión Eslava competition, second prize at the international cello competition in Arquillos (Spain), obtained the Merit Diploma at the Torneo Internazionale di Musica and was Highly Commended at the RCM cello competition.

Most of his compositions have been performed in contemporary music Festivals (such as Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Angers Musique du XXème Siecle, Musicanova in Sofia, Roma Progetto-Musica ’96 and’99, ...) and in prestigious halls (Salle Gaveau in Paris, Kameralna Philarmonic in Warsawa, Auditorium Kaufmann in Bruxelles, Miller Theatre in New York, ...), in Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Polland, Esthonia, Belgium, Holland, Bulgaria, South Africa Rep. and transmitted via radio by Radio France, Radio Prague, RAI.

In 1987 he orchestrated from the flute and piano score (the original orchestral score was lost) the Concert for Flute and Orchestra of E. Krakamp, who was born in Messina but had Bohemian origin. The first modern performances took place in the same year in Mexico: Guadalajara, Guadajuanito, Mexico City. His compositions are recorded on CD by S.A.M. Editions, Archivio Editions, Musica Domani Editions, RAS Editions, CIMS Editions, Transatlantic Editions (Paris).

ABOUT RUCHIRA Ruchira, an outstanding vocalist groomed in the Kotali gharana has earned an enviable distinction amongst the younger musicians in the realm of Hindustani Classical Music. The competent upholder of this rich heritage was born in 1975 in high traditional family of educationalists, arts and music. She had the privilege of being initiated to this parampara and went under the protégée of the great maestro musician Pandit Manas Chakraborty, her one and only Guru. The master mind of her guru noted the quality of her gifted and rare voice and creative capabilities. Being a perfectionist and trend setter his strict and vigilant guidance moulded her musical genius into a unique blend of highest order. Her gayaki speaks out for her keen interest in aesthetics, spiritual awareness and serenity which is seldom found in modern days. She carefully keeps up with the purity and nuances of the Kotali gharana aligning with the multifarious gayaki of her Guru and his predecessors. The flawless manner in which she brings out the texture of the ragas and taans shows that a rigorous training, hard, and sincere labour has gone into her making as a vocalist and culminated her craftsmanship to what it is- perfect and finished to every detail. Her cognition and remarkable ability to execute intricate combinations of notes in rare ragas, specially her delineation of innovative sargams and taans confirm her eagerness to reach out to wider and wider dimensions. Her voice, the crest of a class can execute a total feast of melody and classicism in khayal, thumri and other semi classical forms. Her music is not only perfect craftsmanship but a rare blend of immaculate precision and emotive imagination, which takes the listeners into a peaceful journey through the unseen and unheard marvels of a new world. She craves for perfection and attains it with ease, the more she attains bigger becomes her reach, richer she becomes newer becomes her dimension. To her, Music is not only an art to perform but a love to live with - it’s a voyage towards eternity that can only be realized by feeling one and the same with Music.

HERITAGE The Chakraborty family of Kotalipara, Faridpur, of the then East-Bengal, is believed to have been drawn towards Indian Classical Music long time ago. One of the ancestors of the family is known to have received training from Seni Gharana and brought the trend. Tarapada Chakraborty’s father Late Pandit Kulachandra Chakraborty and his uncle Late Pandit Ramchandra Chakraborty had their training from Ustad Jahur Khan of Khurja Gharana. Ramchandra had the honour of being the Dwarpandit (court scholar) and the distinguished musician of the Maharaja of Natore. Thus, both the brothers had a wide contact with many leading musicians of their time and had a phenomenal collection of musical wealth. Having moved to Calcutta with this rich inheritance, Tarapada Chakraborty first took lessons from Late Pandit Satkari Malakar especially in Khayal and Tappa. Later, under the guidance of the Great Maestro Late Sangeetacharya Girijashankar Chakraborty, he acquired the distinguishing features of various Ragas, styles and traditional Dhrupad, Dhamar and Khayal bandishes of different gharanas mainly, Seni, Betia, Delhi, Gwalior, Rampur, Agra, Rangila, Jaipur and Kirana. Girijashankar being a pioneer of Thumri style of singing at that time gave Tarapada Chakraborty an intensive training on the Thumri style of Kirana and Beneras gharana as well. In fact, it is quite discerningly evident that Khayal received a rare authenticity and completeness in the heralding voice of Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakraborty in his own way. Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakraborty, the pioneer of this Kotali Gayaki is the legend adored all over India for his contribution towards Hindustani Classical Music. His worthy son Pandit Manas Chakraborty, now the reigning Khalifa of Kotali Gharana is the devout pursuer of various sources and streams of Indian Classical Music. Enriched by his keen interest in Indian Philosophical tradition of all the existing gharanas and having been exposed to the corresponding confluences in his family’s assertively partisan art of music focused his attention on the necessity of discarding in order to select and the necessity of differentiating in order to unite. The Maestro has boldly made the manifold moves of his style to manifest an integrated oneness of the eternal Indian ethos and by now, has initiated a new dynamics of allegiance to the human efforts towards life and its values. Thus, presenting the obscure reality of music in a tangibly graceful, elocutionary form with his undaunted kalabant gayaki, nayaki and majestic mijaaz has made him an ‘institution by himself’ in the international realm of Hindustani Shastriya Sangeet. His contribution in Indian Classical Music for the last fifty years is undoubtedly worth-mentioning and as a Guru he is great. The schooling of Indian Classical Music through the mentors of his family and the torchbearers established around the globe has already entered the seventh generation. Practically, Pt. Manas Chakraborty is the new trend-setter of this Kotali-gayaki. His co-efficiency has earned a unique style which although endures many diversities with that of his father’s proclamatory approach, but at the same time very convergent at the philosophical end and its manifestation reveals the ultimate shape of ‘Kotali Gayaki’.

After a brilliant debut recital at the age of 20, Alexander Panizza has been performing internationally regularly. Among his engagements as a soloist, Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the National Symphony and Brahms First Piano Concerto with the Montevideo Philharmonic in Uruguay stand out. Based in London as of 1999, Alexander completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Performance at the Royal College of Music, where he was awarded the Esther Fisher Prize, Frank Heneghan Prize, Cyril Smith Prize, Hopkinson Gold Medal and Shimmin Prize.

His performance of Ginastera's First Piano Concerto with the LSSO at the Barbican Hall in January 2001 was received with highly positive reviews in The Times and The Independent. Last September, Alexander Panizza was invited to fill in for Martha Argerich at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata, performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with great success.

Panufnik Trio is a young professional piano trio. Its members originate from Poland and living in Germany.