John McMurtery is section flutist of the New York City Opera Orchestra. He has appeared as soloist with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, the Artemis Chamber Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival. In recent seasons, McMurtery toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia, performing in France , Germany , Austria , Italy , the Czech Republic , Japan , and Taiwan . Adding to his discography, he recorded for the NAXOS label as principal flutist on a collaborative disc of world premieres by award-winning composer Sean Hickey. During the 2006-07 school year, McMurtery was appointed Visiting Professor of Flute at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas , and has also taught at Westminster Conservatory in Princeton , NJ . He graduated in 2005 from The Juilliard School with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, where he studied with Jeanne Baxtresser, Julius Baker, and Robert Langevin. Previous teachers include Bart Feller at Rutgers University and Dr. Hal Ott at Central Washington University .

Adam Bowles (founding member) is becoming increasingly active on the contemporary art-music scene, performing frequently in the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, Artburst, and similar venues for new music. Dr. Bowles is a native of Los Angeles who holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He obtained his Bachelor of Music degree at the Eastman School of Music, and received his Master of Music at the New England Conservatory of Music. His main teachers have been Milton Stern, Barry Snyder, Jacob Maxin, and Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff. He has also received periodic coaching with Richard Goode, Malcolm Bilson, and Seymour Lipkin. He is now an instructor on the Birmingham-Southern College Conservatory faculty where he teaches the two highest levels of music theory in addition to maintaining a studio of private students. At the college level he teaches Accompanying and both years of Keyboard Harmony for music majors. During the year Bowles frequently collaborates in recital with both students and faculty at BSC.

Cellist Craig Hultgren (founding member) is a long-time activist for new music, the newly creative arts, and the avant-garde. This year he as performed solo concerts and chamber music in Rome, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadephia and Atlanta. A recipient of two Artist Fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, he is a member of Thámyris, a contemporary chamber music ensemble in Atlanta. A cellist in the Alabama Symphony, he also plays in the Chagall Trio and Luna Nova, resident ensemble of the National Institute of Technology for Liberal Education. Hultgren is featured in three solo CD recordings including The Electro-Acoustic Cello Book on Living Artist Recordings. In 2004, the Birmingham Sidewalk Film Festival 48-Hour Short Film Rush cited him for the best soundtrack creation for the film The Silent Treatment. Every other year, he produces the Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, an international competition that highlights the best new compositions for the instrument.

Jennifer Rhodes serves as principal bassoonist of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. She holds Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree and Performer’s Certificate from Eastman School of Music. Her major teachers are Frank Morelli and John Hunt. Before moving to Memphis, Dr. Rhodes enjoyed a busy freelance career in New York City where she performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and Opera Orchestras, and the American Ballet Theater Orchestra. An active chamber musician, she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the North Country Chamber Players. She recently recorded Jonathan Dawe’s woodwind quintet “Fractal Farm” on the Furious Artisans label and can also be heard playing principal bassoon on Itzhak Perlman’s 1998 EMI recording “Concertos From My Childhood,” accompanied by the Juilliard Orchestra.

Nobuko Igarashi, a native of Memphis, is the Bass Clarinetist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. She received the BM and MM degrees in clarinet performance from Indiana University at Bloomington. Her principal teachers at IU were Eli Eban and James Campbell. Ms. Igarashi has also studied with Howard Klug, Alfred Prinz, Hakan Rosengren and Dennis Smylie. She first joined Luna Nova as guest clarinetist at the 2007 Belvedere Chamber Music Festival.

Robert G. Patterson holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Pennsylvania. His mentors include George Crumb, John Baur, and Don Freund. His compositions have been performed from South Africa to Norway and Spain to Seattle. Among the awards he has received are the 2004 National Symphony Orchestra Residency Commission, 1999 University of Michigan Bands Commission and the 1994 International Composition Prize from the City of Tarragona in Spain. In addition to his musical activities, Patterson helps develop PC-based hotel software for Hilton Hotels, and his interest in computers has led him to become an expert in musical engraving using a computer. He has played the in the Memphis Symphony Orchestra since 1994. He has performed in new music festivals with Luna Nova since its beginning in 2002.

Violinist Marta Szlubowska made her debut at age seven in the Warsaw Philharmonic Recital Hall and was soloist with the Symanowski Liceum Orchestra in Poland and on tour of Great Britain by the age of thirteen. Ms. Szlubowska studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she received her Bachelor of Music Degree and Artist's Diploma. She earned a graduate degree in performance from the University of Massachusetts as a student and teaching assistant of Charles Treger. Ms. Szlubowska has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Julius Baker, Judith Glyde, Alex Klein, Gerhardt Zimmerman, Kevin Kenner, Harvey Felder, and others. She has given numberous performances at the Tanglewooed, Interlochen, and Meadownmount Music Festivals, and has appeared as recitalist with Community Concerts and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. She has performed under the baton of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood, and Alexander Schneider at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. During the summer of 2001 she began an association with the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Ms. Szubowska has been the concertmaster of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra since 2004. In 2007 she joined Luna Nova as guest violinist at the 2007 Belvedere Chamber Music Festival.

An Artist Associate in Voice in the Department of Music at Davidson College, contralto Diane Thornton has distinguished herself as a concert artist, opera singer and recitalist across the country. Concert engagements include appearances with the Bach Aria Group, the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall; the National Chorale at Lincoln Center; and the Charlotte, Kansas City, Winston-Salem, Roanoke, and North Carolina symphony orchestras. Operatic engagements include roles with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Carolina, Gold Coast Opera, Piedmont Opera Theater, Minikin Opera and Pennsylvania Opera Theater. She has premiered American operas through the Billings Institute of American Music and the Contemporary Opera Company of America; and has premiered works by American composers in recital through venues such as the Shakespeare Concerts in Boston, the Davidson College Concert Series, The Penn Composers Guild, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, the College Music Society and the Weymouth Center Artist Series.