Michele Kalo - Founder, Director

 

Michele Kalo knew her passion was to teach music in the 7th grade. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from Bowling Green State University and completed her Master’s Degree in Music Education from ASU in 2007. She has been in public education since 1998, teaching in the Detroit Metropolitan Area for five years and in Arizona since 2003.  Her ensembles have consistently received superior and excellent ratings and have performed in New York City, Toronto, Mackinac Island, Walt Disney World, Walt Disney Land, and at the Outback Bowl.
Michele is the founder and executive director of Sonic Arts, a performance-based music education organization.  Since its inception in 2005, Sonic Arts has expanded to include five ensembles: Sonic Brass, Sonic Winds, Sonic Seniors New Horizons Band and Orchestra, and Sonic Boom. Michele is an active adjudicator and clinician for the Arizona Band and Orchestra Director's Association.  She is an adjunct faculty member at Mesa Community College, teaches privately, works in local high schools with both marching and concert bands, and loves to write for and perform with the Salt River Brass.
 

Patrick Sheridan - Clinician

Patrick Sheridan has been enthusiastically received as a solo artist around the world. He made his solo debut playing an arrangement of The Blue Bells of Scotland accompanied by his mom, Diana, when he was just 10 years old, only months after he had started playing his chosen instrument, the tuba! He made his solo orchestral debut at the age of 15 playing a Mozart Horn Concerto. Since then, Patrick has rocketed to success as a solo performer in venues ranging from the White House to an NBA half-time show.

As a former member of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, he thrilled audiences across the United States with his amazing virtuosity and musicianship as one of the band's primary soloists. He is equally at home with standard classical repertoire and as an entertainer in the "pops" realm. In addition to his musical studies with legendary tuba artists Arnold Jacobs, Daniel Perantoni, Harvey Phillips and Jim Self, Mr. Sheridan holds a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis in finance and marketing from the University of Michigan.
 
 

Sam Pilafian - Clinician

Sam Pilafian is perhaps best known as a founding member of the internationally renowned Empire Brass Quintet. He has also recorded and performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Metropolitan Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, and Pink Floyd. As a solo Jazz artist, Sam has recorded 12 CDs. He is also a member of the large brass ensemble Summit Brass. Recently, he became a member, arranger, and recording producer of the Brass Band of Battle Creek. Solo recital and concerto performances during the current year have taken him to Canada, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Austria, Germany, and England. In 1967, Sam won the Concerto Competition at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, becoming only the second tubist in over fifty years to do so. He subsequently won fellowships to Dartmouth College and the Tanglewood Music Center. While at Tanglewood he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to perform onstage in the world premiere of Bernstein's Mass, which opened the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
He is currently Professor of Music and Director of the Concert Jazz Band at Arizona State University, having previously served for twenty years on the faculties of Boston University and their summer Tanglewood Institute. Sam has won the Walter Naumberg Chamber Music Award, the Harvard Music Association Prize, and the University of Miami's Distinguished Alumni Award. A past President of T.U.B.A., an international tuba/euphonium interests organization, Sam now serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors.