John McMurtery (founding member) holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School. He received an M.M. from Rutgers University and a B.M. from Central Washington University. Mr. McMurtery performs with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, UpTown Flutes, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, The Society for Chromatic Art, and the New Vienna Chamber Ensemble. Recently, he appeared as soloist with the Artemis Chamber Ensemble in a performance of Carl Nielsen's Flute Concerto. Mr. McMurtery has commissioned and premiered works by several composers, including Jackson Hill, James Romig, and Edward Taylor. His primary teachers include Dr. Hal Ott, Bart Feller, and Julius Baker. He served as a one-year Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for the 2006-2007 school year. In 2007 he became section flutist with the orchestra of the New York City Opera.

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-Kirk 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.

Ted Gurch (founding member) is Associate Principal/E-flat Clarinetist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1989. Prior to coming to Atlanta, he served for three seasons as Principal Clarinetist with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. He attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Stanley Hasty and Charles Neidich, earning a Bachelor’s Degree and the Performer’s Certificate. While at Eastman he was active as a saxophonist in the school’s jazz program, and was a member of the award-winning Eastman Jazz Ensemble. He is a member of the contemporary music ensemble Thamyris, with which he has performed and recorded numerous world and regional premieres, and he also performs with Bent Frequency, an Atlanta-based multi-media new music group. He is an Artist in Residence at Kennesaw State University, an Artist Affiliate at Emory University and coaches the clarinet section of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Helen Hwaya Kim (founding member), Canadian violinist, earned her Bachelor and Master Degrees from The Juilliard School. She has appeared as soloist with the Boston Pops, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Vancouver, Calgary, Aspen, Juilliard, National Arts Center, and Montreal Metropolitan Orchestras. She also performed for three seasons as assistant and associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 1992, she won the prestigious Artists International Competition in New York and, as a result, gave debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Summer Music Festival. An active chamber musician, she has performed at the Sante Fe and the La Jolla chamber music festivals. Her performances have been broadcast on NPR, CBC and KBS radio networks. Ms. Kim resides in Atlanta where she is associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera and performs with local contemporary music ensembles Thámyris and Bent Frequency. She is assistant professor of violin at Kennesaw State University.

James Romig (founding member) studied at the University of Iowa and Rutgers University, where he earned a Ph.D. under the tutelage of Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt. His works -- commissioned by soloists, ensembles, and arts organizations -- have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent guest composer visits include Northwestern University, Columbia University, the University of Illinois, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. He has taught at the University of Iowa, Rutgers University, Bucknell University, and is currently on faculty at Western Illinois University. As a presenter of new music, Romig tours and records as conductor of the Luna Nova new-music ensemble and serves as co-director of The Society for Chromatic Art, a NYC-based ensemble/organization founded in 1997. His works are available from Parallax Music Press, Curving Walkway Publications, Flute World, and www.jamesromig.com.

Lee Ferguson (founding member) studied as a scholarship student at the University of Iowa under Thomas Davis. In 1995 he received a B.M. in percussion performance and then was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Bernhard Wulff at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany (1996-98). Lee was a member of the Freiburg Percussion Ensemble which received first prize in the German Music School Competition for the category New Music (Leipzig 1998). He has played with Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Surplus, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Musik Fabrik NRW and is a member of the new-music initiative Suono Mobile. He is dedicated to the performance of new music in solo and chamber repertoire. Ferguson is a percussion instructor at the Southern Black Forest Music School in Tiengen, Germany.