Hailed for her "superb command of color and nuance" by Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Elise Blatchford is a flutist involved in many projects. She has toured Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, a group committed to international co-operation and understanding through orchestral music. In October of 2009, she traveled to the Dominican Republic with the group Traveling Notes in a project supported by the U.S. Embassy and the Dominican Ministry of Culture to mentor chamber musicians in Santo Domingo. She is currently an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the flutist for the Civic Orchestra Wind Quintet.

Past highlights have included performing with the contemporary-music-focused Jolas Quintet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Elise was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Frank Bowen Flute Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2003, Elise performed Joan Tower's Flute Concerto at the Aki Festival for New Music in Cleveland. In 2007, Ensemble Parallele featured Elise in Lou Harrison's opera Young Caesar at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Aside from new music ventures, Elise has performed with the National Orchestral Institute and freelanced with orchestras in the Chicago area, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon.

Elise has received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her teachers have included Tim Day, Michel Debost, and Kathleen Chastain.

Midwest native Lauren Cook is a graduate student of clarinet performance and literature at Northwestern University.  Prior to Northwestern, she studied at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN and St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN where she graduated magna cum laude and with distinction in 2009 with a bachelor of music degree in clarinet performance.

Lauren has played the clarinet since age 10.  After winning first place in the John Shildneck Young Artist Competition and soloing with the Lincoln Municipal Band, she became an active member of the ensemble.  As an undergraduate student, she held positions as principal chair in the St. Olaf Band and Orchestra, and frequently performed in the Indiana University Wind Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony Orchestra.  She was principal clarinet of the the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute Orchestra in Washington, D.C.,  as well principal clarinet as in the Opera Orchestra for the Martina Arroyo Foundation in New York City.  She was featured as tour soloist with the St. Olaf Band on their 2009 California Tour, and has also performed in China, Spain, and nearly 20 U.S. States.  In addition to soprano clarinet, Lauren played bass clarinet in the St. Olaf Orchestra and various orchestras in Nebraska.

Lauren is an active teacher and presenter.  She has been teaching clarinet privately since high school, and has been a guest presenter on clarinet playing and audition techniques.  She was also a teaching assistant in the upper levels of Aural Skills and guest conductor of the St. Olaf Clarinet Choir.   Her teachers include Steve Cohen, Jun Qian, Howard Klug, and Christy Banks.

As a soloist, saxophonist Daniel Goodrich has won the University of Puget Sound Concerto Competition, playing Jacques Ibert's Concertino da Camera with the UPS Symphony Orchestra. He was also a national finalist in the Music Teachers National Association Competition in the woodwind soloist category. He has served as the principal saxophone in the UPS Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, South Sound Symphonic Band, and as a member of the Tacoma Concert Band. Recently, he mentored young players as the coach of the saxophone section of the Puget Sound Youth Wind Ensemble.

Daniel Goodrich is currently pursuing a graduate degree in saxophone performance at Northwestern University. He received a degree in music education from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, graduating summa cum laude in 2009. While there, he was a recipient of the Delwen and Genevieve Jones Endowed Music Scholarship, the Paul Bellamy Endowed Music Scholarship, the John and Hazel Wiborg Academic Scholarship, and the Puget Sound Trustee Academic Scholarship. He was also on the dean's list and inducted into Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. His teachers have included Frederick Hemke, Fred Winkler, and Julia Nolan.

Brett Johnson is the trombonist of the Chicago-based quintet Axiom Brass. In residence at the Music Institute of Chicago, this group performs all across the world. Axiom Brass was recently featured in a week of master classes and performances at the Grand Teton Music Festival. This past December, Axiom performed with Chris Martin, principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony, at the Midwest Band Clinic. In addition to a heavy performance schedule, Axiom Brass is also dedicated to education. This ensemble frequently works with musicians of all ages in hopes of spreading the joy of music.

Brett has attended Yale's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop in addition to a number of other seminars. Equally at home in many styles, Brett regularly performs around the Chicago-land area with ensembles ranging from classical music to jazz and hip-hop. He often performs with new music ensemble Dal Niente, has performed with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, and has performed with Rotini and the Rainmakers as the opening act for N*E*R*D and The Decemberists. Brett has collaborated with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Brett Johnson began his studies on the trombone and piano at the age of 10. He soon continued his trombone studies under the tutelage of Dr. Russell Widener, principal trombone of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. Brett currently attends Northwestern University where he is pursuing degrees in both Jazz Studies and Trombone Performance. His primary teachers include Michael Mulcahy, Charlie Vernon, Peter Ellefson, and Elliot Mason.

An avid sports fan, Brett enjoys watching the Jayhawks (University of Kansas Basketball team). He also enjoys listening to music, playing tennis and has recently begun learning the viola.

Andrew Nogal grew up in Lemont, Illinois.  He has performed with the Chicago and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras.  A committed advocate for new music, he has been featured on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series and at the Lucerne Festival Academy, both under the direction of Pierre Boulez.  At the invitation of eighth blackbird, he performed at the Ojai Music Festival 2009.  He has been a member of Contempo, the new music ensemble in residence at the University of Chicago, and the Tomorrow Music Orchestra, an avant-garde jazz group.  His primary teachers include Ray Still and Michael Henoch, and he has also studied with members of the Ensemble InterContemporain and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.  He has been in residence at the Banff Centre and at Carnegie Hall for a workshop on Varèse and Messiaen conducted by David Robertson.
 
Nogal accepted a production internship at Minnesota Public Radio in Saint Paul after the completion of his undergraduate studies.  He holds degrees in Art History and Music Performance from Northwestern University and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 2006.

Leander Star, a graduate student of horn performance and literature at Northwestern University and an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, has been performing and teaching professionally for more than 10 years, since the age of seventeen. Immediately upon finishing high school, he won positions with the Columbia Symphony of Portland, Oregon and the Vancouver Washington Symphony Orchestra. In 2007, Leander received his bachelor's degree in horn performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he studied with San Francisco Symphony players Jonathan Ring and Robert Ward.

Leander has held positions as principal horn with the Vancouver Washington Symphony, the Newport Symphony Orchestra (where he was also an educator for the Educational Outreach Program), the Oregon Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Rose City Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared with the Eugene Symphony, the Monterey County Symphony Orchestra, the Astoria Music Festival Orchestra, the Portland Opera in the Parks Orchestra, and other ensembles throughout the west coast. Additionally, he has recorded and collaborated with the bay-area band "The Monolith" and with New York-based singer-songwriter Jason Anderson.

As a soloist, Leander has given several recitals; the most recent, entitled "Horn on Tap", was produced by Classical Revolution PDX, an organization devoted to bringing classical music into unusual venues such as bars, clubs, and cafes.

Leander is an avid educator and has maintained private music studios and given seminars on brass playing in Chicago, Illinois and throughout the west coast.