Tamara Keshecki, Artistic Director & flutist, holds a Master of Music degree in flute performance from New Jersey City University and a Bachelor of Music from New York University. In 2005 she was the Artist-in-Residence at Cobham International School in London, England and has taught masterclasses at the International School of Monagas in Maturin, Venezuela and Saint Maur's International School in Yokohama, Japan. In 2001 she held a tenure as principal flutist for the Austrian American Mozart Ensemble in Salzburg, Austria. Ms. Keshecki has performed as a featured soloist for many groups and festivals including Solar One Music Festival (NYC), St. Cecilia's Society, New Jersey Pops, and the Messiah Festival of the Arts (Queens). Upcoming solo performances include the Holy Child Concert Series in July. She is a member of the Staten Island Philharmonic Orchestra. Ms. Keshecki is also a founding member of the award winning chamber ensemble Evening Rhapsody which has performed at various venues including NYC & Co.'s CultureFest 2001 in Bryant Park; The Holy Child Concert Series; The New York Historical Society and St. John's University. Ms. Keshecki has been on the faculties of the Wagner College Academy of the Arts, SI Jewish Community Center and is currently the Artist-in-Residence of Classical Music for the 2007 JCC Maccabbi ArtsFest. Ms. Keshecki is an active freelance musician and has an extensive private flute studio on Staten Island.

Pianist, percussionist, and composer Mick Rossi , MCCE Composer-in-Residence, is known for his work in the NY Downtown scene and has been described as "one of the most courageous and gifted charismatic musicians in New York and beyond" (All About Jazz Italy). His new solo recordings include "They Have A Word For Everything" (Knitting Factory), "Nosferatu" (Dreambox), "Inside The Sphere" (Cadence), "New Math" (ToneScience), the up-coming "Songs From The Broken Land" (OmniTone), and his ninth recording "One Block From Planet Earth" (OmniTone), about which Down Beat gives "Four Stars" and All About Jazz describes as "life relishing, [and] unpretentiously profound."

A member of the Philip Glass ensemble as both pianist and percussionist, he has performed and recorded with Alex Acuña, Steven Bernstein, Kelly Clarkson, Dave Douglas, Mark Dresser, Kermit Driscoll, Billy Drewes, Peter Erskine, Eric Friedlander, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gomez, Hall and Oates, Gerry Hemingway, Carla Kihlstedt, Andy Laster, The Mahavishnu Project, Randy Newman, Carly Simon, Johnnie Valentino and Wadada Leo Smith, among others. Performances include the Knitting Factory, Fringe, and Montreux jazz festivals, WNYC's New Sounds, NPR's All Things Considered, John Zorn's The Stone, Metropolitan Opera, Brooklyn Philharmonic, MATA, American Ballet Theater, Jay Leno and David Letterman. Recent films include "The Vagina Monologues" (HBO) and "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" (Artisan).

Anti-Matter: What happens when you combine five accomplished virtuoso musicians and ask them to play as if they had never taken a music lesson? This is the concept behind Mick Rossi's Anti-Matter. The purity and rawness that results is the underlying mandate driving this quirky ensemble – a subversive answer to slick and contrived work. Composed by Mick Rossi (Philip Glass), the group is basically a combination funk band and improvising new music ensemble, with both conventional and non-conventional instruments, including tuba and distorted sampler. Featuring Billy Drewes (Bill Frisell), Ron Horton (Andrew Hill), Jose Davilla (Nora Jones), Michael Sarin (Myra Melford), and Mick Rossi. "Rossi's music is multi-faceted, humorous, life relishing, [and] unpretentiously profound." – All About Jazz.

Bassist J. Brunka has had a varied musical career. His background is very diverse including Classical performances along side James Earl Jones, performing as the opening act for Pop stars Jewel and Brian Setzer, playing free form Jazz in cutting edge clubs like the Knitting Factory and recording multi-Platinum selling records with Elektra recording artist Natalie Merchant. Now his calendar is full of jazz gigs, musicals and classical performances while still fitting in the occasional rock gig. He received a Bachelor's Degree from the State University of New York College at New Paltz with a concentration in Jazz Performance. He has studied Bass with Jay Anderson, Lynn Seton, Susan Hall-Powell and Jay Elfenbein.

Flutist Ann Cecil-Sterman's four solo CDs released on the EMI and ABC labels in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong have sold over 60,000 copies and earned her an ARIA (Australian Grammy) nomination. She has been a regular guest on television on Good Morning Australia and on national radio and has won nine major solo competitions in Australia. She has a particular interest in new music, having premiered many new Australian works for Contemporary Menu, Musicus Novus, and with her own ensemble Newbridge whose novel performances of Pierrot Lunaire, in which all the musicians were directed and choreographed, received rave reviews in the Melbourne Age. She has premiered new works in three MATA festivals in New York, and several works with the Avian Ensemble of which she is a member. Ann has played principal flute with the Philip Glass Ensemble on tours of Greece, Italy and Australia performing the most arduous of Glass's repertoire including Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Anima Mundi. She has appeared on the Carnegie Hall stage as soloist with Trey Anastasio and Patti Smith. She has held full time principal chairs on several musicals on Australian Broadway including Sunset Boulevard, Beauty and the Beast (both starring Hugh Jackman!), Phantom of the Opera, Scrooge, Aspects of Love, Les Miserables and The King and I. She toured Japan with Sarah Brightman and Australia both with Michael Crawford and the Electric Light Orchestra with whom she recorded an album as solo flute. She was principal flutist with the Malvern Symphony Orchestra for ten years. This year she recorded a third Avian Ensemble CD. Later this year she will appear at the BAM Next Wave festival, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, Oberlin School of Music in Ohio, and Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory in Boston. Ann can be heard as flute soloist on the soundtracks of Hollywood films including Secret Window, Taking Lives and No Reservations, and as piccolo soloist on Animals in Love. She appears as soloist on the international cast recording of Beauty and the Beast. Ann has recorded for Avian, Sony, EMI, ABC, Disney, CBS-TV and Warner Bros. Her Bachelor and Masters degrees in music are from the University of Melbourne. Her teachers included Julius Baker, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Mardi McSullea. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, the composer Andrew Sterman and their two children. She's very excited to be performing for Musical Chairs again.

Maria Antonia Garcia, pianist, is a native of Puerto Rico where she stared piano studies with Luz N. Huchinson. She received her Bachelor's of Music with Distinction in Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music and was awarded the W. Burghardt Turner Fellowship from SUNY at Stony Brook for work towards a Master's of Music and Doctoral Studies under the pianist, Gilbert Kalish. Ms. Garcia made her debut with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra at the age of 10. As a soloist she has also performed with the Puerto Rico Chamber Orchestra, at the Inter-American Arts Festival, at the Banff Center for the Arts and at the Ponce Museum of Art Music Series. As a chamber musician she has performed in the United Kingdom, the Czech and Slovak Republic, South America, Canada, Germany, Israel, Tunisia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Poland in ongoing collaborations with the New York based ensemble Poetica Musica, and the Madawaska String Quartet. She has recorded for Slovak National Radio and has recorded a CD of Canadian composer, Michael Hynes work for two pianos entitled, "Four" which received its premiere at Toronto's Glenn Gould Hall, and later broadcasted by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. In 2004 she gave the Puerto Rican premiere of Ricardo Llorca's Three Pieces for Piano and Orchestra at the Festival Interamericano alongside the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. She has served on the faculties at New Jersey City University and the Stony Brook Summer Music Festival and presently Manhattan School of Music and the 92nd Street Y School of Music.

Cellist Clarice Jensen completed her bachelor's (’02) and master’s degrees (’04) in cello performance at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Joel Krosnick. She is now a freelance cellist, and has performed with the New Juilliard Ensemble, Continuum, Columbia Composers, the Argento Ensemble, and the Avian Orchestra. Clarice is the artistic director of ACME, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, a group dedicated to the outstanding performance of contemporary classical music. Clarice performed the U.S. premiere of Guo Wenjing’s Concertino for Cello and Ensemble as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, the world premiere of Dimitri Yanov-Yanovsky’s Hearing Solution for cello and ensemble as part of the Silk Road “Artist in Residence” program, the U.S. premiere of Roger Reynold’s Process and Passion for cello, violin and computer and the world premiere of Donald Martino’s Rhapsody for cello, vibraphone and piano. Ms. Jensen has performed in master classes with composers Elliot Carter and Ned Rorem. She has also worked as a production coordinator for the recording and performing artist, Bjork. Clarice is currently a faculty member of the Connecticut School of Music.

Joseph Kubera, Piano. Hailed by Village Voice critic Kyle Gann as one of “new music’s most valued performers,” pianist Joseph Kubera has been a leading interpreter of contemporary music for the past 25 years. He has been soloist at such festivals as the Berlin US Arts and Inventionen festivals, the Warsaw Autumn and Prague Spring. In the U.S. he has performed at UC Berkeley’s Edgefest, Carnegie’s When Morty Met John, Miami’s Subtropics Festival and Music in the Hamptons. Mr. Kubera has been awarded grants through the NEA Solo Recitalist Program and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. Current projects include recordings of Michael Byron’s Dreamers of Pearl (2005), Roscoe Mitchell’s 8-8-88 (2004), Anthony Coleman’s The Hidden Agenda (1986) and Michael Sahl’s Serenades (1994). He is scheduled to perform works of Cage and Boulez with pianist Heather O’Donnell at the Ostrava New Music Days in August 2005. A leading proponent of the music of John Cage, Mr. Kubera is one of the few pianists performing the difficult works from the 50s through the 70s; he has recorded the complete Music of Changes and the Piano Concert, and has toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Cage’s invitation. In December 2002 he created, in collaboration with composer Michael Schumacher, an installation version of Cage’s Variations VI for the 16-loudspeaker sound environment at Engine 27 in lower Manhattan. Mr. Kubera is a core member of S.E.M. Ensemble, the Downtown Ensemble and Roscoe Mitchell’s New Chamber Ensemble, and he has performed with a broad range of New York groups from the Brooklyn Philharmonic to the New York New Music Ensemble to Steve Reich and Musicians. He tours frequently with baritone Thomas Buckner, and performs with Sarah Cahill in a duo-piano team. He has worked closely with such composers as Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, La Monte Young and “Blue” Gene Tyranny. Solo recordings include Beth Anderson’s Piano Concerto on New World, Cage’s Music of Changes and Lucier’s Still Lives on Lovely Music, and Cowell’s Nine Ings on New Albion. He has also recorded for the Wergo, O.O. Discs, 1750 Arch, Mutable Music, Cold Blue, and Opus One labels.

A native of Taiwan, pianist Wen-Yi Lo, received the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Oxana Yablonskaya. She began her musical training at the age of six and won numerous national competitions in her country. Selected by the Government of Taiwan to further her studies under the Child Prodigy Music Study Abroad Program, Ms. Lo came to the United States in 1981 to enter the Pre-College Division of Juilliard where she studied with Leonard Eisner. Subsequently Ms. Lo has been a top prize winner in various International competitions, including the William Kapell International Piano Competition, the Citta di Marsala International Piano Competition and the V. Bellini International Chamber Music Competition in Italy. In 1990 Ms. Lo was presented in her New York Debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall as Winner of Artists International's Young Artist Debut Piano Award. Since then she has given an abundance of recitals in the United States, the Far East and Europe. Ms. Lo has also been featured on WQXR's Young Artists Showcase in New York. Recently Ms. Lo was awarded the Certificate of Excellence for her extraordinary dedication and achievement in the field of piano teaching by the International Concert Alliance. She has been a faculty member for Academy of the Arts at CSI and at Wagner College since 1993.

Elizabeth McCullough, Soprano, has sung leading roles with the National Opera Company, Duke Opera Festival, American Chamber Opera Company and Liederkranz Opera. She was a finalist in the Bel Canto Foundation Awards and the American Music Recital Competitions and holds B.M. and M.M. degrees from the University of Texas. Ms. McCullough has performed many oratorio and solo recitals throughout the New York City area, premiering new works, songs by women composers and standard repertory. She has given concerts of opera and musical theater works for Sagafjord and Vistafjord cruises and was a guest artist in the New York Times sponsored Young Performers' Series in Bryant and Battery Parks. In addition to being featured in performances of Luce's Belle of Amherst singing Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, she was a Guest Artist at the first U.S. Rachmaninoff Festival Retreat. Ms. McCullough has been on the faculties of Wagner College, Greenwich House Music School, Brooklyn Conservatory, and William Patterson College. Elizabeth is a member of the New York Singing Teachers Association and St. Cecilia of S.I.

Barry Nudelman, , clarinet, oboe & bassoon, is a woodwind specialist. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Hartt College of Music and his Master of Music from the Juilliard School. Mr. Nudelman is a retired Intermediate School Band Director of the New York City public schools. During his tenure as a teacher he performed in over thirty Broadway musicals. During the summer months, Mr. Nudelman can be heard in Plays in the Park in Edison, New Jersey. Currently he is performing on Broadway in Curtains, Wicked, Drowsy Chaperone and Chorus Line.Mr. Nudelman performs at Northfork Music Center in Long Island and State Theater in New Jersey. He has returned to teaching music at St. Joseph's By the Sea where he conducts both Bands and Jazz Bands.

Sandra M. Pace, Harpsichord, is the associate music director at the Church of the Holy Child on Staten Island and teaches organ and piano privately. She has been a rehearsal pianist for The Child Never Sleeps Productions since 2002. She specializes in late Renaissance/early Baroque keyboard music of the Iberian Peninsula. She has held positions as associate organist, rehearsal accompanist and choir director at several churches on Staten Island and in Boston. Sandra received her M.L.S from Pratt Institute where her concentration was in cultural informatics. She received an M.M. in organ performance with an emphasis in music history from the Boston Conservatory of Music where she studied with James David Christie. While living in Boston, she was an adjunct faculty member of the music department at Boston College where she was also the research assistant to the department chair. At Boston College, she also managed three concert series as the concert coordinator. She received a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA; where she was the Holy Cross Organ Scholar. Sandra was the organ curator at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA where she was responsible for the maintenance of a historic pipe organ.

Jacqueline Parrott, pianist, studied at Juilliard, New England Conservatory and Music Academy of the West with notables Nadia Reisenberg, Gyorgy Sandor, and Beveridge Webster. She has been soloist with the Honolulu Symphony, New England Conservatory orchestra under Kenneth Schermerhorn, and the Music Alliance Chamber Orchestra. She has made numerous concert appearance in the U.S. including at New York City's prestigious Weill Recital Hall. Ms. Parrott is a member of the Rachmaninoff Society and performed at the first Rachmaninoff festival. On Staten Island, she has been on the faculty of the JCC Dorothy Delson Kuhn Music Institute, and has performed at Veterans' Hall, Unitarian Church, Wagner College, and on JCC faculty recitals. She is past president of the Saint Cecelia Society, a women's music group which was founded 113 years ago on Staten Island. She has also performed as violinist with the Honolulu and Staten Island symphonies, and the S.I. Chamber Music Players. Ms. Parrott has supported Island charitable organizations by donating her musical talent to raise funds for such groups as Project Hospitality. She has been a strong advocate for presenting works of lesser-known composers, including Amy Beach and Clara Schumann and Leos Janacek. She maintains an active teaching studio on S.I.

Nancy Sima, writer & literary curator, is a graduate from New York University with a Bachelor of Music degree. A former Grants Administrator, Ms. Sima honed her writing skills assisting artists and non-profit groups with their community arts proposals. The experience proved invaluable when she became a freelance writer herself in 2003. Her experience has included writing press and liner notes for Carmela Records, articles and interviews for Family Media, an arts article for Chamber Music America, as well as grantwriting and press for Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble, Inc. (MCCE). With a step into motherhood, Ms. Sima's writing took a leap from grants and press to the world of children's stories and thus was born the character of Molly and the original tales, Molly's Bird Adventure Beyond the Big Oak Tree, Mother's Day at the Big Oak Tree and Molly's Rock Opera with Tamara Keshecki. Inspired by Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, these works are currently being presented as part of MCCE's Children's Concert Series. For all her writing musings, Ms. Sima relies upon a steady diet of words to be her food for thought - novels, short stories, plays, poems, even the everyday comic strip serve to inspire. She is currently at work on her first novel and short story collection.

Chris Thompson, Percussion. Originally from the San Francisco bay area, Chris Thompson performs an eclectic mix of orchestra, chamber, and solo music on both coasts and abroad. Thus far in 2006 Chris has toured performing Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion led by the soloist Jean-Claude Pennetier, and toured with the critically acclaimed contemporary chamber music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. In December 2006 Chris will be a performer in the world premier of Tan Dun's The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera. As a founding member of the percussion quartet Line C3, Chris has toured Japan, commissioned works from some of New York City's best young composers, and twice been in residence at the Juilliard School Summer Percussion Seminar. He is also the solo percussionist for the American Contemporary Music Ensemble. In early 2006 he composed, performed, and did post-production for the score to the short film Kali Ma, directed by Will Graham. Chris is active in New York City as a freelancer in orchestral music, contemporary chamber music, and theater and has performed with the Lincoln Center Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Chamber Soloists, New York City Master Chorale, Stamford Symphony, Axiom Ensemble, EOS Orchestra, Continuum, Dimpho Di Kopane, and VT Mozart Festival, among many others. He has recorded for numerous chamber music projects, as well as for BET and A&E Networks. He holds a Master's Degree from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Daniel Druckman, a Bachelor's Degree from UCLA in percussion performance and composition as a student of Mitchell Peters and Roger Bourland, and a Specialists Certificate in Electronic Music Production from the Berklee School of Music. Chris currently resides in Brooklyn where he spends his free time writing funny techno music.