Arthur Omura is a specialist in historical keyboard instruments. He studied organ repertoire of the Baroque under Charles Rus in San Francisco, modern technique under Dr. Ladd Thomas at the University of Southern California, and harpsichord repertoire under Dr. Lucinda Carver at USC. He has performed at the Boston and Berkeley Early Music festivals and given numerous performances at home in Los Angeles. Omura keeps an active schedule as an organist and harpsichord player. He has worked with MicroFest, wildUp, iPalpiti, and Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra. Omura can be heard on several recordings, most recently on “Spirits of the Air”, a collaboration between countertenor Brian Asawa and mezzo-soprano Diana Tash, out on LML Music.  His interest in instrument making led him to work with harpsichord builder Curtis Berak, whom he has assisted in restoring several instruments, and with organ builder Manuel Rosales. Omura has a Master’s Degree from the University of Southern California.

Tom Peters is a composer and GRAMMY® nominated performer who specializes in creating music for silent films, performing original scores through interactive electronics and synchronized electronic soundscapes. In April 2013, he premiered his original score to the 1927 silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc—his ninth film—at the Toronto Silent Film Festival with Joelle Morton on tenor viol. The score was featured in a radio broadcast over the CBC. His score to John Ford’s classic western The Iron Horse (1924) premiered at The Autry National Center in Los Angeles in March 2015. The Phantom of the Opera, which premiered on Halloween Night 2015, is his 14^th silent film score.

Upcoming projects include Dziga Vertov’s landmark 1929 documentary The Man with the Movie Camera in January 2016 at the Portland Art Museum, and two recordings. The first is Tom’s score to The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, the second is a large-scale work called The Forest, both released on Tiger Barb Records.

Tom’s 2014 GRAMMY® nominated recording of John Cage’s The Ten Thousand Things on the MicroFest label with acclaimed pianists Aron Kallay and Vicki Ray, legendary percussionist William Winant, and a recently discovered recording of John Cage himself performing 45’ for a Speaker was the first American recording of this seminal work. Tom has been a member of the Long Beach Symphony since 1993 and Southwest Chamber Music since 1998. He has performed as a soloist with Ensemble Oh-Ton, People Inside Electronics, MicroFest, and the Schindler House and many others, and has been featured on Nordwest Radio in Hamburg, Germany. He is a lecturer of Double Bass at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at the California State University, Long Beach.

Rong Huey Liu is hailed by her colleagues as “a most expressive oboist with a beautiful dark sound” and by conductor Tomasz Golka as “…. a phenomenal oboist.” Taiwanese-American Rong‐Huey Liu is currently the principal oboist for the Long Beach Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, Reno Chamber Orchestra, and the Riverside County Philharmonic. She also performs with orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, New West Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Reno Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, and the Santa Barbara Symphony. As a Hollywood studio musician, Dr. Liu has performed with Jackie Evancho and is the principal oboist for Andrea Bocelli’s annual west coast touring orchestra. Her playing can be heard on recordings with Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, David Benoit, Bright Eyes, Ron Isley, Mariachi Champaña Nevín, Laura Pursell, Paul Steel, Calico Winds and movie sound track “Fireflies in the Garden”, to name a few.

At age seventeen, Dr. Liu won first place in the Taichung Regional Oboe Competition and the Taiwan National Oboe Competition, which lead her to study in the United States. Upon arrival, she continued to win the performance award from the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, scholarships from Taiwanese College Music competition, first prize award from the Harvard Musical Association, scholarships from the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts, and the Spotlight Awards from Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

Dr. Liu earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Music from the Manhattan School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California with an award from Phi Beta Kappa and a membership of Pi Kappa Lambda. Among her teachers are Rong-Yi Liu, Joseph Robinsons and David Weiss. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Oboe at the La Sierra University, Riverside City College and California State University Fullerton.

As an avid chamber music soloist, Dr. Liu has been invited to perform in the Sundays Live, Grand Performance, Ojai Summer Music Festival, Bruman Chamber Music Summer Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival and a guest artist for Unbound Chamber Music and FOOSA. Rong-Huey has performed Marcello Oboe Concerto in Weil Recital/Carnegie Hall, Kalliwoda Oboe Concertino at Taichung Chung-­‐Shin Concert Hall, Mozart Oboe Concerto, Handel Concerto Gross and Mozart Sinfonia Concertante at the Holt Memorial Hall and Riverside Municipal Auditorium, Corigliano Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra at the Fox Theater with Riverside County Philharmonic and at the Nightingale Concert Hall with Reno Chamber Orchestra, Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin with Grammy nominee violinist, James Buswell for the Neveda Chamber Music Festival and violinist Limor Toren‐Immerman with Mozart Classic Orchestra. She also performed Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in 2014 as a last minute step in for the missing soloist with the Reno Chamber Orchestra. In December 2014, she has recorded Rhapsody for Oboe and Orchestra by Walter Saul under the direction of Theodore Kuchar with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and it will be released by Naxos.

Matt Catingub wears many hats: saxophonist, woodwind artist, conductor, pianist, vocalist, performer, composer, and arranger. Matt is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the Macon Pops in Macon, Georgia, and recently the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Glendale Pops in Los Angeles, the Hawaii Pops in Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as the Festival Pops Conductor of the New Hampshire Music Festival. He has also held the Principal Pops Conductor positions of the Honolulu Symphony, the Hawaii Symphony, and the New Mexico Symphony.

Catingub has guest conducted for some of the most significant Symphony Orchestras in the country, including the Nashville Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, and the Symphonies of Columbus, Hartford, Omaha and throughout Canada and Japan. Catingub has conducted for artists such as Diana Krall, Yes, Al Jarreau, Gladys Knight, Kenny Rogers, and numerous others. And significantly Matt has arranged the music in the orchestra libraries for diverse artists such as Kenny Loggins, James Ingram, Boz Scaggs, the Righteous Brothers, Rosemary Clooney, Vertical Horizon, Natalie Cole, Toni Tennille, Michael McDonald, Dave Koz, Toto, Pat Benatar, and many many others.

The son of the great jazz vocalist and “Polynesia’s First Lady of Song,” Mavis Rivers, Catingub regularly performed with his mom. In 2007 Matt, a proud Pacific Islander was handed the Samoan Chief’s title of La`auli by King Malietoa Tanumafili II, the final title issued before his death. As a young man, he played a variety of instruments, conducted his first orchestra at age 15, focused on Alto sax at 16, and at age 17 played his sax at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and from there toured Japan playing with jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie, and Ruth Brown. From there Catingub joined the Louie Bellson Big Band and a couple of years later joined the Toshiko Akiyoshi / Lew Tabackin Big Band as the lead alto saxophonist. In 1983, Catingub formed the Matt Catingub Big Band, with Rivers as a vocalist, and recorded several critically acclaimed jazz albums with his mom.

Matt had made his solo singing debut at the Frank Sinatra Celebration at New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall and as a result of his performance there, the Concord Jazz CD Gershwin 100 was conceived. Catingub also wrote and performed the music for the George Clooney film, Goodnight and Good Luck, made an onscreen appearance as the leader of the band, created all of the arrangements and played tenor sax in the movie and on the CD. The Soundtrack for Goodnight and Good Luck, featuring Matt and vocalist Diane Reeves won a GRAMMY. Catingub has also enjoyed success as the leader of his Big Band, Big Kahuna and the Copa Cat Pack touring the world with Rosemary Clooney, and backing notable artists such as Michael Feinstein, Linda Eder, Lionel Hampton, and many others. Today Matt is considered to be at the forefront of a new and innovative movement to reinvent Pops into a more fun and accessible format, encouraging dancing (when the venue allows) and loose fun, within a more informal and contemporary setting.

Definition of the word HAPA :

1) Hawaiian word for “half”

2) A person of mixed Pacific Islander ancestry. If an individual has one parent whom is a Pacific Islander, and one parent whom are of an ethnicity outside of Pacific Islander, they would generally be considered “Hapa”

3) A Musical Duo from Hawaii that consists of one member of South Pacific Ancestry and one guy from New Jersey.

Often encapsulated as the “Sound of Maui” or the “Soundtrack of Hawaii” the music and sound of the group HAPA evokes a place that many people have referred to as heavenly. The sound? Expect to hear hypnotic, liquid guitar runs woven around clear, tenor Hawaiian vocals and immaculate harmonies driven by poetic lyrics exulting the rapture of the Hawaiian landscape, History and Mythology. Just add to this a dose of American Folk-Rock, you have what has been described, as “the most exciting and beautiful contemporary Hawaiian music the world knows” (Maui Times). The overriding quality of their music is one of passion, beauty and serenity, found in the majestic tones of the oli (chant), mele (song) and the exhilarating innovative sounds of virtuoso Guitar performances. “Masterful” is how Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Stephen Stills describes the groups Guitar skills.

The group’s recordings have infused fearless and brilliant production while weaving unique, inventive elements of sound and textures into their intricate South Pacific tapestry. Over the years this has included adding such diverse instruments on their recordings as the Irish Uillian Pipe, Hawaiian Pahu Drum and the Electric Sitar. Guest appearances have included friend and Folk Rock icon Kenny Loggins singing in the Hawaiian Language; Internationally recognized Slam-Poet and Storyteller Kealoha; to the final recorded vocal performance by the “King Of Hawaiian Entertainment” Don Ho. “Complex, sophisticated and flawlessly conceived and engineered, HAPA concerts and recordings are as elaborate and visceral as today’s Hawaii” (Kauai Times) These disparate ingredients blended together musically in the Pacific emote the unique flavor of what Hawaii and HAPA music is: “Beautiful, fragile, spiritual, powerful” (Los Angeles Times).

Their music has appeared in countless National TV shows and feature films, and the group was showcased in a PBS Documentary hosted by Peter Fonda, who describes Hapa as “The music of my Bali Hai”. National Geographic kicked off their “Geo Sessions” music series with profiles on the group and Ben Harper. HAPA was the first Hawaii Musical act to be given to honor of being introduced and performed as themselves on the smash Television series, “Hawaii 5-0”, performing their song “Olinda Road” which closed the first season’s finale. An estimated 25 million viewers watched the show and its re-broadcast. “Since my initial move to Hawaii to appear on “Lost”, the HAPA song “Olinda Road” will always remain the Soundtrack for my Hawaii-life” (Daniel Dae Kim).

HAPA’s self-entitled debut Cd released in 1993 became the biggest selling Cd by a group or duo in the history of recorded Hawaiian music. The group’s debut Cd changed the tide and thus terminology of music from Hawaii, since it was the first Cd to establish itself outside of the musical category “Hawaiian Music” and be referred to as “World Music” by Billboard Magazine in 1993. All follow up Cd release have debuted in the Top Ten of the Billboard Magazine World Music Chart. The group’s ground breaking music has established them as the most recognized name in Hawaiian Music internationally since their debut release, continuing their 20 year touring tradition of selling out intimate Supper Clubs, Showcase Rooms, Festivals and Performing Art Centers from Tokyo to Sydney to New York.

The blend of their original vocal sound was originated on a wooden picnic bench in the beautiful little beach town of Lahaina on the island of Maui in the early 1980’s. It has travelled far in 30 years, as Rolling Stone Japan recently described them as “Titans of the Genre”. Don Ho predicted in 1993: “What HAPA means and what their message is will touch and inspire millions”.

Long Beach Camerata Singers was founded in 1966 by Frank Allen as the Vocal Arts Ensemble and served as the resident chorus for the Long Beach Bach Festival, which he founded in 1975.  In 1983, Dr. David Wilson, a professor of choral music at USC, succeeded Frank Allen and led the choir for over twenty years, expanding the Camerata Singers’ repertoire and choosing its name.  Under his baton, the chorus toured Europe in 1999 and 2005.  CSULB choral director Dr. Jonathan Talberg was appointed artistic director in 2005.  He added a core of professional singers to the ranks and led a second European tour in 2006.  From 2009 to 2017 Dr. Robert Istad, director of choral studies at CSU Fullerton, led the choir as its artistic director, expanding the auditioned ensemble to 90 voices and raising the group to the professional-quality level for which it is known today.  Dr. James K. Bass joined the organization in 2017, bringing new partnerships with his position as director of choral studies at UCLA and associate conductor of the Miami-based professional chamber choir, Seraphic Fire.   

In 2015 the choir established an artistic partnership with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra to serve as its official chorus.  Long Beach Camerata Singers also performs regularly with other arts organizations, including Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony,  Long Beach Opera, Long Beach Youth Chorus, and the South Bay Children’s Chorale. 

Currently in its 57th season, the Long Beach Camerata Singers offers the Peace Project in the fall, performances of Handel’s Messiah in December, a masterwork concert in the spring for ChoralFest Long Beach, closing the season with June’s Evening of Song showcase event.  In the current season LBCS will perform twice with the Long Beach Symphony, both for Holiday Pops concert and a March performance of Carmina Burana. 

In November, 2022, Camerata’s new all-professional group, The Catalyst Chamber Ensemble, will present its inaugural concert with a performance of Considering Matthew Shepard.  Catalyst will present a spring recital featuring  an a cappella concert entitled “From Spain to the New World.”

LBCS offers three education programs.  The Camerata Children’s Music Academy provides fundamental music education for 2 to 5 year old children at Young Horizons Child Development Centers, a state sponsored child care facility for economically-challenged children with 5 locations.  Peace4Youth brings the Peace Project to LBUSD middle schools, where the choral students perform for their peers along with Camerata singers.  The Choral Scholars initiative offers paid internships to promising choral students enrolled at local colleges to sing with the chorus as members of the professional core. 

During the Covid Pandemic, LBCS presented quartets in free, outdoor, socially-distanced concerts at private homes throughout Long Beach, allowing patrons an opportunity to enjoy live music at a critical time of need.  These initial, casual concerts turned into a 30-concert series called the Front Porch Concerts in the 2020-2021 hiatus season.  The popularity of the program resulted in a new summer program that is presented annually in June and July. 

As a freelance violinist I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world playing all types of music. From performing solo recitals in Europe to playing electric violin with Gnarls Barkley in sold out arenas across the US, from joining the Pacific Symphony for their European tour to performing shows as a Guest Entertainer on cruise ships all over the world, I feel very lucky to be able to be so versatile. When I’m not traveling I am in Los Angeles playing with many of the regional orchestras, including Santa Monica Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, and Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and I have also recorded for film and television, as well as performed on The Voice, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and many other television shows. I am grateful to have shared the stage with some of the world’s most beloved musicians, including Yo Yo Ma, Paul McCartney, Barbara Streisand, Josh Groban, Ray Charles, Norah Jones, Christina Aguillera, Johnnie Mathis, and many others.

Violinist Agnes Gottschewski grew up in a family of musical amateurs where playing chamber music for fun was a frequent event. Even now, as a professional violinist she enjoys reading chamber music with friends. She has coached at Chamber Music Workshops in Santa Ana and Santa Barbara.

She has been a frequent guest artist with Camerata Pacifica for many years, and a regular chamber music artist at the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska since 1997. Other recent chamber music performances have been with the High Desert Chamber Music Festival in Bend, Oregon; the Sitka Music Festival’s Autumn Series in Anchorage, Alaska; and El Paso Pro Musica, El Paso, Texas, as well as performances at the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival in Washington State.

For several years she was a member of Southwest Chamber Music, playing many premieres of contemporary chamber music and recording several CDs, including their Grammy ­winning Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Cha´vez. She has also been an artist faculty member at the chamber music festival, Aberystwyth MusicFest (Wales/England).

Agnes presently holds the position of assistant concertmaster of the Long Beach Symphony and has been a member of Pacific Symphony’s first violin section since 1996. She teaches at Long Beach City College and is an active studio musician.

Agnes is originally from West Berlin, Germany, where she started playing the violin at age 6. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste, she moved to Southern California for graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego where she concentrated on contemporary music; and at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she was a member of the graduate string quartet in residence.

When not busy rehearsing, recording or performing music, Agnes spends time at a pottery studio making mostly functional ceramics, making jewelry, going walking or hiking with her husband and her dog, or spending an occasional evening at home.

Long before she became known as a Golden Globe-nominated actress, Ringwald was singing. She started performing with her pianist father’s jazz band when she was three and she has never stopped.

“I had quite the musical repertoire,” she recalls with a laugh. “It was pretty much traditional jazz but there was some Bessie Smith and Helen Kane, the original Betty Boop.” Talk with Ringwald for even a short amount of time and it’s clear her grasp of jazz and its history comes from a lifelong study of the form and the great singers who inspired her, including Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie and Susannah McCorkle.

“Blossom Dearie was the only one I got to see live. Susannah’s recordings have really influenced me. I think she was really special in her gifts of interpretation and how much humanity she brought to the songs.” However, the time wasn’t right until now. Paul Mazursky cast the then 13-year old in “Tempest,” and for the next few decades, her public focus was on acting, as she starred in such films as “Fresh Horses,” “Betsy’s Wedding,” “King Lear,” “The Pick-Up Artist,” and, of course, her trio of films with John Hughes, “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty In Pink.” “Once I started to act I felt like I had to make that decision,” she says. Plus, during the ‘80s, “I didn’t think there was a place for the music that I was interested in,” she says. “There was no Madeline Peyroux, Diana Krall, Norah Jones… I didn’t feel like anybody was going to listen to the kind of music that I wanted to sing. I thought, I’ll just keep singing with my dad and focus on my acting.”

Ringwald recorded Except Sometimes with Peter Smith, who also produced, on piano, Clayton Cameron on drums, Allen Mezquida on alto saxophone, and Trevor Ware on bass. Together, they put a new spin on such jazz and musical standards as “The Very Thought of You,” “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes),” “I’ll Take Romance,” “Sooner or Later,” and “Where Is Love.” “It was really hard to narrow it down,” she says, of selecting the album’s 10 tracks. “It was basically songs that I felt connected to and songs that I felt we played together well as a band. As much as I love traditional jazz, my real interest is more modern, more from the Great American Song Book.”
– See more at: http://www.iammollyringwald.com/music/#sthash.klnP7ElO.dpuf

Sean O’Loughlin (b.1972) is the Principal Pops Conductor of Symphoria, the exciting new symphony in Syracuse, NY and the newly appointed Principal Pops Conductor of the Victoria Symphony in Victoria, B.C. Canada. He is a fresh voice and a rising name in the music world. His music is characterized by vibrant rhythms, passionate melodies, and colorful scoring. Commissions from the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra highlight and showcase his diverse musical abilities. As a conductor, he has led performances with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Victoria Symphony and the Seattle Symphony amongst others. He was the assistant conductor and arranger for a production of Sgt. Pepper Live in Las Vegas featuring the band Cheap Trick. He has served as conductor for national and worldwide tours with Josh Groban, Sarah McLachlan, and the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. He has also appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America with Josh Groban and NBC’s “A Very Pentatonix Christmas.”

Recent collaborations include such artists as Sarah McLachlan, Adele, Josh Groban, Pentatonix, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Diana Ross, Journey, Melissa Etheridge, Blue Man Group, Janelle Monáe, Audra McDonald, Hall and Oates, Gloria Estefan, the Indigo Girls, Diana Krall, Itzhak Perlman, Natalie Merchant, Chris Isaak,  Pink Martini, Brandi Carlile, The Decemberists, Martina McBride, Josh Ritter, Gloria Gaynor and others. The Los Angeles Times calls his orchestrations “…magnificent and colorful” while adding “…even more dimension…” to the compositions. Daily Variety heralds Sean’s writing as “most impressive …” with a “wide range of coloring in the orchestra…” that “…adds heft and rolling energy.

Through his growing number of commissioned and published works, Sean is excited to continue contributing to the rich history of orchestral and wind band literature. His music is published by Carl Fischer and Hal Leonard. He is a frequent guest conductor with professional orchestras and honor bands around the country. An annual ASCAP Special Awards winner, Sean was a composition fellow at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles and holds composition degrees from New England Conservatory and Syracuse University.