Michelle Amato is a dynamic vocalist whose abilities to convey the deep passion of a lyric, as well as soar effortlessly through the stratosphere, are making her one of the most in demand names in music today. She performs regularly at the Van Dyke Café on South Beach, Timpano's Restaurant and The Grand Bohemian Hotel in Orlando, as well as numerous music festivals. She has been a featured soloist with the Memphis Symphony, the South Florida Pops, the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Florida West Coast Symphony, the Orlando Philharmonic, and the All-American College Orchestra at Epcot Center. Michelle also stays extremely active in the recording studio singing and contracting for Royal Caribbean, Costa and Carnival Cruise Lines, Warner Brothers and Shawnee Press Publishers, Walt Disney World, and numerous jingle production companies throughout the country. She has performed and recorded with an incredibly diverse array of artists including Liza Minelli, Jon Secada, Al Green, Sandi Patty, Jon Hendricks, Donna Summer, Michael McDonald, Celia Cruz, Rita Marley, and has most recently been recording and touring with world renowned composer Yanni. Her solo work can be heard on his latest CD Ethnicity and she is a featured soloist on his newest video, Yanni Live. She recorded the title cut on Dirty Martini's debut CD Save Your Love for Me and her own debut CD I'm All Smiles is completed and available for purchase at www.michelleamato.com.

Michelle, who holds a Master's degree from the prestigious University of Miami School of Music, is also in great demand as an educator and clinician. She has coached vocalists for Cirque du Soleil and taught private students and directed jazz vocal ensembles at The University of Miami, Miami Dade Community College, The University of Memphis, Rollins College, and is currently teaching at The University of North Florida. She has conducted vocal master classes and clinics for the International Association of Jazz Educators, The North American Cultural Center in San Jose, Costa Rica, and various groups at Walt Disney World, including the popular Voices of Liberty, a group she also had the pleasure of performing in for several years. Her adjudicating duties include the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the Florida Vocal Association, and various jazz societies.

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Professor Cassano has been a flutist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra since 1979. She is an active recitalist and chamber musician and founder of the St. Johns Chamber Players, co-founder of the St. Mark’s Bach Ensemble, and co-founder of the chamber music group “Synergy”.

Professor Cassano has appeared several times as soloist at the National Flute Association Convention and in 1987 and 2000 was a winner of the NFA’s newly published Music Performer’s Competition. She was awarded an artist-fellow to the 1989 Bach Aria Festival.

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An Atlanta native, Professor Casseday has been a member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra cello section since 1986 and a faculty member at UNF since 1997. She has performed with orchestras across the United States and has collaborated locally with Bach is Back, Synergy, Collagrossa, and the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. Professor Casseday is a founding member of the Florida Arts Trio.

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Professor Smart's musical career has been both active and diverse. She has worked with such luminaries as Robert Shaw, Seiji Ozawa, and Dave Brubeck, and has sung in unique venues in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Professor Smart’s singing has delighted audiences not only in public and university concert halls, but also in rural American schools, special cultural outreach venues in Japan, and even Eskimos villages in northern Alaska. Awarded a special citation by the Ford Foundation's Contemporary Music Project, she has long championed the work of contemporary composers and, with her husband, composer-pianist Gary Smart, is recognized for their performances of American art song.

A former student of Margaret Harshaw, Josef Metternich, and Phyllis Curtin, Professor Smart has taught at the University of Wyoming, Kobe College, and Osaka University. Since joining the faculty of UNF in 1999, she has performed as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, for the Friday Musicale, the St. Cecelia Society, and many other local musical organizations.

At UNF, she directs the Opera Theater and teaches Applied Voice as well as French, Italian, and German Diction, Vocal Pedagogy, and Vocal Literature.

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Professor Rensch-Erbes was brought to Juilliard on a Summer Orchestra Scholarship and later studied musicology with Drs. Willi Apel and Paul Nettl. She has played harp programs throughout the Chicago area and was, for six years, first harpist with the Chicago Civic Orchestra.

Professor Rensch-Erbes taught harp for three years at the University of Illinois, and was Professor of Humanities at Indiana State University from 1965-1988. She is the author of four internationally-known reference books on the harp.

Professor Rensch-Erbes has been elected to membership in Pi Kappa Lambda (music honorary) and Phi Kappa Phi (humanities honorary), and is an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota (music sorority) and of several chapters of the American Harp Society and the United Kingdom Harp Society.

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Claudia Minch has been a member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra since 1979. Professor Minch, who plays the oboe, English horn, and the Oboe D'Amore in the Symphony, was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She earned her Bachelors and Masters degree graduating with Honors.

While she was in Boston, Ms. Minch performed with the Portland (Maine) Symphony and toured extensively with the New England Ragtime Ensemble under the direction of Gunther Schuller. Her woodwind quintet, Quintet de Legno, won the Young Artists Guild Competition in New York, in 1977, and was given a Carnegie Recital Hall debut.

Since moving to Jacksonville, Professor Minch has performed with the Savannah Symphony and has participated in the Spoleto and Cullowhee Summer Music Festivals. She has appeared as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony, Brunswick Civic Orchestra, and at local Chamber Music concerts.

Professor Minch is very active teaching aspiring oboists and supplying local music stores with handcrafted oboe reeds. In addition to rearing two children with her husband, Michael, Professor Minch is also a miniature enthusiast and enjoys working on a beautiful three-story Victorian dollhouse.

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A native of Florida, Professor Reid is currently the principal hornist of the Jacksonville Symphony. Prior, he was a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. Professor Reid’s former teachers include Greg Hustis and William Capps.

He has played with symphony orchestras in Dallas, Waco, Tallahassee, Albany, Aspen, Boston, Breckenridge, and the Dominican Republic. Professor Reid maintains an active role in chamber music, performing several times a year with the First Coast Woodwind Quintet. He spends his summers teaching and performing at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Kandie Smith received Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees in Voice Performance and Opera from Stetson University, the University of British Columbia and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, respectively.

Winner of concerto competitions at both Stetson and UBC, the Giffin Voice Scholarship Competition (Stetson), numerous NATS competitions, the Society of Arts and Letters Voice Competition (2nd Place), and a Rotary International Scholarship, Dr. Smith has also enjoyed a vibrant career in musical theater and operetta. She has sung leading roles with a variety of local, regional, and international companies, including Seaside Music Theater, Ohio Light Opera, Riverside Theater of Vero Beach, and Karl-Heinz Stracke’s Interworld Productions (for which she played Carlotta in the German premier tour of PHANTOM!). She has also sung the soprano solos in a number of oratorios presented by local and regional organizations and orchestras, including the Winter Park Bach Festival, the Orlando Messiah Society, and the Daytona Beach Choral Society.

She has pursued her passion for singing into the academic arena and has held teaching positions at several colleges, including Stetson University and Brewton-Parker College.

Concurrent with her academic duties she has continually used her administrative experience garnered by years of service to several not-for-profit arts organizations, including the Daytona Beach Symphony Society, Central Florida Cultural Endeavors, the Florida International Festival, and Seaside Music Theater. Most significantly, from 2005-2007 she served as the Executive Director of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, during which time she worked with many of the leading voice pedagogues in North America.

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