A native of Blenheim, South Carolina, Melanie O’Neal Cavenaugh has made her home in Kingwood, Texas, for the last 19 years. From Furman University as a student of Bingham Vick, she received a Bachelor of Music degree in Voice and from Northwest University a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance. There she was named recipient of a Frederik Cramer Opera Award, and was a student of Elizabeth Fischer. She has sung as a soloist with orchestras including the Fox River Valley Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, Symphony North of Houston, the Kingwood Chamber Orchestra, and has given many recitals in the Houston area. The Oregon Bach Festival selected her as one of eight singers to perform for celebrated mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. She has sung in master classes with Norman Gulbrandsen, Carlo Cossutto, Beverly Wolfe, Sherrill Milnes, and Ileana Cotrubas, and has studied for many years with the renowned teacher, Elena Nikolaidi.

Evelyn McCarty comes from Corpus Christi, Texas, where she is active as principal oboist in the Corpus Christi Symphony and as a private oboe teacher in that area. She graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of Texas, and received her performance doctorate from Northwestern University. Her principal oboe teachers have been James Desiato, Anton Maly, John de Lancie, and Ray Still. Prior to moving to Corpus Christi, she played in the Austin, San Antonio, and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras, the American Wind Symphony, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. Her teaching experience includes a professorship in oboe at Del Mar College and numerous summers at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. Evelyn McCarty has collaborated with Imelda Delgado in Gems for Oboe and Piano (BR1012).

Susan York is well known in the Austin, Texas, area as organist at First Baptist Church, and as an accompanist, recitalist, and teacher. Her principal organ studies were at Wayland Baptist University, Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, and in Hagerstown, Maryland, where she studied with Ernest White. Before moving to Austin, she served as organist at the Travis Avenue Baptist and Polytechnic Baptist churches in Fort Worth. In 1991, in appreciation of her fine years of service to First Baptist Church-Austin, Susan was given a trip to study the great organs in Germany under the auspices of Westminster Choir College of Princeton, New Jersey, Joan Lippincott, organizer, and Harald Vogel, guest instructor/host.