Dr. Shane Jones has studied and performed around the globe, including in Brazil, China, Mexico, Trinidad/Tobago, Puerto Rico, West Africa, and across the United States. He serves as Director of Percussion/Assistant Professor of Music at Utah Valley University and Associate Editor of World Percussion for the Percussive Arts Society. 

Dedicated to new music, Shane has commissioned twenty chamber works. He is percussionist and Director of Production and Finance for Khemia Ensemble, an internationally performing group dedicated to promoting contemporary classical music. Khemia has performed and held residences at National Sawdust, the Mizzou International Composers Festival (Columbia, MO), Strange Beautiful Music Festival (Detroit, MI), New Music Gathering, Latin IS America (East Lansing, MI), the, Biennial New Music Festival (Cordoba, Argentina), University of Michigan, Tufts University, Michigan State University, University of Missouri, the National University of Bogota, and the National University of Cordoba. The group is also the ensemble-in-residence for the Missouri Summer Composition Institute. As a classical musician, Shane regularly performs with the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera as well as Ballet West. He has performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Paducah, Ann Arbor, and Rochester Symphony Orchestras.

As a popular/contemporary musician, Shane has performed on Broadway as drummer/percussionist for the musical 1776 at 54 Below. He was the drummer for the off-Broadway premiere of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical Next to Normal and the 2013 regional tour of Cabaret. He has performed with artists and groups such as Boyz II Men, Guster, Patti Austin, Eurovision winner Tajči, and the Hot Sardines as well as several local jazz and rock bands. Shane is a regular drummer for Diamond Empire Bands and a founding member and co-director of steelworks, a steel drum band that he and his wife Chelsea Jones started in 2014 that plays popular and folkloric music from the Caribbean.

Shane's research interests are in the music of the African Diaspora, specifically West Africa, Brazil, and Trinidad/Tobago. In 2015 he was awarded a Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant and Center for World Performance Studies Summer Research Fellowship to study contemporary samba percussion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He performed at the 2016 Panorama Competition in Trinidad/Tobago with the PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars under the direction of Liam Teague. Shane has also traveled and led student groups to Ghana to study the percussion music and culture of Ewe, Dagara, and Ga people. 

Shane received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree and Certificate of Graduate Studies in World Performance Studies at the University of Michigan where he served as a Graduate Student Instructor and director of World Percussion Studies. Shane graduated Summa Cum Laude from The Hartt School, the University of Hartford with his Bachelor of Music degree in Percussion Performance and Music Management and received his Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Shane is a proud Yamaha Performing Artist and endorser of Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, REMO drumheads, and Zildjian cymbals.

Known for her responsive, spontaneous, and lively flute performance, Joanna Goldstein’s past as a division I soccer player should come as no surprise. Her love of teamwork and high-energy performance has fueled her many creative collaborations, from orchestral to chamber music, to partnering with composers and dancers. As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, and with the Santa Rosa (CA), Portland (ME), and Toledo Symphonies. She currently is the piccolo player with the Michigan Philharmonic and will be joining the Toledo Symphony for the 2019-2020 season in the same role.

A founding member of the Boston-based Vento Chiaro woodwind quintet, Ms. Goldstein has performed and taught residencies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Providence College, Bunker Hill Community College, and Harvard University. With Vento Chiaro, she coached young musicians as a member of the faculty quintet in residence at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and won awards in both the Fischoff and Coleman chamber music competitions. Their many composer collaborations include commissions from Michael Gandolfi, Robert Dick, and Justin Casenghino.

Joanna’s love of exploring new sound worlds has led to her latest venture, the Stratus Ensemble, a flute and percussion duo focused on commissioning new works that engage audiences and communities. Stratus Ensemble recently received a University of Michigan EXCEL Enterprise Grant to allow them to record their most recent commission by Valerie Coleman. They have become known in the Ann Arbor community for their unique education programs. After their most recent collaboration with Washtenaw Community College, this is what the faculty and students were saying, “More than the expertise and professionalism of their performance, was their awareness that creativity and art are mindsets”…” Great performers are relatively abundant, but excellent inspirers of other’s creativity… that’s Stratus Ensemble.”

As an educator, Ms. Goldstein helps students connect to their own sense of purpose so they can make a positive impact in their communities, both within and beyond music. She’s taught flute and coached groups at Tanglewood, through her private studio, the Boston University Flute Ensemble, and at the private Beaver Country Day School, where she developed a popular school-wide chamber music program.

Joanna holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Boston University, and an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music. Currently, Joanna is on the faculty at Washtenaw Community College and is the Flute Choir and Chamber Winds Director for the Michigan Philharmonic Youth Symphonies.

Recorded and produced over a six-year span, Six Japanese Gardens explores personal
themes of multiple selves in relation to time. 

The process of creating this album has provided me with a perspective of time and place, living
and seeing myself in the arts in three disparate cultures (Michigan, Tennessee, and Utah) but
also through a global pandemic.