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Visual Artist: Filmmaker, Videographer

Kristine Samuelson has been an independent filmmaker for over 25 years. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Arthur and Lillie and has received Artist’s Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. A faculty member in the Documentary Film and Video M.F.A. Program at Stanford University, she is the Edward Clark Crossett Emerita Professor of Humanistic Studies in the Department of Art and Art History. From 1999-2006, Samuelson served on the Board of the Independent Television Service. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

John Santos

Educator; Performing Artist: Composer, Musician

Five-time Grammy-nominated percussionist and US Artists Fontanals Fellow, John Santos, is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. Born in San Francisco, California, November l, l955, he was raised in the Puerto Rican and Cape Verdean traditions of his family, surrounded by music. The fertile musical environment of the San Francisco Bay Area shaped his career in a unique way. His studies of Afro-Latin music have included several trips to New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil and Colombia.He is known for his innovative use of traditional forms and instruments in combination with contemporary music, and has earned much respect and recognition as an educator, composer, and record and event producer. He’s been a prolific performer, composer, teacher, writer, radio programmer, and record/event producer whose career has spanned over 35 years. John has worked with acknowledged, multi-generational masters such as Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Patato Valdés, Lázaro Ros, Bobby Hutcherson, Chucho Valdes, Chocolate Armenteros, John Handy, Billy Cobham, Zakir Hussain, George Cables, Rene Lopez, Generoso Jimenez, Joe Henderson, Francisco Aguabella, John Faddis, Ed Thigpen, Giovanni Hidalgo, Steve Turre, McCoy Tyner, Batacumbele, Poncho Sanchez, Omar Sosa, Mel Martin, Ignacio Berroa, Danilo Perez, Los Pleneros de la 21, Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana, Armando Peraza, Pancho Quinto, Tootie Heath, Jacqueline Castellanos, Malonga Casquelord, CK Ladzekpo, Pancho Terry, Yosvany Terry, Dafnis Prieto, Oscar Castro Neves, Mark Murphy, Larry Coryell, Lázaro Galarraga, Regino Jimenez, Luis Daniel “Chichito” Cepeda, Pedrito Martinez, Jerry Medina, Orestes Vilató, Paquito D’Rivera, Larry Vukovich, Arturo Sandoval, Nestor Torres, Anthony Carrillo, Paoli Mejías, Raul Rekow, Andy Gonzalez, Jerry Gonzalez, Jovino Santos Neto, Lalo Schifrin, Pete Escovedo, Claudia Gómez, Maria Márquez, Jon Jang, Ray Vega, Chembo Corniel, Wayne Wallace, John Calloway, Mark Levine, Elio Villafranca, Bruce Forman, Linda Tillery, Charlie Hunter, Joyce Cooling, Bobby Matos, Mark Weinstein, Jackeline Rago, Roberto Borrell, Sandy Perez, Jesus Diaz, Roman Diaz, Pablo Menendez, Yma Sumac, and Carlos Santana. John is widely respected as one of the top writers, teachers and historians in the field and was a member of the Latin Jazz Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. He is currently part of the faculty at the Jazz School Institute (Berkeley, CA) and the College of San Mateo (CA). He has conducted countless workshops, lectures and clinics in the US, Latin America and Europe since 1972 at institutions of all types including the Adventures in Music program of the San Francisco Symphony, the Berklee School of Music in Boston, UCLA, Yale, Stanford, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Michigan, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State East Bay, the University of Colorado, Yakima Valley Community College, the Afro-Cuban Drumming and Dance Program at Humboldt State University (CA), Cal State Sonoma, Cal State Sacramento, Cal State San Jose, Tulane University of Louisiana, Jazz Camp West, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Los Angeles Music Academy, the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco), he Lafayette Summer Music Program (CA), Skidmore College (NY), and La Universidad Inter-Americana in San Germán Puerto Rico. He has contributed to the international magazines Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer, Modern Percussionist, and Latin Percussionist. John was the director of the Orquesta Tipica Cienfuegos (l976-1980) and the award-winning Orquesta Batachanga (1981-1985). He was founder and director of the internationally renowned, Grammy-nominated Machete Ensemble (1985-2006), who released nine CDs with special guests from Puerto Rico, Cuba, NY, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, mostly on John’s Machete Records label. He currently directs the John Santos Sextet, Latin jazz ensemble. Their second CD, Perspectiva Fragmentada, released in October 2008, was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association (NY), and by Cubadisco (Cuban Grammys) as one of the top Latin Jazz releases of the year, and selected as one of the five top Latin Jazz CDs of 2008 by New York’s All About Jazz magazine, among many honors. John’s Afro-Caribbean Folklóric Ensemble, El Coro Folklórico Kindembo, has produced three full length CDs since 1994, two of which were Grammy-nominated including the most recent, La Guerra No, in 2009. John’s work has been recognized and supported by the California Arts Council, United States Artists, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Fund for Folk Culture, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, the East Bay Community Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Creative Work Fund, and the City of Oakland. The San Francisco Bay Area community in which he still lives and works has presented him with numerous awards and honors for artistic excellence and social dedication. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation declaring November 12, 2006 John Santos Day. And on October 9th, 2012, in a ceremony at City Hall, he received the 2012 San Francisco Latino Heritage Arts Award from the Mayor’s office. It came with a Certificate of Honor signed by Mayor Edwin Lee, and Certificates of Recognition from the State Assembly signed by Speaker Pro Tempore Fiona Ma and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Certificate of Recognition from the State Senate signed by Senator Mark Leno, a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the US House of Representatives signed by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and a glass plaque from the City and County of San Francisco. John is an endorsee of Latin Percussion instruments, Remo drumheads, Sabian cymbals, Engelhart Metal Percussion, and Fat Conga Cajones.

Ken Savage

Performing Artist: Stage Director

As a director at Stanford University and in the Bay Area, Ken’s work has been focused on musical theater and on social responsibility. In his role as Artistic Director for the Asian American Theater Project, Ken has worked on a variety of plays at Stanford that address race and representation on stage, including Death of a Salesman and My Fair Lady. In addition to his work on campus, Ken’s recent professional accomplishments include the role of assistant director American Conservatory Theater, and cultural consultant and assistant director at TheatreWorks. His first major project post-graduation will be another production of My Fair Lady this time at Broadway By the Bay. Ken has a B.A. in Drama from Stanford University, and is a M.A. candidate in Communication with a focus on virtual reality and performance at Stanford University.

Lili Schad

Visual Artist: Filmmaker, Videographer

I live in New York City and New Paltz, NY with my two amazing children. Over the past 25 years I have created using mixed media, film and photography. My work is inspired by a love of nature and adventure, and driven by a passion for the understanding and the healing of the earth and everyone and everything on it. My objective is to create something, anything, every day that I have the privilege of waking up. I began my career as a photographer for Warren Miller ski movies, which was a lot of fun and just a little bit dangerous, as we were documenting the start of the extreme sports media phenomenon. When it was time to move on, I founded Clearwater Films in San Francisco, and for the next 15 years focused on making films to inspire the conservation of the great outdoors. Of course there was a big wave film in there (the first Maverick’s documentary) since old habits do die hard. Then came my beautiful children and with them, a switch to the creation of fine art, or rather, a passion for making things from nothing that express who and what I am without homage to anything else. I have found a lot of personal meaning in this freedom. Connect with me. Start a discussion. Come back to my site. Enjoy this moment ‘cause it’s all you got. As it reads on my studio door (from Thich Nhat Hanh)

Randall Shiroma

Visual Artist: Sculptor

Randall Shiroma is a sculptor who works in a terrazzo medium creating works that also evoke the natural elements and forms of nature. Shiroma’s polished and patinated concrete sculptures seem to reflect the mountains, sky and water, while revealing his search for the nature of being and his desire to create a sense of presence.

Joel Slayton

Educator; Visual Artist: 3D, Computer Arts

Joel Slayton is a pioneering artist, educator, and curator. His professional activities explore contemporary culture as informed by emerging technologies. As co-founder of the L&J Ranch (launching fall 2018), Slayton is focused on cutting-edge research, creative projects and sense of place. He’s Professor Emeritus at San Jose State where he founded the CADRE Laboratory for New Media in 1984. Slayton’s artwork has been featured in over 100 exhibitions around the world including Berlin, Austria, Buenos Aires, and New York. For eight years he served as Executive Director of ZERO1, a Silicon Valley-based arts organization and agency for four international art biennials that featured over 600 artists from 45 countries. The SVNexus Award, sponsored by Adobe, was created to recognize pioneering artistic achievement at the intersection of arts and technology.

Alan Soldofsky

Literary Arts: Poet

Alan Soldofsky has published a new collection of poems, In the Buddha Factory, from Truman State University Press. Also three chapbooks of poems: Kenora Station, Staying Home, and most recently a chapbook that includes a selection of poems by his son, the poet Adam Soldofsky, Holding Adam / My Father’s Books. He has published poems widely in magazines and academic journals including: The Antioch Review, The Crab Orchard Review, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Greensboro Review, Grand Street, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Nation, The North American Review, and Poetry East. His poems have three times been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has also contributed essays on modern and contemporary poets to a variety of journals. His articles, essays, interviews, and book reviews have appeared widely in periodicals including Chelsea, Narrative, Poetry Flash, Quarry West, and The Writer’s Chronicle. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at San Jose State University where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Connie Steinman

Educator; Visual Artist: Filmmaker, Videographer

Connie Steinman is a filmmaker and high school teacher for American Sign Language and English.

Allen Strange (Deceased)

Visual Artist: Computer Arts

Allen Strange studied composition with Donal Michalsky at the California State University, Fullerton. He received his MA in 1967. He later studied composition with Robert Erickson, Harry Partch, and Ken Gaburo, and electronic media with Pauline Oliveros at the University of California, San Diego from 1967-8 and 1970-71. In 1970, Strange became a professor of music and the director of the electronic music studios at San Jose State University. He received grants from the San Jose State University Foundation for research into electronic music. Other grant support came from the American Music Center, Yamaha Corporation and the BIAHC Foundation. He attended John Chowning’s music seminar at the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Center. Strange was one of the leading authorities on analogue electronic music; his book Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls is now a classic text. He also wrote Programming and Meta-Programming the Electro-Organism, the operations manual for the Buchla Music Easel and documented the 200 Series synthesizers made by Buchla. He co-founded two performance groups: Biome (1967–72), in order to make use of the EMS Synthi; and, with Don Buchla in 1974, the Electric Weasel Ensemble. He was president of the International Computer Music Association from 1993–1998, and appeared as a guest artist-lecturer throughout the world. With his wife, Patricia, they published The Contemporary Violin: Extended Performance Techniques (Scarecrow Press). Strange composed for live electronic instrumental ensembles, for live and taped electronics with voices and acoustic instruments, and for the theater; most of his works for acoustic instruments require extended performance techniques. He was particularly interested in linear tuning systems (as in The Hairbreadth Ring Screamers, 1969, and Second Book of Angels, 1979), spatial distribution of sound (Heart of Gold, 1982, and Velocity Studies, 1983), the isolation of timbre as a musical parameter, and composing for groups of like instruments or voices. Elements of vaudeville, rock-and-roll, country-and-western music, and the guitar techniques of Les Paul are found in his works. His theater pieces employ various media including film, video, and lighting effects; he produced a series of such works in collaboration with the playwright and director Robert Jenkins, of which the most important are Jack and the Beanstalk (1979) and The Ghost Hour (1981), an audio drama. His later projects include works for solo and small ensembles (Three Short Stories, 2005), continuation of the Goddess Trilogy for solo violin (Goddess, 2003), works for electronic media with and without acoustic instruments (Quinault Cathedral, 2004 and Velocity Studies V: NGate, 2007), compositions for various chamber ensembles (Songs in Black, 2005, Another Fine Mess, 2006), works for orchestra (Bainbridge Sketches, 2006 and Brief Visits to Imaginary Places, 2007) and a complete evening of settings of poems by Eugene Field, The Cautionary Tales of Eugene Field, 2006-7). Strange retired from academia in 2002 and moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington to pursue a full-time career composing, concertizing with his wife, and working with his jazz trio, Cuvée. He died on February 20, 2008.

Bih-Tau Sung

Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer

Bih Tau Sung is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Dancing Sun Foundation, and is an acclaimed interpreter and choreographer of ballet, modern, and traditional Chinese dance opera techniques. Her professional career started in 1974 when she was recruited to join the prestigious Cloud Gate Dance Theater, Taiwan’s first professional modern dance company. In the decade that followed, she performed, instructed, choreographed and danced with recognition throughout major artistic centers in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Bih Tau independently continued her artistic quest after she moved to Cupertino in 1986. In addition to receiving her MA in Dance Emphasis from San Jose State University, she is also a certified Pilates instructor and Laban Movement Analyst, and has taught private and college level classes. In 1999, Bih Tau founded the Dancing Sun Foundation where she is the artistic director and has performed in the San Jose Downtown Arts Series and San Jose Performing Arts Series. In support of Dancing Sun Foundation, she has received numerous awards and grants.

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