Mike Tomaro
Director of Jazz Studies
Duquesne University
Pittsburg, PA

Mike Tomaro has been the Director of Jazz Studies at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA since 1997. This saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger and educator earned his B.S. degree in Music Education from Duquesne University and his M.A. degree in Saxophone Performance from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Prior to his appointment at Duquesne, he lived in the Washington, D.C. area for seventeen years as a member of the Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, a unit of the prestigious "Pershing's Own" U.S. Army Band. While a member of this group, he served as its Enlisted Musical Director and performed for Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton as well as heads of state from around the world. He also composed and/or arranged much of the Army Blues repertoire and was featured as a soloist on several of the group's albums and CDs. Mike is a Yamaha Performing Artist and endorses Vandoren reeds, mouthpieces and ligatures.

Mike has four nationally released recordings under his own name that showcase his talents as both performer and writer - "Forgotten Dreams" (Seabreeze Jazz), "Dancing Eyes" (Seabreeze Jazz), and "Home Again" (Positive Music). His latest CD, "Nightowl Suite" was released in March 2005 on the Seabreeze Jazz label. This disc, Mike's first under his own name in ten years, features his compositions and arrangements as performed by the Three Rivers Jazz Orchestra, a group that he co-founded this past year. Additionally, Mike has also been featured on many other CDs as both performer and arranger, the most current being jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson's Grammy Award winning release, "RSVP" on the MCG Jazz label.

As a composer and arranger, Mike's music has been performed by the likes of jazz greats Nancy Wilson, Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Ernie Watts, Bobby Shew, Claudio Roditi, New York Voices, Al Vizzutti, and many more, as well as high schools, colleges and universities around the world. Over eighty of his compositions and arrangements are published by Doug Beach Music, Hal Leonard Publications, and Walrus Music.

As a performer, Mike has worked with such diverse artists and groups as Nancy Wilson, Rosemary Clooney, Ray Charles, Michael Feinstein, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Mathis, Terence Blanchard, Louis Bellson, Terry Gibbs, Dizzy Gillespie Tribute Big Band, New York Voices, Woody Herman Orchestra and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. In his hometown, he has performed with guitarist Joe Negri, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Pittsburgh Ballet and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble in addition to leading his own small groups.

Former member of the Army Blues jazz ensemble, he now serves as Director of Jazz Studies at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he originally earned his BS degree in music education. He was later awarded his MA degree in Performance (with highest honors) from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Three commercial recordings showcasing his talents as player and writer have been released - "Home Again" (Positive) and "Forgotten Dreams" (Seabreeze) featuring charts in a combo setting, and "Dancing Eyes" (Seabreeze) featuring the Mike Tomaro Big Band -- and his music has been performed by the likes of Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Ed Soph, Bobby Shew, Herbie Mann, Al Vizzutti, Nancy Wilson, Ernie Watts, the New York Voices, and more.

Mike is a member of IAJE, MENC, ASCAP, NARAS and is a Yamaha Performing Artist. He is in great demand as a guest soloist, adjudicator and clinician.

Patty Darling
Lecturer in Music
Lawrence Conservatory of Music
Appleton, WI

Patty completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in 1985. She has composed music for a wide variety of mediums, including works for orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber groups, jazz ensembles, and numerous instrumental soloists.

Patty has received awards for her compositions and arrangements from Down Beat Magazine, the Presser Foundation, the Eastman School of Music, and the International Association for Jazz Education. While pursuing an advanced composition degree at the University of Minnesota, she served as a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Electronic Music. Patty's recording studio, founded in 1988 with Larry Darling, has been featured in Keyboard Magazine, where Patty's and Larry’s world music compositions are described as “more than a network of fragmentary styles, their music is an integrated whole.”

In addition to her role as conductor of the Lawrence University Jazz Band, Patty is the owner of IMPACT Music, where she focuses on composing original soundtracks for broadcast, corporate multimedia events, and the IMPACT Music Library. She has created hundreds of music tracks in a wide variety of styles, and many have been distributed worldwide.

Fred Sturm
Kimberly-Clark Professor of Music
Lawrence Conservatory of Music
Appleton, WI

Fred Sturm is the Director of Jazz and Improvisational Music at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin. He serves as guest conductor of professional jazz ensembles and radio orchestras in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; as director of university jazz ensembles and high school all-state jazz bands throughout the U.S.; as clinician at national educational conferences and festivals; as composer-in-residence for school and university music programs; as co-owner of Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps; and as composition/arranging resource team representative for the International Association for Jazz Education.

Fred's compositions and arrangements have been performed by jazz ensembles, symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, and chamber groups worldwide, featuring renowned artists Bobby McFerrin, Wynton Marsalis, Bob Brookmeyer, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Broadway Phantom of the Opera star Davis Gaines. His works are published by Lorenz Heritage JazzWorks, Universal Edition, Sierra Music Publications, Kendor, Warner Brothers/Alfred Music, Advance Music, Ensemble Publications, Really Good Music, and UNC Jazz Press, have been issued on Concord Jazz, RCA, hrMedia, and Warner Brothers Records, and received a 1997 Grammy Award nomination. His 9 "inning" baseball symphony Forever Spring is currently touring American orchestras with The Baseball Music Project under the auspices of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Migrations, Fred's two hour suite featuring 23 indigenous songs from 21 countries, was premiered by vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the NDR Big Band in Germany in 2007 and toured Europe in the summer of 2008.

Fred was the 2003 recipient of the ASCAP/IAJE Commission In Honor of Quincy Jones, a prize granted annually to one established jazz composer of international prominence. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music, and the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund. His texts, Changes Over Time: The Evolution of Jazz Arranging, Kenny Wheeler: Collected Works on ECM, and Maria Schneider: Evanescence are published by Advance Music (Germany) and Universal Edition (Vienna), and his teaching concept titled All Ears: Improvisation, Aural Training, and the Creative Process is used by educators in numerous schools.

Fred previously served as Professor and Chair of Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media at the Eastman School of Music in New York from 1991 to 2002, where he directed the internationally acclaimed Eastman Jazz Ensemble, conducted the 70-piece Eastman Studio Orchestra, and coordinated the Eastman jazz composition and arranging program. During his university teaching career, Downbeat Magazine has cited his ensembles as the finest in the United States and Canada nine times. He studied at Lawrence, Eastman, and the University of North Texas, and was a founding member of the jazz nonet Matrix.  He received the University Award for Excellence in Teaching at Lawrence in 2005.

A-S Jazz\2008-09\2009 Clinician Bios