Jan Knutson - Guitar
An extremely versatile musician with a wide breadth of experience,  Jan has developed an extensive repertoire ranging from jazz to classical, from bluegrass to heavy metal.  He has performed with some of the world’s finest guitarists including, Frank Vignola, Martin Taylor, and Julian Lage. He has recorded two solo CD’s, Looking Both Ways and Out of Nowhere, and participated in several music festivals including the Savannah Acoustic Music Seminar. He was a featured artist at the Richmond Folk Festival, the True Blue Jazz Festival, and was an Artist in Residence at the Strathmore Music Center in Washington, DC. In 2018 after completing two years at the Manhattan School of Music, Jan won a position with the US Army Band “Pershing’s Own” as a guitarist and arranger. He completed his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland in 2021 and performs regularly throughout the Washington DC region.

Greg Watkins - bass studied Double Bass performance at The Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University. In college, he was moonlighting with big bands such as The Radio King Orchestra and The Imperial Palms, learning the repertoire of Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington. While continuing to work with orchestras and big bands, Greg started working with film and television composers, and contributed to soundtracks for films and broadcasts for CBS television, NBC, Miramax, HBO, Netflix, Discovery Channel, Showtime, and Cinemax.In addition to big bands, rock bands, and symphony orchestras, Greg has had the good fortune to perform for many musicals at theaters such as Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, and Shakespeare Theatre. Currently Greg is the principal bassist for The American Pops Orchestra. Greg maintains a private teaching studio of bassists and one erstwhile baritone ukulelist.

Steve Bloom - percussion, has played percussion professionally in thousands of performances and recordings in Middle Eastern and Persian, Cuban, Latin, Brazilian, Sephardic, Jazz, Blues, Gospel, New Age, and Celtic styles. He is known for his use of various “hybrid” drum kits, the better to combine his command of hand- and- finger drums with more traditional elements of the trap kit. He has performed and/or recorded in over a dozen countries from the Middle East to Nigeria to Ecuador and Canada with a wide variety of artists, including Tito Puente, Pedrito Martinez, King Sunny Ade’, and Babatunde Olatunji, guitarists Peter White and Dennis Cahill, pianist Gregg Karukas, jazz trumpeters Doc Cheatham and Jon Faddis, flutists Paul Horn and Nestor Torres, and bassists Andy Gonzales and Michael Manring. Bloom is a seasoned Tombak, Daf and Damom player; he co-directed the SAMA Persian Percussion Ensemble, with whom he performed for the full General

Dr. Kalin Kirilov is a Professor of Music Theory at Towson University. Before coming to Towson University, he taught at the University of Oregon and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Kirilov received his BA from the Academy of Music and Dance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, an interdisciplinary MA in Folklore from the University of Oregon, and a PhD in Music Theory from the University of Oregon. His involvement in folk music started at the age of four. In 1982, he joined a folk orchestra at the Dobri Hristov Music School in Vidin, Bulgaria, and later, in 1987, he became a soloist in the Dunav (Danube) ensemble in Vidin. As a high school student, Kirilov became interested in arranging music for folk orchestras, folk choirs, and vocal quartets. Despite the official restrictions on wedding music during the socialist period in Bulgaria, Kirilov performed and mastered the Bulgarian wedding style. Decades later, while a Doctoral student at the University of Oregon, Kirilov toured the United States as a guitar player with the most influential Bulgarian wedding band, Ivo Papazov’s wedding orchestra. In the US, Dr. Kirilov performs regularly with a variety of bands including Gerdan and brings to American audience the musical traditions of Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Albania, and the countries of former Yugoslavia.

Dr. Daniel May is a noted composer and a jazz pianist and has played and recorded with some of the world's foremost jazz artists. He was born into a very musical family - both of his parents were music teachers. For over 20 years, Daniel May worked in Los Angeles as a composer for feature films, television, and, most notably, IMAX films. Career highlights include his score to the award-winning IMAX film "Everest." Daniel recently composed the musical score for Medieval Times, a live show featured in venues throughout the United States and Canada. He has produced and recorded more than 50 CD projects, most notably for Somerset Entertainment (Toronto, Canada)