Jason Kutz grew up in a highly musical family in Kiel, Wisconsin, a small town in the countryside. He studied piano and percussion at a young age, and eventually went on to receive his B.M. in Recording Technology/Music Industry from UW Oshkosh and M.M. in Piano Performance from UW Madison, studying both classical and jazz. He still resides in Madison where he works as a pianist, composer, teacher, arranger, artist, graphic designer, and sound engineer. He tours regularly around the Midwest with Opera for the Young, a professional outreach opera company that performs abridged operas for elementary schools. He is a three-time concerto competition winner, and has recently travelled to Beijing, China to teach a summer program at the Magic Piano Arts Academy. His musical interests lie wholly within and between the classical and jazz worlds. All music is constructed with the same building blocks, and it's only with small changes in formula that genre and affect differ. His greatest interest is discovering and blending these borders, and using them as fuel for each musical project....
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Jason Kutz grew up in a highly musical family in Kiel, Wisconsin, a small town in the countryside. He studied piano and percussion at a young age, and eventually went on to receive his B.M. in Recording Technology/Music Industry from UW Oshkosh and M.M. in Piano Performance from UW Madison, studying both classical and jazz. He still resides in Madison where he works as a pianist, composer, teacher, arranger, artist, graphic designer, and sound engineer. He tours regularly around the Midwest with Opera for the Young, a professional outreach opera company that performs abridged operas for elementary schools. He is a three-time concerto competition winner, and has recently travelled to Beijing, China to teach a summer program at the Magic Piano Arts Academy. His musical interests lie wholly within and between the classical and jazz worlds. All music is constructed with the same building blocks, and it's only with small changes in formula that genre and affect differ. His greatest interest is discovering and blending these borders, and using them as fuel for each musical project.
Tony Barba is a saxophonist/educator/producer whose career has spanned the last twenty-five years. Originally hailing from Acton, Massachusetts and previously living in NYC and Chicago, Tony has resided in Madison, Wisconsin since 2013. He has performed, taught and toured professionally all over the world. A long standing member of the globe trotting Youngblood Brass Band, Tony has also performed and recorded with such notable and diverse artists as Makaya McCraven, Bon Iver, David Murray, Josh Ritter, the Mountain Goats, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and the Temptations. In Madison he is currently a member of Acoplados, Golpe Tierra, Immigre, Michael Brenneiss Plutonium, and the Paul Dietrich Jazz Orchestra. He co-leads the organ quartet Barbacoa and the improvised duo project Outside the Sphere with drummer Michael Brenneis. Additionally, Tony leads Blood Moon, a new quartet with an album of all original music which is slated to be released in the spring of 2020. He also has recently released two solo albums featuring saxophone and electronic manipulation entitled Winters Arms (2016) and Ether (2019). Tony has been the instructor of the Memorial High School Jazz Band since 2017 and has a growing private studio of saxophone students.
John Christensen began his bass studies with Chris Wood in high school. After brief stints at Berklee College and North Texas, John moved to San Francisco and played in the burgeoning music scene during the late 90s. There he learned and grew playing with Scott Amenodola, Jenny Scheinman, Liberty Ellman, Hal Stein, Mark Levine, Adam Levy, Slide Five, Vijay Iyer, as well as his own trio, Dam East. Since Moving to Wisconsin in 1999 John has played with numerous local artists and bands including Louka Patenaude, Alison Margaret, Anthony Deutsch, Tony Barba, Jonathan Greenstein, Anders Svanoe, Johannes Wallmann and Harmonious Wail. John also is a co-counder of the band Lesser Lakes Trio with longtime collaborators Devin Drobka and Jamie Breiwick. Also has shared the stage with such luminaries as Maria Schnieder, Miguel Zenon and Russ Johnson. John has been an adjunct professor at UW Platteville and has taught throughout the midwest. Johns Atlas project with Johannes Wallmann, Dave Miller and Andrew Green is scheduled to release an album on Shifting Paradigm Records in June 2018.
Devin Drobka, drummer, composer and educator has been playing drums for the past 20 years. Devin is currently one of the most in-demand Performers and Educators in the Midwest.
Devin decided to further his education and applied to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Devin received his BMA in Jazz Drumming Performance from Berklee College of Music in 09' where he had the chance to study with Terri Lynn Carrington, Bob Tamigni, Skip Hadden, Jamey Haddad, Kenwood Dennard, Jon Hazilla, Ralph Peterson Jr, Ian Froman, and the master drummer Bob Moses. While at Berklee Devin performed with legends of the Jazz world such as Joe Lovano, Jerry Bergonzi, Greg Osby, Cecil McBee, Dave Santoro, Ed Tomassi, and Phil Grenadier.
While in Devin's last year at Berklee he was asked to play drums in the world famous Jerry Bergonzi Quartet which featured Phil Grenadier on Trumpet, Bruce Barth on Piano and Dave Santoro on Bass.
Devin moved to New York in 2010 to further his musical knowledge. While in New York he performed at Kitano's, Douglass St. Music Collective, Sycamore, Setai, Way Station, Branded Saloon, Barbes, and the Shapeshifter lab.
Devin has performed at the Tanglewood Jazz Fest, Eastside Jazz Fest, and Salem Jazz Fest, CMJ Festival NY.
Devin has performed with with Bruce Barth, Jeff Parker, Jeremy Pelt, Russ Johnson, Johannes Wallmann, Dayna Stephens, Dave Miller, John Tate, Jerry Bergonzi, Tony Malaby, Joe Solomon, Dave Santoro, Mario Pavone, Matt Wilson, Tadataka Unno, Dan Tepfer, Josh Berman, Joe Martin, Tom Chang, Chris Tordini, Lena Bloch, Kyle Wilson, Ben Wendall, Jorge Roeder, Dan Blake, Tyler Blanton, Dmitry Ishenko, Sean Conly, Melissa Aldana, Will Slater, Joe Lovano, Dayna Stephens, and Dennis Carroll
Devin moved back to Milwaukee, WI in 2013 and quickly established himself as a go-to educator. Currently, Devin teaches out of his under the Devin Drobka Drum Studio. Devin is also teaching drumset and helping coach the combos at UW-Whitewater.
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