TINA CHANCEY is a performer, educator, and scholar. A former chair of the Early Music America Education Committee, she has been a presenter at Orff-Schulwerk, ASTA, MENC, and Chamber Music America national conferences. Since 1985, she has given workshops and assemblies in the D.C. public schools through the Washington Performing Arts Society’s “Concerts in Schools” program and Young Audiences Maryland. A participant in the Kennedy Center Education Department’s seminar, “Artists as Educators: Creating Teachers’ Workshops,” Dr. Chancey recently presented a teachers’ workshop integrating music, literature, and art on Fame and Folly with Rebecca Arkenberg at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She represented the Smithsonian Institution in a week-long educational residency in Long Beach, California.

A founding member and co-director of HESPERUS, an early/traditional music ensemble that tours nationally and internationally, she is also a former member of the Folger Consort and the Ensemble for Early Music. A multi-instrumentalist, she plays early and traditional bowed strings, and the National Endowment for the Arts has supported her debut performances on the French baroque pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center and Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Dr. Chancey attended Oberlin College, received master’s degrees from Queens College and New York University, and a PhD from the Union Institute. Her articles on early and traditional music appear in scholarly and popular publications, and she has recorded for a score of labels from Arabesque to Windham Hill. She also produces recordings for others and runs the “SoundCatcher: Play by Ear” workshop. She has received a lifetime education achievement award from Early Music America.

MARK DIAMOND’s hard-grooving acoustic bass sound was birthed in the New York area, where he learned to play many musical styles. In 1980 he moved to Colorado with the band Arabesque, and has since been a sought-after sideman on over 100 albums, including Grammy award winner Tim O’Brien, Mollie O’Brien, Sally Taylor, (daughter of James and Carly), James Van Buren with Richie Cole, Keith Oxman, Mary Flower, and Mary Ann Moore. He has played for President Bill Clinton and other luminaries over the years.

Mr. Diamond has toured Europe, regularly appears at festivals and clubs across the country, and has performed with legendary performers such as Earl Klugh, Nnenna Freelon, Spike Robinson, Richie Cole, James Moody, Ernestine Anderson, Ben Sidran, Peter Rowan, Kenny Loggins, Henry Butler, Fred Wesley, Buddy Tate, Bruno Carr, Eddie Kirkland and Mark Hummel, and New York-based jazz vocalists Allan Harris and Tom Lellis. Mark has opened shows for B.B. King, Kenny Rogers, Wilson Pickett, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells, to name a few.

STAFFORD HUNTER is a multi-Grammy-nominated trombonist and seashell player from Philadelphia. He lived in New York City for almost 30 years and has performed and/or recorded with the likes of Clark Terry, McCoy Tyner, Roy Hargrove, Frank Foster, Lester Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Dionne Warwick, Donald Byrd Dance Troupe, Lenny Kravitz, Oliver Lake, Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band, Steve Turre & Sanctified Shells, and was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra for 21 years. Mr. Hunter performed at President Bill Clinton’s inaugural, modeled for L’Uomo Vogue (Italian Vogue magazine for men) and appeared in a Diet Coke commercial which featured Elton John.

WESLEY LEFFINGWELL is a keyboardist based in Denver, Colorado. Recent performances have included appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Greeley Philharmonic, Boulder Philharmonic, Breckenridge Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Ainomae Ensemble, Playground Ensemble, The Spirituals Project, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Boulder Bach Festival, Pro Musica Colorado, Colorado Bach Ensemble, Seicento Baroque Ensemble, and Cadmus. As a jazz musician, he has performed at Dazzle Jazz, KUVO, Porgy and Bess Vienna, Summit Jazz Festival, Sacramento Jazz Festival, and Evergreen Jazz Festival. Traditional jazz was his gateway to becoming a professional musician, and he later explored the wider world of jazz history and jazz-adjacent styles before (eventually) classical piano and then the harpsichord demanded his full attention.

Mr. Leffingwell has held staff positions at the University of Denver and Regis University, and is currently Music Director at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder. In 2023 he attended The Emmanuel Bach Institute in Boston and the American Bach Soloists Summer Academy. He is pursuing his DMA in Harpsichord at CU-Boulder. In April/May of 2024, he will serve as assistant conductor/harpsichordist for Opera Neo’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda in San Diego. He and Amanda Balestrieri are slated in June to present a lecture/recital at the 2024 Conference for the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, taking place in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
 

Born in Newport News, Virginia, and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, HAROLD SUMMEY, JR., started playing drums and percussion at age 13. He has degrees from Hampton and Howard Universities, and studies at Eastman School of Music. He has crafted a career that spans decades, genres, and continents, and has performed with Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Buck Hill, Harold Mabern, Eric Alexander, Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis, Geri Allen, Pat Metheny, Whitney Houston, James Moody, John Hicks, David “Fathead” Newman, Don Braden, Brian Lynch, Charlie Young, Tim Warfield, Walt Weiskopf, Terrell Stafford, Nick Brignola, Ray Charles, Patti Austin, Aaron Neville, Paul Carr, Bobby Watson, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Arlo Guthrie, and Hilton Ruiz.

Ensembles he has played with as percussionist and/or soloist include The Cleveland Orchestra, The Virginia Symphony, The American Festival Pops Orchestra, The Airmen of Note, The Navy Commodores, The Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, The Annapolis Symphony, and The Maryland Symphony. Mr. Summey is retired from The United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” in Washington, D.C., where he performed as percussionist and soloist with the Concert Band from 2000-2020. He was also a member of The United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C., from 1989 to 1993. He has performed in the theater as percussionist with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra on The Phantom of the Opera and as drummer on the musical adaptation of the award-winning book, Bud, Not Buddy.

Mr. Summey was the first prize winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 1992. As an educator, Harold has done clinics and master classes for the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (now the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz) in the United States and abroad as well as at Hampton University, Howard University, George Mason University, and The University of Colorado Boulder. Most recently, he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, American University, and George Mason University.

Details and tickets for Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz.