Leon Khoja-Eynatyan is currently on the faculty at the Levine School of Music and a member of Sacumba World Percussion quartet. He is a founder of YERPER (Yerevan Percussion Ensemble), and has played with the Pekarsky Percussion Ensemble and Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Leon has performed in the U.S., France, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Greece, Poland, and other European countries, as well as in the NIS countries. Since moving to the United States, he has appeared with several orchestras and music groups and was soloist at various venues including the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, White House, Smithsonian Institution and Wolf Trap. Leon is a founder and former president of the Armenian chapter of the Percussive Arts Society (PAS).
Leon is a founder and Music Director of NAREK Bell Choir of St.Mary, a first and only bell choir in the Armenian Church in the world.
Richard McCandless studied composition and percussion at the University of Iowa's Rockefeller Foundation Center for New Music. He then lived in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a free-lance percussionist, and co-directed the critically acclaimed new music ensemble Amaranth. McCandless was also the percussionist with the Washington Music Ensemble, with whom he performed frequently in New York at Merkin Concert Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall, and in Washington at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Library of Congress. Regarding his composition Childhood, the Washington Post reported that "Mr. McCandless showed himself to be a master of sounds." He now lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
Joseph Jay McIntyre is a percussionist, composer, and conductor residing in the Washington D.C. area. He has appeared frequently as a percussionist with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, the National Gallery Orchestra, the Milbrook Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony. He is currently principal timpanist with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. He has also toured extensively in the United States and Japan as a solo marimbist for Affiliate Artists. McIntyre has studied and performed traditional music of Japan, Korea, and Indonesia.
As a composer, his works, both secular and sacred, have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. McIntyre's Missa Brevis for chorus, organ, and percussion was premiered in 1997 by the Fairfax Choral Society. Subsequently, Missa Brevis, entirely rescored for full orchestra and chorus, received its New York City premiere at Carnegie Hall in May of 2000 under the direction of Jonathan Willcocks. Regarding Missa Brevis the Washington Post reported: "He has managed to achieve balances that allow the musicians to cooperate rather than compete, and his vocal lines are as idiomatic as the percussion material."
His orchestral work, Salute!, commissioned by the Maryland Symphony Orchestra in dedication to former Music Director, Barry Tuckwell, was premiered under Mr. McIntyre's direction on March 21, 1998. McIntyre’s other orchestral works include Echoes of a Forgotten Dream, commissioned by the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra, and his latest work, The Firth of Forth, which received it's premiere at the Strathmore Fine Arts Center in Rockville, Maryland in March, 2005 by the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra. His published works include Rain Dance for Percussion Trio, written for One Earth Percussion Theatre, a percussion/multi media ensemble he founded along with Rich O’Meara and Mike Wingo.
His orchestral conducting credits include guest conducting the National Gallery Orchestra in January 2005, as well as the Millbrook Symphony and Maryland Symphony. Mr. McIntyre also conducts regularly for NHK (National Japanese Broadcasting) documentary soundtracks. He has also conducted his own choral works with the Fairfax Choral Society. Mr. McIntyre is a graduate of the University of Maryland.
Rich O'Meara is fluent in a wide variety of musical styles. As a member of One Earth Percussion Theatre he took part in innovative multi-media performances. He has performed with the Contemporary Music Forum, the Lenox Ensemble, the new music ensemble Amaranth, Sky Music, the Women Composers Orchestra and was guest artist at the Kennedy Center’s Latin-Caribbean Festival. He has also spent time playing jazz with the Bruce Middle Group and Millennium, and alternative rock as the drummer for Kismet.
The fall of 1999 marked the debut of Silent Orchestra, a collaboration with composer/ keyboardist Carlos Garza to develop and perform new scores for classic silent films. Recent performances include the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Virginia Film Festival, the Savannah Film Festival and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. Silent Orchestra scores for Nosferatu (1922) and Salome (1923) are available on DVD from Image Entertainment.
Music for Percussion and Marimba Productions publish his works for marimba. Restless (solo marimba) and Wooden Music (two marimbas) were required repertoire at international competitions in Switzerland and Belgium. His compositions can be heard on the Audite, Cybele, Animato, Codamusic, and Koch Discover International record labels.
