Bill Smith
…is a composer and virtuoso clarinetist with several decades of experience in new music (as William O. Smith) and jazz (as Bill Smith). He has for 60 years collaborated with Dave Brubeck, and has composed numerous works for jazz and new classical performance. He has long combined classical music with elements of jazz in works commissioned by the likes of the Modern Jazz Quartet and Shelley Manne. Born in Sacramento in 1926, he went to Juilliard School of Music in New York while stalking the jazz clubs by night, then studied composition at Mills College with Darius Milhaud and at UC Berkeley with Roger Sessions.
His association with Dave Brubeck began at Mills, where he was one of the founders of the Dave Brubeck Octet, and was responsible for many of its arrangements. His Schizophrenic Scherzo, which he wrote for the Octet in 1947, was one of the first successful integrations of modern jazz and classical approaches in what became known as “third stream.”
Smith has also been, since the early 1960s, a leading experimentalist in clarinet performance. Inspired by acclaimed clarinetist, Severino Gazzeloni, he developed methods of notating extended techniques, and won glowing reviews for his playing. In the New York Herald Tribune, Eric Salzman wrote in 1963: “William Smith’s clarinet pieces, played by himself, must be heard to be believed – double, even triple stops; pure whistling harmonics; tremolo growls and burbles; ghosts of tones, shrill screams of sounds, weird echoes, whispers and clarinet twitches; the thinnest of thin, pure lines; then veritable avalanches of bubbling, burbling sound. Completely impossible except that it happened.”
Smith has won numerous prizes and honors including the Paris Prize, the Rome Prize, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Grant. After teaching at UC Berkeley, the Sa Francisco Conservatory, and the University of Southern California, and spending several years in Rome, he came to the University of Washington in 1966. There, he led the Contemporary Group for many years before “retiring” to full-time musical pursuits. Space in the Heart is his first “jazzopera,” although he had contemplated such a work for many years.

Greg Campbell
…plays both drums and French horn in this production (sometimes simultaneously – try that, sometime!). He is known for his work as a jazz musician and improvisor, performing also on vibes and percussion. He has studied with Dave Holland, Cecil McBee, George Russell, and Tom Collier, and has performed with the likes of Muhal Richard Abrams Wayne Horvitz, Stuart Dempster, and Francois Houle. He has also been a member of Seattle Experimental Opera (SEXO) and the Seattle-based groups Brainstun (led by Christian Asplund), Project W (featuring Wally Shoup), Ota Prota, and Jessica Lurie’s Motorbison.

Brian Cobb
… on contrabass, has received awards for his music from ASCAP, Berklee College of Music, and the University of Washington. His catalog includes music for voice, wind ensemble, orchestra, film, electronic media, and various chamber settings. Among his compositions is: Campfire Songs for two voices and mixed ensemble, a theatrical song cycle set during the American frontier era; sCatterEd for solo flute, which fuses music, theatre, and kinesics; and the evolution-influenced in far country for alto/soprano saxophone & piano, commissioned by saxophone virtuoso Chien-Kwan Lin. In addition to performing with the Bill Smith Trio, Cobb plays bass for the Tom Baker Quartet, whose debut album is Look What I Found (Present Sound Records). Cobb, who received his DMA degree in music composition from the University of Washington, his master’s degree from University of Massachusetts, and his bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music, teaches music composition at Bellevue Community College.

Becca Friedman
…is a graduate of the renowned Roosevelt High School jazz program, where she participated in the vocal-jazz ensemble. She now is studying classical vocals at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Maria Mannisto
… from Bellevue, Wa., is one of the rising stars of new-music performance in the region, and has extensive experience in many other kinds of vocal performance. Currently a graduate student in vocal performance at the University of Washington, she has performed with several Seattle-area choirs including the UW Chamber Singers, the Renaissance Singers, the Tudor Choir, and Opus 7. She directs the Finnish Choral Society of Seattle and is the primary organist at the Finnish Lutheran Church. In March 2008 she performed for the second time in composer Tom Baker’s series of new “operatorios.” She is the Finlandia Foundation’s 2007 Performer Of the Year.

Jordan Petersen
…was born and raised in Longview, Wa., and is a sophomore at University of Washington double majoring in music (voice) and psychology. In high school he was a guest soloist with the Southwest Washington Symphony. Aside from classical training, he has been singing jazz for several years in vocal jazz ensembles, in high school and currently, with the UW Vocal Jazz ensemble.