Clarinetist Jennifer Dennison Daniels is celebrating her 20th year of private teaching in 2020! A native Houstonian, she is well-integrated into the rich culture of the Houston Arts scene, regularly performing with many local music and arts organizations including The Houston Heights Orchestra, where she was both Executive Director and Principal Clarinetist, ECHO (The Energy Corridor of Houston Orchestra), Scirocco Winds, and various other small ensembles throughout Southeast Texas. Though she has spent the bulk of her career in her hometown, she did manage to break away briefly from the Lone Star State, earning a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 2005. An avid Francophile, she then began a Master of Music degree from McGill University in Montréal, Québec. Though Canada was a welcoming and surprisingly hospitable territory, she eventually heeded the beckoning call of The Republic of Texas, and answered its cry for her to return with four resounding claps of her hand, as truly the stars at night ARE big and bright deep in the heart of Texas. Back in her hometown, she then earned her Master of Music degree at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music in 2009, where she began her Doctor of Musical Arts degree. While at the Moores School, Mrs. Daniels had the opportunity to perform with AURA, The Moores School’s contemporary music performing ensemble, contemporary music being both a passion and a specialty of hers. In 2008, she won third prize in the Ruth Burr Competition for Houston musicians. She is quite at ease as a soloist, performing as such multiple times with the Houston Heights Orchestra, and has performed recitals on many different stages. Also an active teacher and clinician, Mrs. Daniels has a flourishing private studio and is faculty at Lone Star College-Montgomery in The Woodlands, TX.
Bassoonist and other woodwinds specialist Nathan Daniels has performed nationwide in various ensembles since graduating from Wichita State University with a Bachelor of Music degree and The University of Akron with a Master of Music degree, including orchestras at Indiana University where he began coursework for his Doctor of Musical Arts degree. He is an active teacher of all levels in the Houston-area on all reed woodwinds, and regularly performs with ensembles in Southeast Texas and Louisiana. His principal teachers include Nicolasa Kuster, Barrick Stees, and William Ludwig, Kathleen McLean, and Michael McCraw. He is well-versed in both classical and jazz genres, and is an accomplished Jazz Bari-Saxophonist, much to his wife's chagrin, and with whom he shares a lesson studio and a puppy.