swojoplayers        Saxophones  |   Trumpets  |   Trombones  |   Rhythm  |   Musical Director

Saxophones

Dianne Krouse: Dianne's love for music has her playing lead alto saxophone in dozens of big bands, combos and professional performance groups across the Pacific Northwest. She also plays clarinet, guitar, keyboards and is a lead vocalist. One of her favorite creative pastimes is writing, recording and arranging music. She is also learning how to play the flute and mandolin. While attending the University of Washington, she enjoyed playing lead alto and clarinet in the UW Jazz Ensemble and UW Symphony. (photo by Emily Smith)


Kathy Boone: Kathy has been actively teaching and performing music since 1979. Primarily a clarinetist she added the saxophone, flute and bassoon to her woodwind specialties. She completed her BA degree in Music Education at Seattle Pacific University, with an emphasis on woodwinds in 1984. Kathy was the Instrumental Director at Bellevue Christian Schools from 1984 – 1997 where her bands consistently received excellent and superior ratings. She completed her Master of Music degree in Clarinet Performance from the University of Washington in 1993. She has performed with the Broadway Symphony (Orchestra Seattle), the Seattle Philharmonic, and the Bellevue Philharmonic. She currently performs as a free-lance musician in the Pacific Northwest. From 1997 – present she has developed a very successful private studio teaching clarinet, flute, saxophone and guitar. She is also Adjunct Music Faculty at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA. With a love for all styles of music and a special interest in Jazz, she was excited to be asked to join the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra in 2010. "Performing with SWOJO affords me the opportunity to play jazz on the woodwind instruments I have studied over the years.” (photo by Jim Levitt)


Kate Olson: Kate has recently joined SWOJO, her biography and photo will be available soon!








Jenny Ziefel: Jenny has been a professional clarinetist and saxophonist in the Pacific Northwest for over 11 years. She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Washington in 2002, and her Master of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado in 1996. Jenny is a jazz scholar and has written a book on the clarinet in jazz in the 1950's and 1960's. She teaches a large private studio of saxophone, clarinet, and bass clarinet students, and has taught in the public schools as a clinician, woodwinds teacher, and as a solo and ensemble adjudicator. In addition, Jenny has been a performing member of the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra for several years and plays frequently in dance bands and pit orchestras in the Puget Sound area. Jenny's love of music in all its forms has spanned her entire lifetime and has ranged from a fascination with jazz to performing classical music on antique and period instruments to avant-garde performances of works by local composers.


Ann Babb-Nordling: Ann has been a member of Seattle's hardest working swing band, The Portage Bay Big Band, with her husband Todd Nordling since 1996, and has also played in many other big band groups in the Seattle area, such as: Tuxedo Junction, Friendly Fire, the Fairly Honest Jazz Band, Mach One, the Spokane Jazz Society, Fred Radke’s Day and Night bands at North Seattle Community College, and many others. Ann has a BA in Communications from the University of Washington, and has been fortunate enough to have had studied music and saxophone under the tutelage of Cynthia Mullis, Jan Jessen, Don Lanphere, and most recently, Jim DeJoie. Ann is also a Managing Broker with Chuck Cady and Associates at RE/MAX Northwest Realtors and is one of the original and continuing sponsors of the Ballard Jazz Festival. She also sponsors Ponyboy Record’s Annual Jazz Picnic and most recently the North City Jazz Walk. She is a busy mother of Stephanie Babb, a freshman at Western Washington University, and Lucy Nordling, 18 months. (photo by Jim Levitt)

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Trumpets

Marge Rosen: Marge has been playing trumpet for over 25 years, both in classical and jazz genres. She has enjoyed performing on stage at Carnegie Hall and Benaroya Hall. A previous member of the United States Navy Band, she has performed for the President of the United States, numerous foreign dignitaries, and at the 1994 World Cup. She earned a masters degree in music education from Ithaca College in New York. Marge is an original member of SWOJO and its current Executive Director (2011 - present).

Debbie Meyer Snook: Debbie joined the SWOJO trumpet section in 2008. A graduate of Scott Brown’s Roosevelt Jazz program, she attended the University of Washington, where she studied trumpet with Roy Cummings and Timothy Salzman. She earned Bachelor degrees in both Music and Music Education from the University of Washington. Debbie recently received her Master of Arts in Education degree from Antioch University Seattle, where she specialized in Mariachi Education. She taught instrumental, choral and general music at Chief Sealth International High School in West Seattle from 1999-2011. She now is a full-time mom in addition to teaching piano lessons in her private studio. Debbie also enjoys playing cornet in PugetBrass, a Seattle-based British-style brass band.

Kristen Rassmusen: Kristen has recently joined SWOJO, her biography and photo will be available soon!

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Trombones

Carolyn Caster: Carolyn is an active trombonist in the Seattle big band scene and has performed with the ConEd Art Ensemble, Brian Kirk's Jazz Orchestra, the Jazz Police, Jay Thomas' Friendly Fire, Kings of Swing, Route 66, Portage Bay Big Band, Issaquah Jazz Orchestra, and others. She studied music and computer science at the University of Idaho, and has studied trombone with Jeff Hay and Dave Keim. Carolyn is an original member of SWOJO and served as our Executive Director from 2004 - 2010.




Naomi Siegel: Naomi Siegel began playing trombone at age 10, and has been fascinated by the sounds she can produce with the instrument ever since. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Naomi has been an active performer and music educator in the Seattle area since 2008. She regularly performs with Thione Diop, Picoso and other latin, world and experimental groups. Naomi teaches private trombone lessons as well as group classes and ensembles. (photo by Jim Levitt)


Sue Bartels: Sue has a B.S. in Music Education from the University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse. After teaching for 5 years, she hung up the baton and became a graduate of the Western Iowa Technical Community College program in Band Instrument Repair. She was the brass specialist in a woman-owned repair shop in Colorado for a number of years. While continuing to do repair work, Sue completed a 2nd Bachelor Degree in Social Work. Sue’s primary instrument has been euphonium, with tuba being an added passion later in life. She has played both instruments in community bands across the country. Sue is passionate about tuba quartet music and helped start “The Tuba 4’s”. She also subs in Brass Band NorthWest. A hundred years ago, Sue played 1st Trombone in the pit orchestra of a community theatre production of “The Music Man”, and she can play the Tijuana Brass number “Peanuts” on two trumpets, in harmony, at one time. Sue has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Washington. (photo by Jim Levitt)


Other outstanding trombonists regularly appearing with SWOJO include Jenny Kellogg, Melissa Paulson, Audrey Stangland, and others.

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Rhythm

Ann Reynolds: A composer as well as a player, Ann(-ita) has been a member of the NW jazz and latin musical communities for several years. After her first trip to Cuba in 2000, she became addicted to Cuban music and dance. The Cuban influence is felt both in her playing and her musical compositions. Ann leads two latin groups in Seattle – CocoLoco and Clave Gringa. She facilitated a Cuban rhythm section workshop in Mexico, teaches Cuban music classes for dancers, and teaches piano in Seattle. Ann studied with Jerome Gray and Randy Halberstadt in Seattle and with Andres Alen and Dayramir Gonzalez in Cuba. (photo by Jim Levitt)


Maria Joyner: As a previous member, Maria is excited to be returning to SWOJO. Her big band experience includes working in Washington, Oregon, and Texas. In addition to SWOJO Maria has performed locally with Phil Kelly's Prevailing Winds, the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, and Rich Wetzel's Groovin Higher Jazz Orchestra. Maria studied with Ed Soph at the University of North Texas where she played in the esteemed Two O'clock Lab Band. While in Dallas she performed with the Dallas Jazz Orchestra and Pete Peterson and the Collection, and also toured with In Full Swing, a vocal jazz quartet specializing appearances with pop's orchestras throughout the country. Maria was recently chosen to perform in Sisters in Jazz, a collegiate all-women jazz combo sponsored by IAJE and Black Entertainment Television. With the Sisters in Jazz she had performances in New York City and the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center. Maria stays busy as a mother of two boys, is a private teacher, and is also on faculty at Pacific Lutheran University where she teaches drum set and percussion methods classes. (photo by Jim Levitt)


Rachael Contorer: Rachael has been an in-demand bassist in Seattle for over ten years, playing with nearly every jazz orchestra in town at some point (Jim Cutler Jazz Orchestra, Roadside Attraction, Smith-Staelens Big Band, Portage Bay Big Band, Kings of Swing, and many others), accompanying singers, and backing up many talented musicians in a wide array of settings. In recent years she has been bassist of choice for outstanding singers Troy Kline, Mark Haynie, and Sue Bell, with whom she recorded 2010's Upon the Highest Bough, a collection of Christmas and seasonal music. She has also performed for several years with Ostgard & Allen, a classical guitar and woodwind duo that performs original music, and appears on their Tidings of Comfort and Joy, also recorded in 2010. For the past several years she has played with the Music Works Jazz Orchestra, a band devoted to promoting modern large-ensemble music. The MWJO has been a fixture at the Bellevue Jazz Festival in recent years, and was the house band for the 2010 Frank DeMiero Jazz Festival, backing Sara Gazarek among other national performers. And of course she devotes a great deal of time to SWOJO, promoting female musicians and composers, and high-quality large-ensemble music in general!

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Musical Director

Dr. Daniel Barry: Dr. Daniel Barry is an accomplished composer, conductor and trumpet player. His music falls primarily into the jazz category, but integrates elements garnered from advanced classical music studies along with residency and festival performances throughout the world, in particular Brazil and Peru. Daniel recently was honored with a Fulbright Scholarship and will serve as Composer-In-Residence at the Univeridade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil in 2012.

Daniel lives in Seattle, Washington where he writes for and performs regularly with his chamber music group Walk All Ways, the Jim Cutler Jazz Orchestra, and the Seattle Women's Jazz Orchestra, which he also directs. Daniel has two recently released recording projects: Walk All Ways, Origin Records, and Music of the Spheres, Origin Classical.

Dr. Barry is the owner of Marina Music Service and Daniel Barry Publications, and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

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