About us

Monica Sáles Council graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2004 with a Bachelor of Music. She has been a private piano and string instructor for 24  years, working in the Evergreen area since 2007 at the Evergreen School of Music. She has studied with Prof. Luis Jorge Gonzalez of CU Boulder for Music Composition, Prof. Alvin Chow and Prof. Andrew Cooperstock on piano, Prof. Emeritus John Erlich of  Drake University and Prof. Judith Glyde of CU Boulder for cello, and Vladimir Petrov and Brian Cook for violin.  She also works as a string specialist for Evergreen High School and Evergreen Middle School, maintains a home studio in Arvada, and is a cellist with the Denver Philharmonic.  Mrs. Council is  a member of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and Colorado State Music Teacher Association (CSMTA).     

Joseph has been playing guitar professionally for many years, in New York, Montana, Missouri and Colorado. For over 30 years he has been performing, recording, arranging, teaching, studying and composing. 

   As a performer, Joseph can be heard on many recordings as a founding member of the Long Island avant-garde duet, Inner Landscapes, and the experimental music band QUIET featuring Cathedral keyboardist, Tom Doncourt. He can also be heard accompanying the grandchildren of Maria Von Trapp on the Von Trapp Children Vol 1, Charlie Russell’s MONTANA!, and Off The Wall, The New Jubes & Virtual Orchestra.

  He has also composed for television, radio, stage productions, and small films. He composed the music score for the 2006 PAH-FEST film festival feature film winner, "I Am the Longs”. He also scored and performed a theater production of Anton Checkhov’s Three Sisters and a theater production of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis De Sade. 

As a teacher, Joseph taught guitar studio and class at the University of Montana and The University of Central Missouri. He also taught Music Theory, Aural Training, Music Composition, Jazz Band, Music Literature at Adams State University.

    In Colorado, most recently Joseph performed with the SLV Big Band and led jazz jam sessions in Alamosa and Del Norte for students and local jazz enthusiasts. In Evergreen, Joseph is a familiar performer at local venues. He also hosts jazz jams at the Snowpack Taproom with the Evergreen Jazz Collective. www.facebook.com/guitarist.at.large

Ted Homan is the principal clarinetist with the Stratus Chamber Orchestra and the Evergreen Chamber Orchestra. He has performed with many other local groups including the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra, the Littleton Symphony, the Denver Municipal Band and the Colorado Wind Ensemble.

The Evergreen Chamber Orchestra has given Ted the opportunity to solo several times. He has performed the Artie Shaw Clarinet Concerto, a transcription of  Poulenc’s clarinet sonata (transcribed by our former conductor Bill Morse), one of Mendelssohn’s Koncertstuckes for two clarinets (with Don Ambler as the other soloist), Carl Maria Von Weber’s Concertino for Clarinet, and most recently, the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. As a long time member and board member of the Evergreen Chamber Orchestra, Ted is looking forward to continue playing under the Music Director’s baton, the fabulous timpanist of the Colorado Symphony, Mr. Bill Hill.

Chamber music is his passion and he can be heard performing in the Denver Metro area. Most recently he performed the Brahms clarinet quintet, Mozart’s clarinet quintet, Rota’s trio for piano, clarinet and cello, duos for flute and clarinet by Robert Muczynski and Bela Bartok violin duos transcribed, by Ted Homan, for clarinet and violin.

He enjoys teaching private lessons on clarinet, saxophone, piano, flute and guitar and takes private lessons himself with Greg Dufford, who was formerly the bass clarinetist in the San Francisco Opera. Ted received his Bachelor degree in Music Education from Metro State.

Peter Burkholder began listening to jazz before he could walk, bouncing to the beats of David Sandborn as a one-year-old. It was only a matter of time before he caught the bug. He started playing the saxophone in 2007 taking lessons at the Levine School taking lessons from Navy Commodores unit leader, William C. Mulligan. He continued to study classically into high school and began studying jazz as well under prolific Maryland educator and performer Paul Carr. He met Paul on scholarship to his well known“Jam Camp” at the Jazz Academy of Music. Peter received the scholarship by winning one of two “Outstanding Soloist Awards” at the 2011 Mid Atlantic Jazz Festival. His senior year Peter played lead alto in the Yorktown H.S. Jazz Band in Arlington, Virginia,  and was awarded the “Louis Armstrong Award for outstanding achievement in the field of jazz” by program director Brian Bersh.

The passion Peter developed for jazz in high school extended into his undergraduate studies. At James Madison University, he pursued an undergraduate degree in music, studying under sax professor David Pope. Highlights of his performances as Lead Alto in the JMU jazz ensemble are viewable below. After graduating from JMU, Peter pursued a Masters in music performance at Denver University’s Lamont School of Music, taking advantage of a 75% scholarship to study under pianist Eric Gunnison, big band director Steve Wiest and professor of saxophone Art Bouton. He won an outstanding soloist award at the Greeley Jazz Festival for his role as the “Dragon” in Steve Wiest’s composition “Ork Vs. Dragon.” This performance is also viewable on the Lamont School of Music’s YouTube channel. In May 2020 Peter graduated from the Lamont School of Music with a Masters in music performance and is currently pursuing a performance certificate on a full ride scholarship.  He is excited to start the next phase of his pursuit of jazz, and is looking for work as a performer and Educator in the Denver area. 

https://m.soundcloud.com/peter-burkholder

https://youtu.be/OZxF8mpC_FM

https://youtu.be/dUL4VVIudB8