Sam Suggs, double bass with Melissa Wimbish, soprano, and Emre Kartari, percussion

Sam Suggs was named New Artist of the Month by Musical America, soon after receiving the Gary Karr Prize for 1st place at the 2015 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition, at which he performed many of his own compositions. An omnivorous musician, he was named Concert Artists Guild’s New Music/New Places Fellow at the 2016 CAG International Competition, making him first double bassist in thirty-six years to join the CAG roster: “What Suggs proceeded to play quite simply boggled the mind.” (Oregon Arts Watch). As a collaborative bassist, he has performed at Chamber Music Northwest, Mostly Music, Yellow Barn, Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, and was named a Laureate Winner in the Open Division of the 2016 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. At the 2017 Bradetich Foundation International Double Bass Solo Competition, the jury invented and awarded him a prize for "Extraordinary Creativity" following his solo recital.   

Melissa Wimbish is an acclaimed soprano and bandleader and genre-defying artist known for her ability to move between opera, art song, Renaissance polyphony, and pop music with ease. Wimbish made her 2016 Carnegie Hall debut as grand-prize winner of the NATS Artist Award National Competition. The Washington Post has called her work“...vocally stunning, and theatrically riveting.”

Emre Kartari is an Adjunct Instructor of Jazz at VCU, JMU and Longwood University, where he teaches Small Jazz Ensemble, Jazz History, and Drum-set. As an educator, Kartari worked with the New York Pops Mentors in Music program from 2003 until 2005. In 2009, with the support of the American Embassy in Turkey, he formed Ankara State Conservatory’s jazz degree program. In 2011 he became the Director of Jazz Studies at Yasar University in Izmir, Turkey, directing the VCU Izmir International Jazz Camp in 2012 and 2013. He formed the group “Sazli-Cazli,” featuring VCU alumni Taylor Barnett and Kevin Simpson, to perform along with Turkish musicians for state-sponsored tours in Turkey in 2015 and 2016. Emre completed his Doctoral Studies from Yasar University, in Izmir Turkey, in 2019.