Christopher Ramos is currently serving as Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. He conducts the UVU Wind Symphony and directs instrumental studies within the music education area. He additionally teaches courses in conducting, music education, and music appreciation.

He received the DMA in instrumental conducting at The Hartt School, studying with Glen Adsit and Edward Cumming. While at Hartt, he assisted in conducting Hartt's instrumental performing ensembles and the Greater Hartford Youth Wind Ensemble, and as part of the adjunct faculty he taught courses for graduates and undergraduates in conducting, brass methods, diversity and belonging, jazz pedagogy, and in the core music theory sequence. Before Hartt, Chris served as a band director at Dalat International School in Penang, Malaysia where he taught Western classical and jazz music in performing and theory courses across grades 6-12, and his students were invited to perform in international festivals across Southeast Asia.

He is also an active scholar working at the intersection of musicology, wind band studies, and music education with his latest publications forthcoming in the Music Educators Journal (NAfME) and the Utah Music Educators Journal (UMEA). In 2022 he received the Goldstein Award from the University of Hartford, and in 2016 he received the Joanne Kealinohomoku Prize from the Society of Ethnomusicology Southwest for his scholarship. He holds additional degrees from the University of New Mexico where he studied with Eric Rombach-Kendall, and from East Texas A&M University (formerly Texas A&M University-Commerce) where he studied with Phillip Clements (conducting), Luis Sanchez (piano), and Mike Morrow (horn).

In addition to his conducting, researching, and teaching, he actively performs both on the French horn and at the keyboard. He has produced, performed, and conducted on records for the Naxos, Summit, and Parma record labels, and he has performed in and conducted ensembles in concert halls, stages, forests, and patios across the United States and Asia. An avid supporter of new music, he has been part of numerous commissioning projects for solo horn, chamber ensembles, and wind ensembles. He is a second-place winner in The American Prize for conducting and in 2025-27 he holds the Harry Begian Conductor Scholar Award at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. He is an active member in the College Band Directors National Association, Utah Music Educators Association, Utah Bandmasters Association, National Band Association, American Musicological Society, and National Association for Music Education, and is an honorary member of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia National Music Fraternity.

Makoto Chi is a visual artist, born and raised in Canada, and currently living in Western Massachusetts. His artistic backgrounds are in tattooing, drawing and painting, occasionally eddying into sculpture and installation. These practices cross-pollinate and share thematic through lines: Queer eros, ritual, diasporic desire for belonging, dualisms, and revisiting and refracting personal memories. Research into the visual cultures, mythologies and spiritualities of his Japanese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritages are important touchstones, where the fractured narratives of fleeing homelands, internments, of receiving and enacting grave violence are given space to speak and merge together. For Makoto, Chi, eroticism within anthropomorphic bodies is a means of queer refraction and reimagining of these histories and myths; they re-knit severed relationships to his heritages while opening space for new meaning and surprises. Makoto Chi Graduated from Emily Carr University in 2015 with a bachelor's degree in illustration. He currently lives in Western Massachusetts at Lupinewood Collective, an intentional living space and community project.

Important links:

https://www.patreon.com/makotochi

https://store.lupinewood.com/ and https://www.lupinewood.com/evergreen/

https://www.instagram.com/makoto.chi/

https://www.makoto-chi.com/

My work is fueled by the complex dissonance of a modern human experience—dominant over and separate from the natural world. A dance between grief and hope, my art evokes visual representations of ambiguous loss of natural entities and celebrations of persistent patterns, teachers, medicine and kin. Trees are my primary source of inspiration.

My mediums range across fiber arts disciplines and include felting, weaving, paper and book making, and basketry. Process is essential to comprehension of my felted work as it represents a personal expression of ritual, and the fusing of individuals into collective; an echoing of earthly interconnectedness, mycelial networks and coalescence. Bent knees allow flat palms to meet earth, expressing acts of care, reverence and patience–a physical prayer of grief, gratitude, and remembrance. This ritual of wet felting and its physically demanding process help me to expel grief, loss, frustration and anger. In turn, because of the labor intensive process, I must give myself fully to the piece knowing I will sacrifice my body’s abilities in the days following. I view this dynamic as an exploration of “how much do we live in reciprocity with our earth?”. While traveling, basketry has been my most consistent medium choice as it allows me the flexibility of a gradual less demanding process. 

My work aims to evoke an environmentally conscientious community through a declaration that we are a global community, equally responsible for the protection of Earth. 

Materials sourced from nature engage environmental agents as collaborators, not merely subject matter.

I have been traveling/volunteering fulltime since the summer of 2024. After the completion of my degree, I craved education from life beyond the realm of academia and the insular scope of American understanding. I have since been to 11 countries. This experience has helped me flourish in problem solving, communication, forgiveness, my understanding of international relations, the connectedness of our human experiences despite nationality or social position, that positive land relationships exist everywhere, and the importance of my relationship with myself, my artwork and my spirituality.

Links:

Contentsofcricket.com

@contentsofcricket ig

Katy Lipscomb is an illustrator and author known for vivid watercolor creatures that merge the natural world with the imagined. Her practice centers on finding magic in the everyday and inviting viewers into lush, character-driven worlds, using processes that emphasize creative confidence, storytelling through imagery, and the joy of traditional media.

Alongside co-founder and co-author Tyler Fisher, she has published The Artist’s Drawing Book and Sketch Your Art Out, which blend approachable drawing instruction with creative prompts and professional insight to help build a sustainable art practice. Together, they run Katy Lipscomb LLC, where her work has appeared in TIME Magazine, on NPR’s All Tech Considered, on ABC’s The View, and in art publications such as ImagineFX, Artists Network, and Colored Pencil Magazine, as well as in gallery exhibitions and merchandise lines developed with partners including Adidas, Diamond Art Club, Winsor & Newton, Derwent, Upper Deck, and more.

The studio’s work reaches over half a million followers and millions of viewers worldwide, with projects recognized by organizations including Effie Worldwide, SCAD, and more.

KatyLipscomb.com • @katy_lipscomb

Father, husband, traditional bow hunter, and multidisciplinary movement coach

Through a synthesis of many schools of practice and emphasizing the natural environment, my aim is to empower you to take responsibility for your health through effective and accessible education. Armed with the understanding that nature heals, my aim is to inspire you to get back to your natural habitat and Re-Village.

https://www.instagram.com/move_like_human/

Olga Rybalko is a Ukrainian-Canadian painter based in Vancouver, BC, working primarily in oils. Her work focuses on landscapes and still life paintings, with an emphasis on observation, light, and quiet storytelling.

Born in Sevastopol, Ukraine, and immigrating to Canada at the age of 13, Olga has spent much of her life moving between environments. That experience continues to influence how she approaches painting, paying close attention to atmosphere, subtle shifts in light, and the small details that give a place or scene its sense of presence.

Olga often works directly from life, painting outdoors or from careful studio observation. Her process is intuitive but rooted in traditional techniques, allowing each painting to develop through looking, adjusting, and responding over time. While her practice began with landscape and cityscape painting, it has expanded to include more narrative-driven work, including still life paintings that hint at stories without spelling them out.

Through her paintings, Olga aims to capture not just how a place looks, but how it feels to be there, and the moments that stay with you after you’ve left. Her work is held in private collections across Canada and internationally.

Website: https://www.olgarybalko.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olgarybalkoart/

Hannah Veiga is a pyrography (wood burning) artist from Southeastern Ontario, Canada. In her practice she creates intricate designs burned into salvaged live-edge wood that compliment the shape and natural beauty of the wood itself. She strives to create wood burnings that are a reflection of her love for the outdoors, offering sanctuary, moments of peace, and an invitation to stay curious for the everyday wonders of nature.

Website: hannahveiga.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/hannahveiga

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hannahveiga

Lily Morello is a Malaysian Chinese American food photographer and blogger based in San Francisco, California. She enjoys making carbs look pretty and exploring connection through food. By sharing about food made in her small home kitchen with photography work done entirely with her phone, her hope is to make beautiful food feel more accessible and to inspire others to create their own joy through cooking and eating at home. Her hobbies include gardening (to grow flowers for her food styling pursuits), travel (to expand her experiences with foods around the world), and cuddling with her dog.

Instagram: @lilybubbletea

Growing up in Southern California, Casey Parlette developed a deep

connection to wildlife while exploring the region’s hills and ocean.

Inspired by these experiences, he began sculpting at a young age. After

earning a degree in anthropology from UCLA, Casey worked as a

commercial diver and later as a career ocean lifeguard in Laguna Beach.

His adventures include operating underwater cameras for the television

series Inside Sportfishing, traveling to remote regions of the world, and

spending eight months in the Peruvian Amazon, where he discovered a

previously unknown fish species now classified as Rivulus parlettei. A

naturalist at heart, Casey draws on his lived experiences to inspire his

sculptures.

Casey works with wood, metal, and stone to capture the movement and

feel of the natural world. He selects materials whose inherent patterns

and textures echo his subject. curly redwood may suggest the stripes of a

tiger shark, while a manzanita burl can reveal the form of an octopus.

Through blacksmithing and metal fabrication, he hammers life into

sterile sheets and rods of metal while carved stone adds permanence and

color. By combining these materials, Casey creates one-of-a-kind

sculptures that reflect the beauty, complexity, and vitality of nature.

website: www.caseyparlette.com

Instagram: @caseyparlettesculpture

Podcast: Creative Pursuits with Casey Parlette

Email: [email protected]

April Waller @aprilmakes is a "whimsical artsy mom" and content creator based in Atlanta, Georgia. She specializes in creative DIY home projects, sewing, painting, and homemaking.