Gayle Levant
ASMAC Executive Board President
Gayle Levant began her musical studies at the age of three on the piano. At the age of eleven, she was introduced to the harp, and took to it instantly. Following orchestral training at USC and UCLA, she played with the Debut Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas.
Gayle’s career in the studios truly began in 1965-66, and now has an extensive list of credits. She is known as the harpist who can improvise after the main music has been recorded, and adds her own personal touch to every project. She has worked with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, The Carpenters, Joanie Mitchell, Barry Manilow, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Rod Stewart, Michael Bublé and the list goes on and on.
Milton Nelson
ASMAC Executive Board Vice President
Milton Nelson is a composer, orchestrator, arranger and pianist. He is based in the Los Angeles area and is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few of Milton’s credits include Arrangement and Orchestration for the 2016 Tony Awards Opening Production number, Supervising Orchestration includes Disney’s The Game Plan and You Again, Dreamworks’ She’s the Man, Showtime’s Reefer Madness the Musical, Jackie Chan’s The Myth Chinese Zodiac, Kung Fu Yoga and Lifetime’s Christmas With Holly. Additional film orchestration includes My Dog Skip, Haunting in Connecticut and Return to Nim’s Island.
Raymond Torres-Santos
ASMAC Executive Board 2nd Vice President
Raymond Torres-Santos is a composer, conductor, arranger, pianist, educator and author, equally at home in both classical and popular music. His works include orchestral, electronic and vocal music for the concert hall, ballet, film, theater, television and radio.
His works have been performed and/or commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, North Massachusetts Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Reading, Queens and Washington-D.C. Opera; and the Bronx Arts Ensemble, Continuum, New Jersey Chamber Music Society, West Point Woodwind Quintet, North Jersey Philharmonic Glee Club, North/South Consonance, Quintet of the Americas, Gabrieli Quintet and Voix-Touche in the USA; the symphonies of Vancouver and Toronto as well as the Canadian Opera Orchestra in Canada; the Vienna Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony, Georgia Symphony, Soria Symphony, and Warsaw Conservatory of Music Chorus and Orchestra in Europe; the National Chinese Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony, Seoul Symphony, Kaohsiung Philharmonic and Taipei Philharmonic Orchestras in Asia; the Buenos Aires, Chile, Colombia and Mexico City Symphony Orchestras in Latin America; and the Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras in the Caribbean.
Liz Finch
ASMAC Executive Board Treasurer
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, with degrees in theory and composition from University of Missouri, Kansas City (BM) and the University of Wyoming (MA), Liz has worked since 1976 as a music copyist and orchestrator in Los Angeles with many of the best-known arrangers and composers in TV, film, recordings, jingles, and live performance. (Film orchestration on “Shrek”, “Pirates of the Caribbean” “The Dark Knight” to name a few). Besides her background as a French horn player, she grew up studying accordion, which led to her a future of travel with performances around the globe – and many arrangements for ensembles with accordion. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Accordionists and Teachers Guild, International.
Bonnie Janofsky
ASMAC Executive Board Secretary
Bonnie is a native Angelino from a musical family. Her father played alto sax with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Xavier Cugat and the Dorsey Brothers. She began piano at age 9, followed by drums and arranging/orchestration in college, and then composition and conducting.
Bonnie completed her bachelor program and graduate work at California State University, Los Angeles, and was a participant in the world famous EarleHagen BMI Film Scoring Workshop. She completed the University of SouthernCalifornia Advanced Studies Program, Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television, where she was awarded the annual BMI Award. She is also a 2001 Los Angeles Music Week honoree. She studied composition with noted film and television composers David Angel.
Russ Anixter
Board of Directors
Russ Anixter started as a copyist when the work still required pen and ink and made the transition to computer copying when the Mac still had those very small screens with very little memory. He has been a music copyist in NYC for over 30 years. As a partner at Anixter Rice Music Service he has supervised music preparation for countless Broadway shows, regional theater, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, live concerts and recordings. Notable theater projects include all of the Disney musicals on Broadway, Wicked, and Jersey Boys.
Originally from San Francisco, Russ holds a Masters degree in Jazz/Commercial Composition from Manhattan School of Music where he was a student of Manny Albam. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Relations from California State University at Chico.
Dave Black
Board of Directors
Percussionist/composer Dave Black received his Bachelor of Music in percussion performance from California State University, Northridge. He has traveled around the world, performing and recording with a wide variety of well-known entertainers and shows.
A prolific composer and arranger, Mr. Black has had more than 60 of his compositions and arrangements published by most of the major music publishers, and many of those have been recorded. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, including 26 consecutive ASCAP Popular Composer Awards, two Grammy participation/nomination certificates, the Percussive Arts Society President’s Industry Award, a Modern Drummer Readers Poll award (best educational book), two Drum! Magazine Drummie! awards (best educational book), and a certified Gold Record award for the sale of more than 500,000 copies of Alfred’s Drum Method, Book 1. In addition, many of his compositions have been used as source/background music on numerous TV shows and movies, including the film Drumline.
Ross deRoche
Board of Directors
Multifaceted and multitalented studio musician, Ross deRoche lists an impressive 35 years worth of credits, reading more like a list of "been there and done that" than a resume. Besides his considerable chops as a bass trombonist doubling on tuba, Ross can attribute his expertise as a music copyist/supervisor and contractor/score supervisor to virtually hundreds of motion pictures and television shows.
Notable and recognizable titles to his credits are long running and award-winning television series, "St. Elsewhere", "Lonesome Dove", and the recently televised SWAT . Ross' company, deRoche Music, Inc. was responsible for all the score supervision for “The Revenant” and “Birdman”. He helped coordinate and supervise the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta and 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games. He is also the score supervisor for the symphony tour of the very popular Irish vocal group, “Celtic Woman”.
Laura Dickinson
Board of Directors
In 2017, Laura won three Grammy® awards for her work as a music producer and vocal contractor. In 2018, Michael Bublé’s Nobody But Me album was nominated in the Traditional Pop category, which Laura was honored to work on as vocal contractor with a featured vocal on the opening track. In 2019, Willie Nelson’s My Way album won the Grammy® for Best Traditional Pop Album, marking the second album for which Laura contracted Mr. Nelson’s pre-production vocalist.
Dickinson’s sophomore album Auld Lang Syne ventures into a classic, holiday mood with her 17-piece big band comprised of Los Angeles’ finest musicians. She hand-selected her favorite arrangers and instrumentalists, and oversaw every detail as the sole producer in creating this timeless winter love letter.
Dan Ferguson
Board of Directors
Dan Ferguson is a third generation composer, arranger and instrumentalist. Dan has worked in concerts, records, film and television as a guitarist, composer, and arranger-orchestrator since 1968.
After starting on clarinet and saxophone, Dan studied classical guitar with Jose Barroso, Vincente Gomez, Ron Purcell and Oscar Ghilia. He then studied composition with Daniel Lentz, Frank Campo, Dick Grove, Roger Steinman, David Angel and his father, Allyn Ferguson.
Dan’s guitar solos have been featured on television hit shows The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Barney Miller (guitar solo), The Rockford Files, Magnum P. I., The A-Team, Charlie’s Angels, White Shadow and the Greatest American Hero; and recordings and concerts with Freddie Hubbard (Studio Live!), Ray Charles, Joan Baez (From Every Stage), Rita Coolidge, Steve Cropper (w/Duck Dunn), Booker T, Levon Helm, Three Dog Night, Rare Earth, Seals and Crofts, Ben E. King, The Commodores, Barbra Steisand, The Runaways with Cherie Currie, Jay Gruska, Mare Winningham, Boz Scaggs, Marilyn Scott, John Serry and many more.
Charles Fernandez
Board of Directors
Composer Charles Fernandez, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and an award winning composer, has been composing for television, film and stage since 1989.
Specializing in animation, he’s written for shows such as Bonkers, Doug, Toonsylvania, Casper (For which he received two Emmy and one Annie nomination), the Aladdin series, the Mermaid series, the 101 Dalmatian series and Robot Chicken among many other. Among the films he has contributed to are All Dogs Go to Heaven II, All Dogs Christmas Carol, Alvin and the Chipmunks meet the Wolfman, Alvin and the Chipmunks meet Frankenstein, Pebble and the Penguin, Babes in Toyland, Tom Thumb and Thumbalina, Tom Sawyer, Jingle Bells, The Tangerine Bear, Doug’s 1st Movie and The Butterfly Effect. Add to this orchestration and composition on countless trailers, commercials and independent projects and his resume fills up quickly!
Scott Healy
Board of Directors
Los Angeles-based Scott Healy is a Grammy-nominated composer, producer, pianist and multi-keyboardist who multitasks across the musical spectrum. He is best-known for playing in the house band for Conan O’Brien: first on Late Night in NYC, then moving out to LA in 2009 for The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and now Conan on TBS, where he holds down the keyboard chair in the Basic Cable Band. He released Hudson City Suite, by the10-piece Scott Healy Ensemble, in 2013, to worldwide praise, stellar online and print reviews, national jazz radio airplay, and a 2014 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition. His recent CD, Live at Kilbourn Hall by Scott Healy with the Eastman Chamber Jazz Ensemble, was released in October, 2014. Healy was featured on the cover of the February, 2015 issue of Keyboard Magazine, and he was also featured in an “Indie Life” article in the March, 2013 issue of Downbeat Magazine.
Ira Hearshen
ASMAC Board of Directors
Ira’s music writing career began in 1979 when he began working for composer Joe Harnell on 2 concurrent T.V. series ‘Cliffhangers’ and The Incredible Hulk’ as a film music arranger/orchestrator. He has steadily worked since in the Motion Picture, Television, and Recording media for such composers as; Randy Newman, Lalo Schifrin, John Debney, Stanley Clarke, Lee Holdridge, and Michael Giacchino, among others.
John Hinchey
Board of Directors
John Hinchey is a producer, composer, arranger and trombonist based in Nashville Tennessee. Since graduation from Towson University, where he studied with jazz composer Hank Levy, John has had an eclectic career in many facets of the music and entertainment industry.
Glenn Jordan
Board of Directors
Glenn Jordan is an award winning songwriter, composer, producer, singer and performer whose music is heard every day by millions of people.
Glenn’s credits as a composer include scoring and providing music for over a thousand episodes of television programs and films in the last 15 years, including The X-files, Millennium, Biography, Doug, 101 Dalmatians, Catdog and Something About Mary. As composer/musical director of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Glenn was nominated for 4 Emmys and won the Emmy Award in 1991. As composer on Audubon’s Animal Adventure’s he won the Genesis Award in 1996 in recognition of his work to increase awareness of the plight of endangered species.
Andrew Kesler
Board of Directors
Andrew Kesler is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles, California. Originally hailing from the prairies of Canada, Andrew has toured Asia, Europe, Australia and North America earning his reputation as a seasoned performer and patron of many musical styles. Alongside his performing career, he works on both sides of the glass as a session player and recording engineer and has collaborated with some of the industry’s best, including Grammy Award-winning and nominated producers Al Schmitt, Tommy LiPuma, Greg Wells, and Jeremy Darby. Andrew studied music at Humber College in Toronto, earning an honors degree in Jazz Piano Performance and Music Production. As an artist he has released four albums of original music featuring some of Canada’s finest musicians. As an engineer, producer, arranger and studio musician he has credited contributions on dozens of records. His talents also extend to the corporate world of jingles and commercial music producing work regularly for BMG with Google, IBM, Nokia, 7UP, Filler Magazine, and Tourism Australia on his list of clients.
Hummie Mann
Board of Directors
Composer/arranger Hummie Mann has collaborated with some of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors. His feature film scores have ranged from Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Dracula: Dead & Loving It” to Peter Yates’ “Year of the Comet”, the children’s film “Thomas and the Magic Railroad” to “Wooly Boys” starring Peter Fonda and Kris Kristofferson.
For television, he has scored projects for Simon Wincer (the miniseries “P.T. Barnum”), Jonathan Kaplan (the miniseries re-make of “In Cold Blood”), Norman Jewison (“Picture Windows – Soir Bleu”), Peter Bogdanovich (“The Rescuers: Tales of Courage – Two Women”), Joe Dante (“Masters of Horror: Homecoming” & “The Screwfly Solution”), Jim Abrahams (“First Do No Harm”) and Richard Friedenberg (“Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas”).
Jeannie Pool
Board of Directors
Jeannie Gayle Pool is a composer, filmmaker, musicologist, film music consultant, and producer. In recent years, her compositions, including works for orchestra and chamber music, were heard in California, Washington, D.C., Florida, Ohio, Toronto, Beijing, France, and Belgrade. Her feature-length documentary, Peggy Gilbert and Her All-Girl Band, narrated by Lily Tomlin, is screened regularly worldwide. She has composed the music for several documentary films and short films. Her music publishing company, Jaygayle Music (ASCAP), publishes the music of Zenobia Powell Perry (1908-2004), among other composers. She reconstructed and orchestrated Perry’s opera about the underground railroad, Tawawa House, for a fully-staged production in 2014 (subject of a new documentary, directed and edited by Elliott J. Barker). She is currently digitizing 20 years of radio broadcasts from her award-winning show on KPFK, “Music of the Americas,” for release as podcasts.
Dan Redfeld
Board of Directors
Award-winning American composer, conductor, orchestrator and producer Dan Redfeld has had his music and arrangements performed internationally from the concert hall to the musical theatre stage to the recording studio. His credits include the following:
Music director: It Shoulda Been You, (Musical Theatre Guild), Bright Star, Beauty & The Beast, (Susan Egan), The Who's Tommy, (Alice Ripley), Chess, (Susan Egan/Matt Morrison), My Fair Lady, Jonathan Pryce, assistant MD), Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, Peter Pan, Evita, and dozens more. Conductor for LA Opera's Educom since 2003.
Composer: A Hopeful Place, Arioso for Oboe, Percussion & Strings, (Santa Barbara Symphony premiere), January 15, 1947 for Solo Harp, Fantasy for Violin & Piano, Travels for Piano Quartet, and Dance Sketches.
Sylvester Rivers
Board of Directors
Composer, arranger and pianist Sylvester Rivers has recorded with numerous hit artists including Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, The Jacksons, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Rogers, New Edition, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Martha Reeves, Lamont Dozier, Barry White, the Love Unlimited Orchestra, Shalamar, Cheryl Lynn, Gloria Gaynor, Candi Staton, The Sylvers, Marc Bolan & T. Rex, Ray Parker, Jr. & Raydio, Deniece Williams, Johnny Mathis, Billy Preston, Syreeta Wright, Michael Henderson, Earl Klugh, Stanley Turrentine, Najee, Maxine Nightingale, Aretha Franklin, The Fifth Dimension and many others.
Greg Sims
Board of Directors
Greg Sims is an award-winning composer for film and television, as well as an expert arranger, orchestrator, songwriter and music producer.
Greg’s television credits include The Oprah Winfrey Show (7 years), The Dr. Oz Show, Super Soul Sunday, and numerous other programs on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). He composed the closing theme for Winfrey’s first prime-time special on ABC, Oprah’s Legends Ball.
Brian Usifer
Board of Directors
Brian Usifer is an orchestrator/arranger, music director, pianist, producer and composer. He was the Music Director of Disney’s Frozen on Broadway and is currently the Associate Music Supervisor of The Book of Mormon on Broadway.
Evita Wagner
Board of Directors
Hailing from the beautiful town of Warstein, Germany, Evita started playing piano age 5 and was, by the age of 13, the informal rehearsal accompanist at the local music school’s musical theatre workshop. At age 16, she became an organist at her hometown’s church.
Deciding to complement her background in music with the necessary knowledge and skills in textual and film analysis before embarking on a professional film music career, Evita graduated from Bonn University in Interdisciplinary American Studies with an MA thesis on popular film and how narrative choices in these films shape interactive tie-in products such as video games and subsequent DVD releases, while minoring in Economics and Public Law.