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 SINGER SONGWRITER
Ginger Doss
Instrumental, class of ’80


“I am in a duo right now with fellow singer-songwriter Bekah Kelso. I play keyboards, hand percussion and guitar, Bekah plays guitar and hand percussion. Our music is described as soulful, acoustic and harmony driven. We have been compared to Tori Amos and KT Tustall.”

“I can remember a time when my arms could not stretch far enough to touch each end of the keyboard at the same time. Now I can't remember a time when the piano wasn't central to my life. Deeply spiritual and introverted, I have always used my song writing as a vehicle to express the parts of my experience that are difficult to put into spoken words.”

GBmojo Website
GBmojo EPK
GBmojo Facebook Fan Page

ARTIST/PHOTOGRAPHER
Mark Estes
Art/Photography, class of 75

“To this day, I am grateful for HSPVA. As a member of the second graduating class ('75), I was provided with the chance of a lifetime to figure out who I am and develop my identity. I now live in Oakland, CA. with my wife Susan and Moe the cat. As a professional photographer/artist, I focus on creating images that evoke compassion. The emphasis of my business is illustrating people in the medical and healthcare communities for advertising, corporate and educational institution uses. I am also an active category 4 amateur bike racer in northern CA., have been as a trained hospice volunteer, a whitewater river raft guide, a life-direction coach and am serving as photographer/coordinator for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (infant bereavement photography to assist grieving families).

www.estesphoto.com

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PHOTOGRAPHER
Tom Haymes
Photographer
Media, class of 85

“Mottled Valley”

“As a photographer, I endeavor to see form and color in ways that may not be obvious to casual viewer. I always consider it a success when someone recognizes the location of one of images and says, “I never saw that that way before.” I try to observe nature and lighting closely because most of my photography is done using natural lighting. There is a certain amount of luck and the thrill of successful hunt when the light and subject coincide just so. I do photography first and foremost for myself and it gives me great joy to be able to share it with the rest of the world.”

http://haymesimages.com/

DANCER
Jeane July
Sambista (samba dancer & teacher)
Vocal music, class of 79

Jeane moved to Los Angeles and became a background singer for artists such as Billy Preston, Liza Minnelli, Evelyn Champagne King, Brenda Russell and many others. She also fell in love with dance again and the music and rhythms of Brazil truly became her passion. As a Sambista, she teaches classes and private lessons in LA, and is also the founder, director and choreographer for her own groups, Na Onda and Diaspora.

While in Houston for the Happening, Jeane will give a Brazilian Samba Workout Workshop at NiaMoves on Saturday, July 11, 12:30pm, www.niamoves.com.
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FILMMAKER
Adela (Calbillo) Justice
Instrumental, class of ’90

Adela (Calbillo) Justice graduated HSPVA in 1990 where she was a violist. She received Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from the University of North Texas. She has played bass in local Houston blues and rock bands since 1998 and graduated from the Harris County Sheriff's Office Academy in 2005. She is currently embarking on making her first film, a documentary about the Harris County Sheriff's volunteer Reserve Deputies titled "The Reserves."

SINGER SONGWRITER
Gretchen Phillips
Singer/songwriter
Vocal music, class of 81

A "fringe legend" according to Texas Monthly, Gretchen moved to Austin in 1981 and immediately fell into the flourishing, incredibly creative Austin punk scene, and decided to forge a path of her own in the hitherto underrepresented genre of "lezzie rock" with her band Meat Joy, which sought to band "sex back in homosexuality." Next followed the more rocking, electric Girls in the Nose and the more acoustic Two Nice Girls.

In the early 90s, Gretchen began her solo career, and ranged so far and wide as defies succinct and accurate description. She formed the Gretchen Phillips Xperience; she’s experimented in gospel; and formed A Joy Division Cover Band. Most recently she’s been integrating funny-real spoken word interludes into her music performances.

Watch Gretchen on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZBeYdgum4A
(Plu search for Gretchen Phillips and find lots more great clips)
www.gretchen-phillips.com

 WRITER
Chivas Sandage : Media/Dance, class of ’82

Chivas Sandage is an Assistant Professor at Westfield State College where she teaches Contemporary Cross-Cultural Literature, World Literature & Composition. Her essays, poems and stories have appeared in the Artful Dodge, Daily Hampshire Gazette, Evergreen Review, Hampshire Life Magazine, Ms. Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, upstreet, Verse, Manthology: Poems on the Male Experience (Univ. of Iowa Press, ‘06) and Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate (Prometheus Books, ‘04). She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College and a BA from Bennington College. Currently, she is completing a collection of poetry titled Hidden Drive and working on a memoir. With her thirteen-year-old daughter, Sophie, and her partner, Vivian, she divides her time between Northampton, Massachusetts and Collinsville, Connecticut.
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PHOTOGRAPHER 
Alex Suarez: Media, class of '84 

  
"Field of Wildflowers" 

From helicopters to oceans, ghost towns to urban jungles, mountains to deserts, foreign lands to his own back yard, Alex lives for exploring the world and capturing compelling images that tell a story and emotionally move the viewer. Use of bold colors, strong graphic elements, unusual perspectives and whimsical humor are some of the tools that he employs to create images that evoke emotion or provoke thought. Alex draws upon his 30 years of photographic experience to make the most of each and every photographic opportunity he encounters. 

Alex lives in the Austin hill country with his wife and two kids. He leads a monthly advanced photography interest group that is open to the public. 

http://AlexSuarez.com 

GUITARIST
Edward Trybek : Instrumental, class of 2000

Edward Trybek, classical guitarist, composer, and a multi-award winner. On the international circuit, Mr. Trybek has performed in Greece, Canada, France, Thailand, Japan, Germany, and Austria, in addition to his regular US concert appearances.
Mr. Trybek won a silver medal at the prestigious Tokyo International Guitar Competition, the first American to have won this prize, except for his mentor Maestro Scott Tennant. Mr. Trybek's devotion to classical guitar is reflected in his current CD, A Portrait of Edward Trybek, which contains a diverse range of guitar music, including music written for lute and harpsichord,
At the age of seventeen, Mr. Trybek was commissioned to write a ballet score for a special project for the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas.  In the same year, Mr. Trybek was selected as a finalist in the 2000 Turner Classical Movie Young Film Composer Competition.  
http://www.edwardtrybek.com/
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JAZZ BASS
Keith Vivens: Instrumental, class of 1980

 

Keith can currently be heard on the international release of jazz artist Bobby Lyle's latest CD "Hands On," featured on the song "Fancy Pants." Keith Vivens currently plays all around the East Texas area in many different bands and has also been playing in a jazz fusion band Solar Wind for the last three years. Solar Wind released their third CD titled "For Square" in 2006 and features Keith's incredible playing on bass. Keith was voted "Best Bass Player in Houston," 1998, by the critics poll in Public News Magazine.
www.keithvivens.com
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JAZZ PIANIST
José-Miguel Yamal: Instrumental, class of 1995
 
A Chilean-American jazz pianist, José-Miguel Yamal was studying classical guitar at HSPVA when he realized his true voice was best spoken through the piano, specifically in the jazz genre. Recent trips to Latin American have not only enlivened José-Miguel’s Hispanic cultural roots, but have resulted in an expansive musical vocabulary of salsa, cumbia, bossa nova, samba, and cuecas, which he infuses with funk and soul for his own cultural palette of sounds.
José-Miguel has performed with many jazz greats including Tom Harrell, Bob Mintzer, Carlos Garnett, Hubert Laws, and Milt Hinton, and Duke Ellington orchestra trombonist Buster Cooper, trumpet player Barrie Lee Hall, Jr., bassist John Lamb, and saxophonist Shelley Carroll. He has also collaborated with salsa singers Ismael Miranda, Rey De la Paz, Luisito Carrion, Choco Orta, salsa/latin jazz trombonist Jimmy Bosch and pianist Larry Harlow. José-Miguel has performed in the internationally acclaimed 2001 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. José-Miguel’s passion for music is complemented by his love of mathematics and science; he has a Ph.D. from Rice University in statistics and is working as a researcher at the UT MDAnderson Cancer Center in Houston.
www.jose-miguel.com
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MULTIMEDIA
Blake Williams: Visual art, class of 2004
"My work explores the relationship between human memory and various forms of light radiation using video works and sculptural installations."
Blake earned a BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he primarily studied video, installation, and film. Blake currently has a studio in the Toronto School of Arts’ Independent Studio Program, and will be beginning work for a Masters of Visual Studies at the U of Toronto in fall 2009. Blake has exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., as well as Launch Projects and Fly Gallery in Toronto.

http://blakewilliams.net/biography.html

OTHER PERFORMERS/ARTISTS

• Dran Alessi
• Lesa Doyle
• Brynn Leggett
• Monica Passley
• Julie Prejean
• Nancy Rose
• John Sweeney
• Cassandra Hubbard White

JAM SESSION

• Jose-Miguel Yamal ('PVA '95), keys
• Keith Vivens ('80), bass
• Michael Aguilar ('78), drums
• Lance Hosey, alto
• Nelson Morales, trpt.
• Matt Nyce (Fairchild), drums
• Syd Polk, bari
• Rocki Range, bass
• Warren Sneed, tenor
• Richard A. Baum, fiddle

Among others still unconfirmed

MCs and speakers: Dr. Scott Allen, Mary Martha Lappe, Blake Minor, "Doc" Morgan, Agelia Pérez Márquez, Bob Singleton, Wayne Wilson