Robert (Bobby) Thompson (Music Director, Founder & Producer) grew up in Hawthorne, New York, the resting place of Babe Ruth. Bob’s claim to fame is that he played trumpet at George Steinbrenner’s daughter’s wedding, for which George gave him two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills which Bob in turn blew on Yankees’ tickets. A south-paw, he still sleeps with his left-handed catcher’s mitt under his pillow. For ten years (until he was hit by a nerf baseball) Bob was the President and Director of Universal Edition, one of the world’s largest classical music publishing companies, based in Vienna, London and New York. He is currently the Associate Dean in the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, State University of New York and Director of its Arts Management program. The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, Bob is a former Professor of Music at the University of Kentucky and Hope College where he taught Trumpet and Jazz Studies. He holds a Doctorate in Music from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. Bob has produced two Grammy nominated recordings, and served as Music Consultant to the Johnny Depp-Cate Blanchett Film, “The Man Who Cried”. He recently hosted the XM Radio Show, “Voices of the Game” with singer/songwriter Randy Newman as Bob’s guest. The co-author of the best selling book, “Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’”, Bob considers himself to be the world’s foremost Baseball Musicologist (even though the American Musicological Society has yet to recognize baseball musicology as a legitimate field of study worthy of post-doctoral research).
Fred Sturm (Artistic Director) received grants from the NEA and Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund to compose "A Place Where It Would Always Be Spring," a nine "inning" baseball symphony with former Yankee great Tony Kubek as narrator. A renowned composer, arranger, author, and educator, Fred is a professor at Lawrence University, previously served as chair of the Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media department at the Eastman School of Music, and received the prestigious 2003 ASCAP/IAJE Commission in Honor of Quincy Jones. Fred lives and dies with the fortunes of his beloved Chicago Cubs.
Michael Mushalla (Producer) is currently President of Double M Arts & Events, one of the leading contemporary artist management companies. Michael, who grew up in Brooklyn close to Ebbets Field, currently handles such artists as the acclaimed Mark Morris Dance Group. Both Michael and Bob have jointly produced concerts and tours at Ravinia, Tanglewood, and throughout the USA. Michael was formerly a Vice-President at Columbia Artists Music International.
Rob Hudson (Research Director) is the assistant archivist at Carnegie Hall and a freelance trombonist, composer and arranger. When hes not busy cataloging the history of Carnegie Hall, Rob has spent countless hours linking the worlds most beloved concert hall to the worlds most beloved sport. For instance, he discovered that Jimmy Yancey, the great boogie-woogie pianist (who also played in the Negro leagues), performed at Carnegie Hall while holding a day job as a groundskeeper at Comiskey Park. Rob has taught at the Eastman School of Music, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Connecticut, and is the author of "Evolution: The Improvisational Style of Bob Brookmeyer."
Maury Laws (Arranger) is one of the top orchestra arrangers in the country. During the 50's and 60's he wrote for many recording artists and created numerous national television commercials. Laws' first job as a musical director was for the animated production "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which has aired on network television every year since 1964.He went on to compose, arrange and conduct music for many popular television specials and films including "The Hobbit." Among his recognitions are a Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination. Laws has also composed for the Off-Broadway theater and has scored symphonic works for orchestras in this country and in Europe.
Nathan Heleine (Multimedia Director) is a founding member of the New York based design firm, Boom Design Group. Boom's work encompasses website design, identity, multimedia presentations, concert design and installation, and promotional materials for artists, musicians, and related organizations. Nathan grew up near Chicago as an ardent Cubs fan, but his recent move to NYC has brought about a strangely hypnotic reaction to pinstripes. He is still trying to reconcile his new found love of the Yankees with feelings of betrayal towards his hometown team. The unlikely occurrence of a Cubs-Yankees World Series could prove to be tragic for him. Nathan is also a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied saxophone as a Jazz Performance major.
Matt Blanchard (Multimedia Programming) is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned a degree in Jazz Performance - Saxophone. He is also a member of the heavy metal horn band called Jerseyband. Matt's most vivid memories of his illustrious Little League career center around getting beaned nearly every time he was up to bat. As a founding member of Boom Design Group, and by managing the multi-media and software synchronization issues for the Baseball Music Project, Matt hopes to overcome his frustration with the wild pitching of his youth.
Madeline Sturm (Design Director), partner and Creative/Design Director of Boom Design Group, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and active artist/musician in New York. Born and raised in the midwest with a home-made baseball field in her backyard, Maddy played a mean shortstop-third base, making varsity as a middle-schooler and batting cleanup.
Mary Anne Lewis (Project Developer) started her baseball life as a Little League fan, yelling for brother Freddy in Crossett, Arkansas in the 1960s. There followed nearly forty darksome years without baseball before Mary Anne was recruited in 2003 as Louisianas only New York Yankees fan. A decade as director of the North Central Louisiana Arts Council taught her that any time sports and the arts come together, everyone is happy. She now works with Double M Arts & Events as Project Developer.
Mike Breneis (Music Production Manager) lives in a section of Vienna, Austria that is home to Vienna's one and only baseball field. Although Mike has never been to a baseball game, he first learned of the game while watching "The Bad News Bears" as a kid. Mike is an amazing drummer, and a senior editor at Universal Edition, the music publishing company. His band, Forms of Plasticity, has two albums out on Universal Music.
Michael Cooney (Tour Manager) Michael should have realized that he did not have much of a future in baseball when got hit by a ball his first time at bat at the age of 6. Determined to overcome his fears, he re-joined the little league in the 8th grade (although the reason for this had to do more with impressing his childhood sweatheart). Deciding that athletics were not in the cards, Michael went on to the University of Connecticut, where he recieved a degree in Music Performance (percussion) and Compostion. After graduating, Michael worked at Columbia Artists Mgmt, for 13 years. He then formed his own company, ETC (Entertainment Tour Consulting) and has since been putting tours together for organizations specializing in dance, theatre and music.
Jenny E. Goelz (Stage Manager) spent many summer days as a child at the neighborhood baseball field cheering on her brother Kelly's Little League team. She has a knack for attracting stray fly balls and now carefully selects seats when attending a game to avoid being hit. Jenny holds an MFA in stage management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her recent stage management credits include Mikel Rouse's The End Of Cinematics and The Nutcracker for the Champaign Urbana Ballet. While a graduate student she served as event coordinator for many productions at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. She will tour nationally and internationally with The End Of Cinematics this fall.
Advisory Board:
Dr. Robert Freeman (Advisory Board) directed the Eastman School of Music during the period 1972-96 and was president of the New England Conservatory during the period 1996-99.In 1983, he launched the first Baseball Organist's Workshop and Convention at Eastman.Since the fall of 1999 he has served as Dean of the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is involved in curricular reform towards the possibility of public policy change for the arts in America.
Jack Ridl (Advisory Board) grew up the son of an honored basketball and baseball coach. To this day, Jack, now a poet, holds the records for highest batting average for his town's Little League, PONY League, and American Legion baseball teams. He was a shortstop. In college, he played for his father who started him in the first game of the season when Jack was a freshman. The first time up, he lined to second. The next time, he hit a home run over the center field fence and as he was rounding third, his father extended his hand in the customary handshake and muttered, "Thanks." Ridl is a native Pittsburgher who remains a Pirates fan. He grew up watching Ralph Kiner then Roberto Clemente then Willie Stargell and can still remember listening to Harvey Haddix's twelve perfect innings agains the Braves and to Bill Mazeroski's home run at Forbes Field that sent the Yankees to defeat in the 1960 World Series. Jack's baseball poem, "Good Training for Poetry" was published in the baseball poem collection, "Hummers, Knucklers and Slow Curves" published by the University of Illinois Press.
Timothy Johnson (Advisory Board) is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Ithaca College. During 2005-2006, he is on leave and will serve as Visiting Frederick and Alice Slee Professor of Music Theory at the University at Buffalo. He is the author of Baseball and the Music of Charles Ives: A Proving Ground (Scarecrow Press, 2004) for which he was awarded the Sporting News-SABR Award for Baseball Research. In this book Johnson discusses the importance of baseball in Ives's life and music, including Ives's participation during his youth as a pitcher and shortstop, his baseball-related compositions musical depictions of baseball situations and ballplayers (including several Hall-of-Famers), and his use of baseball analogies in his writings. After this past year, Johnson, a long-suffering Boston Red Sox fan, has finally shaken the blues!