Featured Composers, May 2023

Bobby “Blackhat” Walters

Bobby BlackHat, Virginia’s Blues Ambassador, award winning recording artist, harmonica player, vocalist, songwriter, comedian, producer has been playing harmonica for over 46 years. Bobby is a retired U.S. Coast Guard Commander with 27 years of distinguished service which included serving as Military Aide to the President and being awarded the Coast Guard Medal for Heroism.  

He has opened for music legends: B.B King, Taj Mahal, Delbert McClinton, Patti Labelle, Ramsey Lewis, and Maze. He has also performed with Eddie Shaw, Kenny Neal, Ruthie Foster, Tas Cru, Jason Ricci, Slam Allen, Mick Kolassa, Fernando Jones., Memphis Gold, and Lurrie Bell.   BlackHat is a judge for the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN.

Other members of Blackhat’s group include Lucy Kilpatrick (keyboard), Brian Eubanks (bass), Danny Lubertazzi (guitar), and Michael Behlmar (drums).

Soon Hee Newbold

Newbold was adopted as an infant by the Newbold family and grew up, with two sisters, in Frederick, Maryland. She began playing piano at age five and violin at age seven winning many prestigious competitions and performing as a concert artist at an early age. As a soloist and in professional orchestras throughout the world, Soon Hee has appeared in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, Disney World, Aspen, and Tanglewood.

In high school, her interests included science, languages, and drama. She studied German, French, and Russian and completed an internship in AIDS and Cancer research at the National Institute of Health in Ft. Detrick, Maryland.

Soon Hee received her Bachelor of Music degree from James Madison University where she concentrated on film scoring, orchestration, and audio production. Upon graduation, she worked in entertainment for Walt Disney World and performed in the various symphonies in Florida. Ms. Newbold also produced albums and wrote for many recording projects and ensembles. Published through the FJH Music Company, her musical compositions can be heard around the world in film, orchestras, and other performing groups.

As an actress, Ms. Newbold expanded her experiences to film and television. She got her first film break in The Waterboy (1998) and her first television role in Camp Tanglefoot: It All Adds Up (1999).

Sadly, her mother was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a terminal, devastating genetic neurological illness for which there is little treatment and no cure. She wrote the popular song “Endless Dreams,” and dedicated it to those affected by Huntington’s to spread awareness and hope.

Benjamin P. Snoek

Snoek is a student composer from Holland, Michigan. Born in South Korea, Ben enjoys writing music for a variety of ensembles, with a focus on string orchestra. He is the recipient of a J.W. Pepper Editor’s Choice award and two ArtPrize awards from its youth arts competition.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Miranda is an American songwriter, actor, singer, filmmaker, and playwright. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals In the Heights (2005), and Hamilton (2015), and the soundtracks for the animated films Moana (2016), Encanto, and Vivo (both 2021). His awards include three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards five Grammy Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, an Annie Award, a MacArther Fellowship Award, a Kenney Center Honor, and a Pulitzer Prize.

Michael Story

Story has written extensively for college, high school, junior high school, and elementary school bands as well as for professional groups including the Houston Pops Orchestra. Adept at writing for all levels, he is most known for his numerous publications for young or developing concert and marching bands.

Story holds bachelor and master degrees in Music Education from the University of Houston, where he served as assistant director of the UH Cougar Marching Band under the leadership of Dr. William Moffit. His first piece was published by Studio P/R of Lebanon, Indiana when he was only 20 years old. Mr. Story has been an exclusive writer for Columbia Pictures Publications, CPP/Belwin, and Warner Bros. Publications.

Anne McGinty

McGinty is known throughout the world as a prolific woman composer in the field of concert band literature, having written more than 225 pieces, with more than 50 of those commissioned by bands across the United States.

Thousands of people have played her music and discovered the joy and beauty of playing music that is both educational (helping instrumentalists learn basic musical skills) and also musical, engaging their imagination and encouraging them to stay in the instrumental music program. In addition to concert band, she has written for solo flute with band, solo clarinet with band, brass band, string orchestra, solo flute, flute with piano accompaniment, and music for flute duet, trio, quartet and choir. All of her compositions and arrangements have been published.

Ralph Ford

Ford is a composer, arranger, conductor, and clinician. In addition to his twenty nine years of university teaching experience, Ralph has enjoyed a wide variety of professional experiences in the music, media, and broadcast industries.

He is an exclusive composer and arranger for the Belwin division of Alfred Publishing Company in Los Angeles, California, with over 250 titles available worldwide for orchestra, concert band, jazz ensemble, and marching band. A frequently commissioned composer, his music has been premiered and performed by university, military, professional, community, and school ensembles around the world. He has received international and regional advertising awards for his jingles and 3-D animation. His work in media includes live radio broadcasts, host, voice-over for television, commercials, and video productions, conducting live musical productions, recording sessions, produced recordings for release on traditional discs and other types of new media, compose and record news music packages for national network affiliates, and producing programs for television, radio, and the internet.

Ravi Shankar

Shankar was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world’s best-known export of North Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century, and influenced many musicians in India and throughout the world. Shankar was awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999.

Shankar was born to a Bengali Brahmin family in India, and spent his youth as a dancer touring India and Europe with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer. In 1956, Shankar began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Beatles guitarist George Harrison. His influence on Harrison helped popularize the use of Indian instruments in Western pop music in the latter half of the 1960s. Shankar engaged Western music by writing compositions for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. He also served as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India and continued to perform until the end of his life. He’s a recipient of numerous prestigious musical accolades, including a Polar Music Prize and five Grammy Awards.

Rebecca Brown

Brown, a retired US Air Force colonel, served 28 years as a Bioenvironmental Engineer. She has a BA in Music from Pomona College, Claremont, CA, and a Master of Public Health in Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Management from Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA.  

In 2014, she completed a Master Certificate in Arranging & Orchestration from the Berklee College of Music Online, and has arranged music from duets and various small ensembles to full orchestras.  Working with Hamed Barbarji, a young, highly talented musician, orchestrating Bobby BlackHat’s, I Hear Mama’s Voice, has been a highlight.

Brown also plays the double bass with Symphonicity, the Symphony Orchestra of Virginia Beach, and the Chesapeake Bay Wind Ensemble, and served on Symphonicity’s Board from 2013 – 2021.