Michael Gast,  horn 
Michael Gast was appointed principal horn of the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2004. He began playing the horn at the late age of fifteen in Tallahassee, Florida. Gast entered Florida State University at seventeen as a performance scholarship student with Dr. William Capps.

Three years later, Gast was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Mason Jones, received his bachelor of music degree, and was named a finalist in The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Concerto Competition. Upon graduation, he headed the horn section of the Jacksonville Symphony and served as assistant principal horn of the San Antonio Symphony.

Much in demand as a section leader, Gast has served as substitute principal horn in the orchestras of the Grand Teton Music Festival, Santa Fe Opera, Festival L’Aquila Opera Orchestra, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. He constantly explores the horn’s solo repertoire, and has been a featured soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, Miami Chamber Orchestra, Sunriver Music Festival, Winters Chamber Orchestra, Musical Offerings, Texas Bach Choir, and at International Horn Society Workshops.

Gast has covered an extensive range of chamber music with a variety of groups, artists, and venues around the world. His sound can be heard on numerous orchestral recordings and Children’s videos produced by the Minnesota Orchestra. He can also be heard on weekly national and international broadcasts of the Minnesota Orchestra’s concerts and on Garrison Keillor’s latest radio program compilation release, Definitely Above Average.

In 2005, Gast was appointed Adjunct Faculty of the University of Minnesota’s School of Music.

Brian Jensen,  horn 
A native of Utah, Brian Jensen joined the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2002 as second horn. Before coming to Minnesota, Jensen played for a season with the Utah Symphony alongside his teacher Bruce Gifford. While an active freelance musician in the Salt Lake City area, Jensen played with the Utah Opera and as principal and second horn with the Utah Festival Opera Company.

Jensen first began the horn at age eleven and has studied under Bruce Gifford, Michael Packham, Stephen Proser, William Barnewitz, and Randall Faust. He set aside the instrument for two years to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where he attributes many skills he learned necessary to become a successful musician. Jensen is also an active teacher and maintains a studio from his home.

Ellen Dinwiddie Smith,  horn 
A member of the Minnesota Orchestra since 1993, Ellen Dinwiddie Smith was named third horn in 2000. In demand as a guest soloist, Smith has appeared with the National Repertory Orchestra and the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, and in February 2006 she was the featured soloist with the Kenwood Chamber Orchestra.

A dedicated chamber musician, Smith has appeared at the Spoleto, Waterloo, Chautauqua, Keystone, Colorado Philharmonic and Aspen Summer Music festivals. Smith has collaborated with many groups throughout the state; she has performed for the last two summers with the Lakes Chamber Music Society in Alexandria, Minnesota, and spearheaded the Musicians for Tsunami Relief benefit concert held at Colonial Church in Edina. She has collaborated with the Dale Warland Singers, exploring repertoire for chorus and solo horn, and appears on their Bernstein & Britten CD as soloist in Ahron Harlap’s Bat Yiftach (Jephthah’s Daughter).

Smith is a 1987 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was a student of Myron Bloom. While at Curtis, she was a member of the Curtis Wind Quintet, which won the top prize in the Fischoff Chamber Music competition. Prior to studies at Curtis, Smith attended the Juilliard School and the University of Texas at Austin. Other teachers include Wayne Barrington, Greg Hustis and Michael Hatfield. Smith was named third horn of the Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestra while still a student at Curtis and later joined the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra as Co-Principal Horn.

Smith maintains an active teaching studio in the Twin Cities and has served on the faculty of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. She and her husband, conductor Mark Russell Smith, have two sons, Alexander and Noah.

David Kamminga,  horn 
Michigan native David Kamminga attended Calvin College, where he studied with Jerry Garcia, and Michigan State University, studying with Dr. Douglas Campbell. Prior to joining the Minnesota Orchestra in 1967, Kamminga held positions with the New Orleans Philharmonic and Opera orchestras, the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and the American Wind Symphony. He serves on the faculty of the University of Minnesota and performs chamber music each summer at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Kamminga also performs with the Nicollet Avenue Wind Quintet. He has toured Europe, Asia, South America, and the Soviet Union with the New York Philharmonic.

Lynn Trapp, Organist  
Dr. Lynn Trapp has had a distinguished career as concert organist, conductor, composer and liturgist. Through his many performances and clinician work for regional and national music conventions, conducting engagements in the U.S. and abroad, and publications of organ and choral music with six major publishers, he has become well-known as a leader in church music.

A national competition winner at the organ, he is a recording artist and clinician for World Library Publications, Chicago and a member of the Liturgical Organists Consortium. He serves as Director of Worship & Music, Organist, at St. Olaf Catholic Church in downtown Minneapolis. Presently he is recording the first CD on the 67-rank Lively-Fulcher organ at St. Olaf Church, Recital in the City.

Dr. Trapp is the winner of numerous awards, including the prestigious National Presser Foundation Award and the international Spirit and Truth Award from the University of Notre Dame for his contribution to the field of liturgical music. He was recently commissioned by St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, to compose a major organ work, which he premiered there last month. He is co-director of the annual liturgical music conference at St. John's University, Collegeville, and is artistic director of Cracovia Cantat, an international choral festival in Krakow, Poland. He holds degrees from Southern Illinois University (BM), University of Notre Dame (MM), and University of Kansas (DMA).

Dr. Trapp has served as adjunct faculty member for North Central University in Minneapolis and presently as organ instructor for St. Olaf College/Luther Seminary, St. Paul.

David Baldwin,  Trumpet 
David Baldwin is the professor of trumpet at the University School of Music and conducts the University Brass Choir and the University Trumpet Ensemble.  Baldwin is leader of the Summit Hill Brass Quintet; this group has released six CDs. He has several solo trumpet CDs of the etudes of Theo Charlier, Marcel Bitsch, J. B. Arban, Reginaldo Caffarelli and Walter Smith. Baldwin received MM, MMA and DMA degrees from Yale University and BM degree from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.

The University Trumpet Ensemble is group which meets in the fall semester and has performed at the St. Paul Cathedral, the Basilica of St. Mary and at Ted Mann Concert Hall. This is their first perfromance with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

University Trumpet Ensemble Personnel: Kurt Anderson, Matt Anderson, Adam Berndt, Nick Bunio, Matt Carlson, Joe Delisi, Andrew Dziuk, Parker Duncomb, Phill Erickson, Christopher Finlayson, Kyle Frost, Peter Haberman, Matt Hoffner, Aaron Jameson, Jonathan Knutson, Joel Miller, Luke Olson, Joe Sacco, Marie Shelstad, Todd Wedekind

Vern Sutton,  Narrator 
During his 47 years in the Twin Cities, Vern Sutton has collaborated with most of the major musical organizations as a singer, actor, director and educator.  In 1963 he was a founding member of the Center Opera Company, which later became the Minnesota Opera, and has, throughout his career, been closely associated with contemporary opera, having music written specifically for his voice by Dominick Argento, Robert Ward, Conrad Susa, and Libby Larsen, among others.  For 36 years he was an award-winning Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Music, directing the Opera Theater and teaching music classes.  Sutton has also worked with opera companies and theaters across this country and in England, singing, directing, and teaching master classes. 

In his retirement from the University, for four summers he became the Artistic Director of Opera in the Ozarks, one of the oldest summer opera training programs in the country located near Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  He has been an actor in the Guthrie's production of A Christmas Carol for five seasons and last summer played Lewis Morris of New York in the Guthrie’s 1776 production.  Sutton sang on the very first Prairie Home Companion, was a regular guest for the first 13 years of the broadcast, and still occasionally pays a visit to Garrison Keillor's show on PRI. 

Barbara Savereide,  violin 
Barbara Savereide began her musical studies on piano at age 5, and violin at age 10. At age 13, she gave her first solo violin recital and joined the Appalachian State University Symphony where her love for orchestral playing began. A graduate of St. Olaf College, she has played in numerous orchestras and chamber orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Niagara Symphony, the Livermore Opera Orchestra, and the Banff Festival Orchestra. Her teachers have included Rhoda Czerny, Margaret Harnish, Deryk Aird, Andrea Een, Charles Gray, and Lucinda Marvin. She is currently in her sixth season as concertmaster of the Metropolitan Symphony and studies with Sarah Kwak of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Barbara is also a youth choir director at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie and plays frequently with the church's contemporary music ensemble. She is the featured guest artist on a CD released by the group in April 2007. She has taught at several music studios and the Lutheran Summer Music program, and is in her seventh year of teaching Bravo Music to elementary school students. She lives in Eden Prairie with her husband Paul and their two children, Erik and Laura.

William Schrickel,  Double Bass 
William Schrickel has been the Music Director of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra since 2000. A former assistant conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, he is currently in his sixth season as Music Director of the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted the Minnesota Orchestra, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, the Kenwood Symphony Orchestra, The Musical Offering and the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota.

Schrickel joined the double bass section of the Minnesota Orchestra in 1976, became assistant principal in 1995 and is currently the acting associate principal. He has performed three times as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin and Andrew Litton. An active chamber musician, he was a member of the Hill House Chamber Players in St. Paul, was a founding member of the Minneapolis Artists Ensemble and recorded as a guest artist with Ensemble Capriccio.

Billy McLaughlin,  guitar 
Billy McLaughlin is a five-time Minnesota Music Award winner, known for his innovative guitar style and melodic compositions. He has 12 CD releases and Billboard Top-Ten Chart history. His touring experience is extensive and includes 15 years of national touring and stops in Japan and Europe.

The National Association for Campus Activities has awarded Billy with three National Campus Entertainer of the Year Awards (Jazz) and a Hall of Fame Achievement Award. Critics around the globe recognize Billy as an innovative world-class acoustic guitarist, composer and producer.

Billy graduated with honors from the University of Southern California and now resides in his home state of Minnesota where he is raising his two sons.

He is in the midst of his own musical comeback after losing his ability to play due to a neuromuscular disorder called focal dystonia. He thought his career was over, but after a five-year struggle he focused on a remarkable path of learning to play his instrument left-handed. His music served as the healing conduit in his journey back to the concert stage

Melissa Morey,  Hornist 
Melissa Morey is a free-lance horn player and singer, who holds a MM degree in horn performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied with Douglas Hill and a vocal music education degree from St. Olaf College where she studied with Prill McAfee and Margaret Eaves-Smith and was a member of the St. Olaf Choir, St. Olaf Band and St. Olaf Orchestra. She has performed in numerous vocal and instrumental groups throughout the Twin Cities region, most notably the Minnesota Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers.

She also has many years of experience in arts administration and is currently the Director of Operations for the Minnesota Chorale. She lives in Saint Paul.

Osmo Vänskä,  Composer, Conductor 

Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä became the Minnesota Orchestra's tenth music director in September 2003. Praised for his intense and dynamic performances, Vänskä is recognized for compelling interpretations of the standard, contemporary and Nordic repertoires, as well as the close rapport he establishes with the musicians he leads.

In his initial seasons in Minnesota, Vänskä has drawn acclaim for concerts both at home and abroad, including an August 2006 tour of major European festivals, a 2004 tour to European music capitals and performances in communities around Minnesota. During his tenure, he has emphasized Beethoven, Nielsen and Bruckner in programming, been named Conductor of the Year by Musical America and made his Twin Cities clarinet performance debut at the 2005 Sommerfest, playing the Beethoven Clarinet Trio. He won acclaim as a clarinetist in New York when he performed Mozart's Serenade No. 11 as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival in August 2007. Vänskä has extended his tenure with the Minnesota Orchestra through 2011.

In 2004 Vänskä and the Orchestra embarked on a five-year, five-disc recording project with the Swedish label BIS to record the complete Beethoven symphonies. With four albums now issued—featuring Symphonies No. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9—the cycle has drawn superlative international reviews and a Grammy nomination (“Best Orchestral Performance”) for the Ninth Symphony. According to The New Yorker (November 2006), “This is some of the most vivid Beethoven playing on the market.”

The many honors and distinctions awarded Vänskä include an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow, a privilege given in recognition of his tenure as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony. In May 2002 he was honored with a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for his outstanding contribution to classical music during 2001. In December 2004 Musical America named Vänskä 2005 Conductor of the Year.

Vänskä and his wife, Pirkko, reside in Minneapolis. Additional biographical information about Vänskä can be found on the Minnesota Orchestra site.