For over 30 years, Rob Kapilow has brought the joy and wonder of classical music – and unraveled some of its mysteries – to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Characterized by his unique ability to create an “aha” moment for his audiences and collaborators, whatever their level of musical sophistication or naiveté, Kapilow’s work brings music into people’s lives: opening new ears to musical experiences and helping people to listen actively rather than just hear.

Kapilow’s range of activities is astonishingly broad, including his What Makes It Great?® presentations (now for over 20 seasons in New York and Boston), his family compositions and Family Musik® events, his Citypieces, corporate programs, and residencies with institutions as diverse as the National Gallery of Canada and Stanford University. The reach of his interactive events and activities is wide, from Native American tribal communities in Montana and inner-city high school students in Louisiana to audiences in Kyoto, Istanbul, and Kuala Lumpur, and from tots barely out of diapers to musicologists in Ivy League programs.

Kapilow is an award-winning composer, conductor, author, and commentator. He is currently working on a new large-scale choral/orchestral composition, We Came to America, based on inter-generational immigrant stories premiering in January 2024. A G. Schirmer composer of a wide range of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic music; he was the first composer to be granted the rights to set Dr. Seuss’ words to music, and his setting of Green Eggs and Ham has been called “the most successful piece written for families this half-century.”

He is currently working on two new books for Norton/Liveright—the first on the music of the Woodstock Generation, and he is an award-winning author of three previous book including All You Have to Do is Listen which won the PSP Prose Award for Best Book in Music and the Performing Arts, What Makes it Great? the first book designed for the iPad with embedded musical examples, and Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim which was a finalist for the prestigious Marfield Prize.

Kapilow has had extensive media experience. He appeared on NBC’s Today Show with Katie Couric; he presented a special What Makes It Great?® for broadcast on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center; and he was the subject of a full-length PBS documentary as a composer entitled Summer Sun, Winter Moon. A frequent guest on the PBS NewsHour, Weekend Edition, and Morning Edition, his What Makes it Great? radio series was broadcast for more than a decade on NPR’s Performance Today.

As a conductor he has led most of North America’s major orchestras as well as new works of musical theater, ranging from the Tony Award-winning Nine on Broadway to the premiere of Frida for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale and the Eastman School of Music and student of the legendary Nadia Boulanger he was an assistant professor and conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra for six years at the age of 23. He holds a black belt in Shorin-Ryu Karate.

Pianist Elizabeth Schumann has a diverse career portfolio of performances, projects, and recordings. The Washington Post noted her playing as “deft, relentless, and devastatingly good—the sort of performance you experience not so much with your ears as your solar plexus.”

Elizabeth has performed solo recitals at the Kennedy Center, Ravinia’s “Rising Stars” Series, Vienna’s Bösendorfer Saal, Australia’s Huntington Festival, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today”. The first place winner of the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition and Pacific International Piano Competition, she was awarded over 25 prizes in other major competitions, including the Cleveland, Hilton Head, Montreal, and World International Piano Competitions. Elizabeth was honored with the prestigious Gilmore Young Artists Award and was highlighted in the PBS television documentary on the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. 

Passionate about sharing the profound experience of classical music with all audiences, Elizabeth devised and directed Piano Carnival, a project to introduce a free, high quality musical experience to children without access to arts education. Over 20,000 free copies of the Piano Carnival book, CD, and iPad application have been distributed, and Piano Carnival workshops have toured the USA, Canada, and Australia. 

Carrying on the pedagogical tradition of her teacher, Sergei Babayan, Elizabeth is the Director of Keyboard Studies at Stanford University, and has been on faculty at Itzhak Perlman’s Perlman Music Program, Summer and Winter Performing Arts at Juilliard, and the Crowden Chamber Workshop. She is the owner and director of the Schumann Studio, a classical recording space in San Francisco.

The Stanford Jazz Orchestra is among the leading collegiate jazz ensembles in the United States and is dedicated to the preservation and performance of the art form of large ensemble jazz. Founded in 1990 under then director Fredrick Berry, the group embarked on numerous European tours that culminated in performances at the Umbria and Montreux Jazz Festivals, as well as Jazz à Vienne, performing with past touring artists such as Jon Faddis, Louis Bellson, and James Moody. The group has also performed with noted artists such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jimmy Heath, Marvin Stamm, Jeff Clayton, Cedar Walton, and Billy Harper. 

Under the direction of Michael Galisatus, the Stanford Jazz Orchestra has most recently toured Switzerland Italy, Slovenia, and Austria with guest artist Wayne Bergeron performing to standing room audiences at the Jazz Ascona Festival in Locarno, Switzerland and the renown Porgy and Bess Club in Vienna. Recent guest artists to perform with the orchestra include, Wycliffe Gordon, Terell Stafford, Eric Marienthal, Jonathan Kreisberg, Alan Pasqua, Jon Faddis, Ingrid Jensen, Bob Mintzer, and coming up this May will be the fabulous Donny McCaslin.

Members of the ensemble are drawn from both the graduate and undergraduate populations at Stanford University and represent a broad diversity of academic disciplines. Alumni of the ensemble have become leaders in the fields of technology, medicine, the sciences, mathematics, and the arts both in the United States and abroad.