Craig Butterfield is Professor of Double Bass and Jazz Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he directs one of the largest double bass programs in the Southeast. American Record Guide has said “Craig Butterfield is nothing short of magnificent. I haven’t heard such expressive playing and virtuosic command since Gary Karr. His tone is gorgeous, his intonation rock-solid, and his phrasing expressive and flexible.” Soundboard magazine stated “Butterfield can make his instrument dance and sing with an effortless which is hard to credit. (He must have a bionic left forearm). Not only can he inhabit the range of a cello, but he can make it light and lyrical when needed.” Comfortable in many styles of music, Mr. Butterfield has performed extensively as a jazz artist as well as a classical soloist and clinician. Most recently Butterfield performed with saxophone artist Greg Osby at the Taichung Jazz Festival, before an audience of 30,000. During 2004 and 2005, Craig toured with the legendary jazz trumpet player Maynard Ferguson. As a member of Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau band, he performed in some of the most famous venues in the world, including the Blue Note in New York, Ronnie Scott’s in London, and the Bangkok Cultural Arts center as a special guest of the King of Thailand. A week at Ronnie Scott’s in London was recorded and released as Maynard Ferguson’s final live CD release entitled MF Horn 6. He has been a guest artist at the San Miguel International jazz festival in Mexico as well as the Ollin Kan world music festival in Mexico City, and has toured as a performer and clinician throughout South Korea and Japan. In the classical field, Craig Butterfield has performed concertos and given masterclasses and recitals as a soloist in many concert halls and universities throughout the United States. Forays, a recording featuring the Franck Violin Sonata with pianist Charles Fugo was released by Centaur Records in 2011. Butterfield has been invited to perform recitals as a guest artist at the semiannual International Society of Bassists convention, the American String Teachers Association, and the Violin Society of America.
Matthew Slotkin is an acclaimed performer, teacher, and scholar, and has appeared in leading venues on six continents. A commitment to contemporary music has resulted in premieres of numerous works by composers including Linda Buckley, John Anthony Lennon, Scott Lindroth, John Orfe, and many others. Festival performances include concerts at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, the Walled City Music Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival, the Chautauqua Institution, the Guitar Foundation of America, and the World Saxophone Congresses in Scotland, Thailand and Slovenia. He has performed on numerous classical guitar society concert series including New Zealand (GANZ), Montreal, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Iowa, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes. He has given performances with many prominent chamber ensembles including the Metropolis Ensemble, the Mallarmé Chamber Players, Duo Montagnard, and Dez Cordas. Recordings on the Summit, Centaur, and Liscio labels have been praised as “wonderful…a very enjoyable disc” (Soundboard), and “a magnificent achievement…the concept of this program is brilliant” (American Record Guide). Soundboard magazine called him an “exceptional” player, and a recent concert review from the Classical Voice of North Carolina states that “Slotkin performed brilliantly.” Slotkin is an Associate Professor of Music at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA, where he has directed the guitar program since 2004. He has given masterclasses at numerous institutions and festivals including the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, Victorian College of the Arts (Australia), ESMAE (Portugal), National University of La Plata (Argentina), the Alexandria Guitar Festival, and many others. He received the Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Music, and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied guitar with Nicholas Goluses.