Johnnie L. Owens, © Johnnie L. Owens
Johnnie L. Owens
Johnnie L. Owens currently works as a Community Organizer and Planner for Centers for New Horizons located on the South Side of Chicago in the historic Bronzeville community. The organization and Owens’ work involves working with low to moderate income residents to address issues of racism, social economic and environmental justice. Owens has a Master of Arts in Urban Geography and worked as a Community Planner for the City of Chicago. He then went on to work with the now President of the United States, Barack Obama, as a Community Organizer at Developing Communities Project in the Roseland community of Chicago. Afterwards, Owens continued working for social justice as a community development consultant for religious institutions and as an adjunct professor at Chicago State University. He taught classes in Urban Planning, Community Development, Introductory Geography, and Urban Youth Violence and Community Development.
Jon Sass, © Jon Sass
Jon Sass
Jon Sass, born in New York City, is widely recognized as a true GROOVE MASTER as well as arguably the most innovative and versatile tuba player alive today. With his truly unique and soulfully penetrating sound, Jon's career has made a tremendous impact on the Jazz, Classical as well as the world of Brass. His music reflects a rainbow of creativity in his first highly acclaimed solo CD “Sassified”. Jon feels at home in several music genres and has performed in both Jazz and Classical productions such as Wind Symphonies, Big Bands, and other formations. Currently Jon is working as a unique solo performer who plays and composes his own music. Earlier in his career, he started giving seminars as an American Cultural Representative in countries such as Russia and Japan and continues to be in high demand worldwide for his creativity concepts. Current projects include a corporate seminar called “Corporate Groove” as well as a new interactive children’s program and workshop with a character called Sassy the Tuba. For more info on current programs and ensembles see Jon’s website and blog at www.jonsass.com
Cheo Solder, © Cheo Solder
Cheo Solder
Born in Los Angeles, Cheo Jeffery Allen Solder is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and improvisational musician. After a prolonged hiatus from the creative scene, he began writing and playing again two years ago. His main concern is to impart the knowledge and wisdom he has gained from extensive world travel and a long and actively lived life to a younger generation. When asked to describe himself, he simply stated that he is just another brother from the ‘Hood’. Scanning the history of black people with a rootedness in his personal challenges, Solder creates a mosaic, a crimson rhapsody that is more jazz than blues, but as inclusive as one can imagine when weighing the necessity of the gospel of jazz and of the spirituality of the blues. He offers the gift of an unwavering eye seeking compassionate justice, and he does it with the wisdom of life lived deeply with all its dangers. Cheo Solder has performed at Boston Playwrights Theatre, The Center for African American Culture, Chapel Hill School, Kents Hill School, Buckingham- Brown and Nichols, and Woody King's New Federal Theater.
Béatrice Graf, © Palma Fiacco
Béatrice Graf
Swiss drummer Béatrice Graf has been one of the mainstays of Geneva’s music scene, feeling equally at home in various genres such as Jazz, Drum’n’Bass or experimental music. She studied at the Geneva Music Conservatory and has since performed in numerous groups and at festivals in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. “Stimulating, sensual play-fun combined with catching drive and rhythmic intensity. Drummer Béatrice Graf accompanies the others with engagement, sensitivity and capacity of feeling. She sets strong beats with her short, hard accents in a rhythmic flow that gives the whole performance more suspense and tension.” (Hörbar, Swiss Jazz Magazine)
Carsten Bösel, © Carsten Bösel
Presentation: Carsten Bösel
Carsten Bösel is the Vice President of the Association of Friends of Amerika Haus Berlin. After completing his M.A. studies in American Studies, Political Science, and Communications in Berlin and Durham, NC, he started working as a study advisor at Amerika Haus Berlin, a former US public diplomacy venue. Today, he is freelancing as an independent educational consultant, writer, and translator, counseling German high school and university students on opportunities for study in North America. As a German-English translator, he primarily works for foundations, research institutes and university departments with a focus on education. His most important publications include two extensive guidebooks on studying in the United States and Canada, both published by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), as well as “School Choice and Equal Educational Opportunity”, an in-depth analysis of the US school choice controversy over public school vouchers for low income African American kids in the nation’s troubled inner cities.
