Don Bailey, Laura Logan Brandenburg, Cara Wildman
Biography Don Bailey, Laura Logan Brandenburg, Cara Wildman
Don Bailey
A native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, Don began his career in Dallas. He is a former university professor, board member of both the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra and the New York Flute Club, and past president of the Texas Flute Society and the Louisiana Flute Society. He has performed at festivals in Aspen, Colorado, Nice, France, and Spoleto, Italy, among others, and at several National Flute Association conventions. In May of 2020 he will join the faculty of the Ischia Chamber Music Festival in Sorrento, Italy where he will perform and coach chamber music ensembles.
He is Director and Flutist of Voyage Unlimited, Inc., a New York not-for-profit committed to the performance, recording, and publication of new and standard chamber music for flute. As solo flutist with Classical Quintessence aboard the Cunard cruise ship Vistafjord, he performed with Polish pianist/composer Adam Manijak, who has become an integral part of the Voyage Unlimited mission. The Voyage Unlimited Series of new orchestrations by Don and Adam is published by Falls House Press and distributed by Theodore Presser.
Don performs with collaborative pianists Donald Sulzen of the Munich Piano Trio and Dianne Frazer of Baton Rouge, LA, and with Attacca, Juilliard’s Graduate Resident String Quartet. He has performed in Alice Tully and Bruno Walter Halls in Lincoln Center, Columbia Artists Management (CAMI) Hall, New York Society for Ethical Culture, and Munich’s Gasteig among others, and live for WNYC radio at Symphony Space. He performed on the American Landmark Festival series with pianist Leslie Jones, and reaching out to an even wider audience, he performed in a Manhattan showcase of “world music” blending Afro Cuban, Brazilian, Spanish, Italian and Columbian styles with composer, film-scorer and guitarist Christopher Caliendo of Los Angeles. Other performances include those with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, the Dallas Bach Orchestra, the Shreveport Symphony, and Voices of Change.
During the summer of 2005, Don worked closely with composer Gian Carlo Menotti at his home in Scotland, compiling a chronology of the composer’s works, and later at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy organizing and performing on the chamber music concerts. In February 2007, he collaborated with members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Opera Orchestra in a recording of Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, produced by Lone Spring Arts and released December 1, 2007 by Albany Records.
Don’s articles have been published in national music journals including Flute Talk magazine and Flute Forum. He was interviewed by Windplayer Magazine for its bestseller Flute Stories – 101 Inspirational Stories by the World’s Best Flute Players, which has become a must-read for anyone in the performing arts. He was also interviewed for the Fall 2007 issue of The Flutist Quarterly, The Musical Road Less Traveled by Helen Spielman, and he is the cover interview of the September 2008 issue of Flute Talk.
Don studied flute at the doctoral level at the University of North Texas, and summers at the Aspen Music Festival, and the Académie d’été in Nice, France. His teachers include the distinguished flutists Julius Baker, Michel Debost, Alain Marion, Judith Mendenhall, George Morey, Marcel Moyse, and Albert Tipton.
Laura Logan Brandenburg
DMA, served as Harp Instructor on the Texas Christian University School of Music faculty from 2001-2020. In addition, she maintained an active pre-college studio through the TCU Music Prep Department, teaching Suzuki harp students age five through young adult. She currently teaches and coaches private students of all ages in her home studio.
She is founder, director and member of the Octavia Harp Ensemble, performing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and beyond since 1993. A highly regarded freelance harpist, Laura has been a frequent sub with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 1990 and has most recently served as Principal Harp with the Lewisville Lake Symphony. She held the position of Principal Harp with the Richardson Symphony Orchestra from 1990 – 2010 as well as Principal Harp in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic from 1995—1997. Laura enjoys performing with Cindy Horstman and Kimberly DeRosa as The Dallas Jazz Harp Ensemble, presenting concerts and educational programs of original tunes and jazz standards arranged for harp trio. Other recent adventures on harp include collaborating with Jeff Walters as The Logan/Walters Harp Duo, performing all original transcriptions and arrangements for two harps.
Active as a camp clinician specializing in harp ensemble repertoire, Laura has presented workshops locally and nationally for the past 25 years. She has been honored to serve in various positions on the American Harp Society Board of Directors, and she is currently on the Board of Directors of the Harp in Worship Conference.
