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Dr. Robert S. Belser
Director of Bands
University of Wyoming
A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Dr. Belser began his musical training on trumpet then on euphonium as a student Keith House. He earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Central Missouri State University studying with Russell Coleman and Robert Gifford. Following his undergraduate studies, he taught instrumental and choral music in Central Missouri. Dr. Belser served as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Illinois where he studied with Harry Begian, Gary Smith, and Dan Perantoni, and earned the Master of Science in Music Education degree. He was Assistant Director of Bands at Eastern Kentucky University directing the concert band, athletic bands, and teaching music appreciation. Dr. Belser was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from The University of Iowa where he was a student of Myron Welch. He has also studied conducting with Craig Kirchhoff, John Paynter, and Mallory Thompson.
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Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny was born and raised in Missouri. Following his graduation from Lee's Summit High School, he briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Metheny dropped out of the University of Miami in his first semester and was immediately offered a teaching position there. Metheny came onto the jazz scene quickly in 1975, at the age of 21, after joining Gary Burton's band and then recording a trio record with Jaco Pastorius called Bright Size Life. Metheny's next recording, 1977's Watercolors, featured pianist Lyle Mays. Metheny's next album formalized this partnership and began the Pat Metheny Group, featuring several songs co-written with Mays; the album was released as the self-titled Pat Metheny Group on the ECM record label. Pat Metheny also has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings with musicians such as Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, and many others. Pat Metheny has also joined projects of all kinds both as a player and a writer, notably the record Song X with Ornette Coleman; Parallel Realities; and Jazz Baltica, with Ulf Wakenius and other Nordic Jazz players and plays with some great female musicians such as Silje Nergaard on Tell Me Where You're Going (1990), Noa on Noa (1994) and Anna Maria Jopek on Upojenie (2002). Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, averaging 120-240 concerts a year. Metheny has written over 200 pieces and continues to push musical limits in both his composition and performance.
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Jan Winburn
Enterprise Editor
Atlanta Journal-Consitution
In three decades of editing, Jan has worked on stories that have won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the ASNE writing awards, the Ernie Pyle award for human interest writing, the APME International Perspective Award, and the Scripps-Howard award for environmental reporting. Before joining the Atlanta paper, Winburn spent a decade at The Baltimore Sun. She also worked at The Hartford Courant, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia and the author of "Shop Talk and War Stories: American Journalists Examine Their Profession." She frequently teaches writing and editing workshops at newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, and she has served on the visiting faculty of the Poynter Institute for journalists. She is married to the writer Gary Dorsey and has one daughter, Ella
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