David Chu began his music career as a teen playing piano and percussion, but soon switched to guitar. In college he earned a Bachelor’s in Music while minoring in Spanish. He was a well-known electric guitarist in upstate New York for many years performing in jazz and pop styles. Then he switched to the flamenco guitar while maintaining an interest in electric. He delights audiences with the variety of genres he plays on either guitar, including flamenco, jazz, blues, and Brazilian.
Lonnie Chu, manager and vocalist, studied classical vocal music at SUNY New Paltz before taking off for Spain where she lived several times. Her career as a professor of foreign languages inspired her to become proficient at singing in a variety of languages, but her roots in jazz go back to her childhood in a musical family.
Recent graduate of the UMass jazz program, Dylan Walter has played jazz, rock, folk, pop, and classical, and has performed with a variety of local bands as well as teaching music lessons in the Pioneer Valley. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger, he plays piano and bass with Crimson Canary.
Richard Murphy plays jazz recorder, bass clarinet, alto and baritone sax. Though mostly self-taught, he has studied with Karl Berger of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock New York and, for several semesters, with trombonist Steve Davis at the Jackie McLean Institute at the Hartt School of Music. In addition to his work with Crimson Canary he plays with the LARK Jazz Trio, Blue Moon Quartet, and A New Blue Sextet.
Currently an undergraduate at Umass Amherst, Ellen Jacobson is studying jazz performance and has been playing drum set for 12 years. She grew up playing classic British rock in London and started her journey with jazz in high school in Cambridge, MA. She has since developed a passion for jazz, funk, latin and fusion styles.
A debt of gratitude to:
Sergio Aranda, was born in Malaga in 1988 within a flamenco family. Since childhood he displayed a strong restlessness regarding the world of flamenco, which lead to his study with the acclaimed artist Luci Montes, and subsequently expanding his training at the Professional Conservatory of Dance of Málaga. At the age of fifteen he made his professional debut in a flamenco scene in the show “Jara” and at eighteen he won first prize at the XVII National Dance Contest of Ronda. His work has brought him from the Spain to the United States and throughout Europe and Asia.
Andy Culpepper was born and raised near Ithaca, NY. He picked up the guitar at the age of 16 and began to devote himself to mastering all styles of guitar playing, from classical to the blues, before settling on Flamenco as his ideal mode of expression. After becoming an excellent flamenco guitarist, he took on a serious study of guitar lutherie. After his apprenticeship he became a builder of flamenco guitars, and now is known as a world-class flamenco guitar builder.