Gracie Fowler is an accomplished oboist and educator with approximately 25 years of performance experience and 23 years of higher education teaching experience. She holds an undergraduate degree in music education and a master’s degree in educational technology. In addition to serving as a full-time, tenured faculty member at the community college level for 20 years, Ms. Fowler also performed throughout Southern California, playing principal oboe, as well as oboe d’amore and English horn with the Palomar College Symphony Orchestra, MiraCosta Symphony, Inland Valley Symphony, Pacific Lyric Opera Company, Tustin Ballet Company, Pacific Coast Concert Band, Escondido Choral Arts Society Orchestra, Coastal Communities Band, and as a civilian musician with the Marine Band at Camp Pendleton, California, and the Navy Band in Point Loma, California, as well as many other organizations. Having recently relocated to San Antonio, Ms. Fowler performs regularly with the Alamo City Arts Association, Heart of Texas Concert Band, is a substitute with Symphony Viva, and plays principal with UIW Chamber Winds as well as the UIW Wind Ensemble. She is available for individual instruction including oboe reed-making and performance as well as woodwind coaching. 

As a private clarinet instructor, Shaun Michael Guzman dedicates his time and talents to producing well-prepared and thoughtful musicians. His students have gone on to become band directors and private clarinet instructors throughout Texas. Within his clarinet studio, he has established several clarinet ensembles, which have now been actively performing since 2012. Shaun has given clinics for directors and students throughout the South Texas area and at the Texas Music Educators Association’s 2022 convention presenting “Beginning the Clarinet Journey” with his former students and husband in his educational group, the Clariphonic Collaborative.

Shaun is the president of Prickly Pear Clarinet Ensemble, a newly formed 501(c)(3) non-profit based deep in the heart of San Antonio, Texas. Upon taking up leadership with Prickly Pear, his primary purpose is to promote the performing arts, with a particular emphasis on the clarinet by providing musical performances and educational programs in Texas, as well as nationally. The Prickly Pear Clarinet Ensemble aims to foster a love for music, encourage artistic excellence, and make the performing arts accessible to individuals of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities. As Prickly Pear’s bass clarinetist since 2016, he has performed in the International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFests in 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri; 2017 in Orlando, Florida; 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee; and 2023 in Denver, Colorado. Prickly Pear Clarinet Ensemble was accepted and invited to perform at ClarinetFest 2020 and 2021 virtually. Prickly Pear serves its community with performances for the Japan America Society of San Antonio, Our Lady of the Lake University, Alamo City Arts and Alamo City Symphony Viva, the Heart of Texas Concert Band, and Adelante Winds.

As an artist for ALRY Publications since 2016, Shaun is a published arranger for clarinet ensembles.  Currently, he has published Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol and Mozart’s Serenade No. 10 in B-flat Major, K. 361/370a. Presently, Mr. Guzman is a D’Addario Woodwind Artist and has been a D’Addario Woodwind Method clinician for the San Antonio and South Texas areas since 2014.

Within the San Antonio-based non-profit organization Alamo City Arts, he serves as event coordinator, music librarian, and wind coordinator for Alamo City Symphony Viva, where he serves as the third clarinetist/bass clarinetist. Alamo City Symphony Viva started as a fundraising event for the families of the victims of the Orlando Pulse shooting. He is one of the current original contributors who founded Symphony Viva in 2016. Under the Alamo City Arts umbrella, he plays as a clarinetist/low clarinetist with the Heart of Texas Concert Band.

Shaun has served as second clarinetist/bass clarinetist in the University of the Incarnate Word Orchestra since 2013 and performs with several small ensembles/productions, in addition to maintaining an active studio and regularly performing. He has performed as a soloist, on basset horn, alongside his husband, Tyler Guzman, performing Mendelssohn’s Konzertstück for Clarinet and Basset Horn No. 1 in F minor, Op. 113 with the Heart of Texas Concert Band in 2022.

Currently, he has partnered with his publisher, Matt Johnston, in their newest online boutique clarinet shop, Clarinet|World. Shaun manages a local music store, High School Music Service, in the Alamo Ranch area of San Antonio, Texas. Shaun has been under the tutelage of Dr. David Pino at Texas State University and Ruth Aguirre.

Shaun’s teaching philosophy has always been to break things down to help students comprehend ideas and then to build on that comprehension, once established. He feels that it is imperative to encourage and teach students to not just play or read music, but to feel music with both the body and mind; this, to him, is where true musicianship is formed and flourishes.

Featured in the Creative Classical Concert Management's “Rising Artist” Series and described by Pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute as “an excellent clarinetist,” Mark Allen Jr. has been a prize winner in the American Prize, American Protégé, and Paris Music competitions. He gave his Carnegie Hall debut recital in March of 2020.

Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from Roosevelt University and a master’s degree in music performance from New York University.

Mark can be heard on the soundtracks to the Uber documentary “Uber Presents” and the Amazon film “Passover,” both directed by Spike Lee. He has performed alongside members of the New York Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, United States Army Band, and Iris Orchestra, among others. As a chamber musician, he has performed internationally with his trio the Bowery Trio and recorded with the Talea Ensemble.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Mark began his clarinet studies in 2009 with Trayon Hall. In 2011, he was accepted into the Atlanta Symphony’s Talent Development Program. While in the program, he studied with bass clarinetist Alcides Rodriguez of the Atlanta Symphony.

Mark has performed in numerous venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Harman Hall, Symphony Center in Chicago, Harris Theater, the Auditorium Theatre, Boutell Memorial Concert Hall, Ganz Hall, Symphony Hall in Atlanta, and the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts.

Mark regularly performs with the Colour of Music Orchestra, Soulful Symphony, and has been seen in concert alongside artists such as Lucky Daye; Earth, Wind and Fire; Billy Porter; and Twinkie Clark. In 2020, Mark was scheduled to go on tour throughout London, Canada, and the United States with the Chineke! Orchestra (postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

 Mark was accepted as the first Clarinet Fellow with the Chicago Sinfonietta, where he studied with Leslie Grimm. He has performed in master classes with Franklin Cohen, Michele Zukovsky, Mark Dover, Tod Palmer, and Charlene Zimmerman and has studied with Rodriguez, Hall, John Bruce Yeh, Pavel Vinnitsky, Pascual Martinez-Forteza, and Dr. Robyn Jones.

Currently, Mark is a member of the United States Air Force Band of the West.