Alec Sloutski & Dylan Vaughn
Music Friends
Music friends are people we enjoy playing with.
Music is, above all, a life style; and the people we choose to hang out with become our closest intimates.
We share inspirations about what turns us on most about music and art and life in general. It includes philosophising and sparring, laughing and crying, getting close and allowing space.
Kenny Stuart said, "your best gig, is a free one."
And it usually it happens in the company of great musicians right at home, around a summer fire or by the Christmas tree.
Martin Burns
Dylan & Martin
I was born in 1964, in Belfast, Ireland. I started trombone at 12, failed famously. Had to take up piano as no other instruments were available.
Taught myself guitar with Leonard Cohen and Kris Kristofferson, joined classic choir at 12, and sang all the standard repertoire for seven years. Started formal piano lessons at 13, but had already picked up basics at home.
Music really became a force in my life during the UWC strike of 1974, when the loyalist paramilitaries cut the electricity, gas, water and blocked roads all over the North of Ireland, for weeks to resist power sharing with Catholics, they won, no democracy and the conflict dragged on for another twenty odd years, but in this time of candle light sing songs I found my vocation.
I went on to University but music kept me on course, sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. I work as a solo artist and also in various combos in Hamburg.
Michael Dixon
Michael Dixon Trio
Michael was born in Frankfurt am Main and grew up in New York City. The music all started with the piano that his uncle bought him. Then came dancing in the schoolyard to 60s Motown, and singing in the Sunday church choir - a life spent with a deep connection to music.
His first studies were at State University College of Fredonia, NY, then Southern Illinois University and Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana . He taught at Xavier University, New Orleans before making the grand move to further his career in Europe.
New horizons were opened with his work as conductor and musical director in the show Cats in Hamburg, Germany where he met Patti Martin and Dylan Vaughn with whom he makes music today.
He also worked as conductor of CATS in Amsterdam und Paris. And since 1996 has been professor for musical voice at the Universität der Künste Berlin (University of the Arts in Berlin).
As both a singer and conductor/director Michael has worked for many film, musicals, and cross over projects.
Janice Harrington
Sing Out! Workshops
I am a singer and producer who organises Authentic American Music Workshops workshops.
The goal of my projects is to bring people of different cultural and religious backgrounds together, and to sing for worthy causes in order to support children in need around the world.
The actual work takes place in local workshops in schools.
"Sing Out!" Authentic American Music Workshops are workshops for children and young people from nursery school to university.
This project serves to build up young people's self-confidence as well as their sense of group belonging and it improves their team work.
Young people learn to confidently step out before others in public.
Bio
Janice Harrington, is a jazz, blues and gospel singer, producer, and actress. Born in Ohio and raised in Ohio and California, she began her international career in 1969 with USO tours to South East Asia, where she entertained American troops during the Vietnam War.
From 1975 to 1977, she appeared at the Las Vegas Flamingo Hotel.
Her acting credits include national tours of Norman Is That You?, and Two Gentlemen From Verona.
She was featured in the American television series Days Of Our Lives.
Janice has worked with such artists as Billy Daniels, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Sinatra Jr., Sammy Davis Jr. and Lionel Hampton, who told her "You should get your own show!"
She did that in 1980, when she relocated to Europe, and she has been doing it ever since.
Back to Sing Out! Workshops here
You can visit Janice Harrington's website here.
Stephen Kavanagh
The Cracks
Born in Dublin, Stephen Kavanagh (vocals, guitars & harmonicas) was raised in a brilliant musical family which included his uncle John Sheahan, violinist of the Dubliners. His home and extended family was his door into the world of music.
Beginning with the Irish tin whistle, he progressed to the guitar at 13; and at 14 he was forming bands and performing street music in Dublin.
Stephen is an outstanding performer and highly accomplished songwriter with an extensive track record both solo and with his many music projects, including The Cracks.
His songs include: Good Things, Luck's Running Out, Forces, Spoke Too Soon, and Lonely Is As Lonely Does
When Dylan first met Stephen and heard his songs, he couldn't figure out why he wasn't famous already.
Once you hear his music, you may wonder the same thing.
Ian Mardon
Mardon & Vaughn
Ian Mardon grew up in Halifax, Canada in a musical family. His mother played piano and organ; and due to the influence of his violin playing father, he started violin at the age of four.
When he was six years old, he fell backwards onto his violin and he broke it. But it did not end his career. He became a child violin star on Canadian ATV for the Maritime Provinces, playing old time fiddle.
He went on to discover Led Zeppelin, got all kinds of crazy notions, got his Master of Music in New England Conservatory in Boston, went to Hamburg where he teamed up with Dylan Vaughn, played Phantom of the Opera, started several classical chamber music ensembles, orchestras and duos, and a heavy metal band, Dilechmoor. He also played the theme for an Academy Award winning short film, Die Rote Jacke (The Red Jacket).
In addition to his concert performances, Ian is an accomplished composer including works for Mardon & Vaughn. and the composer Jon Mortimer has written Celtic Journey which Ian and the Hamburg Festival Orchestra performed in 2016.
Patty Martin
Michael Dixon Trio
Patti Martin is a much loved and in demand composer, pianist, accompanist, and arranger in many ensembles as well as with numerous jazz, pop, and musical artists.
She earned the name Miss Niagara from her cascading piano flow in just about any style: Duke Ellington swing to Stevie Wonder Motown and every Broadway show tune and television ad you can think of...plus every TV & movie theme.
And that's just the beginning! There's all the jazz standards, and most pop and folk tunes of the last 400 years...but wait! ... There's more.
Born in Midland, Michigan, Patti studied music at Albion College, and later got her masters degree in piano, chamber music and vocal accompaniment at Northwestern University in Chicago.
After a scholarship year at Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, she went on to work as a director at the International Opernstudio in Zürich and as a pianist in the theatres of Kiel, Germany.
Starting in 1987, she served as musical director & conductor for Cats – where she met Michael Dixon and Dylan Vaughn - and Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg.
Since 1992 she’s been professor & director of the Musical Department at the reknowned Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany.
Christian Seibold
D.C Dylan & Christian
Trio Fantastik
After studying in Munich and Frankfurt, Christian became a member of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg in 1992 where he currently plays.
His brilliant work has led him to appear with renowned ensembles like Hamburg’s NDR, Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra, and The Munich Philharmonic where he has played for conductors like Levine, Gergiew, Sinopoli and Sawallisch.
He is a welcome special guest at major opera houses like, Berlin’s German Opera, Bayern State Opera, and Hannover State Opera.
Regular performances as a soloist and chamber music player compliment his work as an orchestra player. In 2012 he performed twice with chamber music ensembles in Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. And he has coached the wind section of both the Albert-Schweitzer youth orchestra and the Hamburg University Orchestra.
Along with his love of opera and singing, he is passionate about jazz, and founded the quartet, The Philharmonic Clowns, which goes along side his Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra work.
He also is an avid jazz ensemble arranger.
Alec Sloutski
Duo DA
Trio Fantastik
Alec is from Kiev, Ukraine, one of Europe's finest music scenes, famous for great classical and jazz players.
He plays violin, piano, trumpet and guitar, and composes in classical, jazz and eastern European styles.
He has performed worldwide with Giora Feidman, Ulrich Tukur, The Ukranian State Philharmonic Orchestra, Justus Franz and Mikis Theodorakis among others.
Alec is composer of Tevje the Milkman, and And All…? in Israel, and Buffaloes in America for German ARD TV.