Music has been part of Susan’s life forever. Her dad was the “Music Man” in her small town of Oswego, Illinois. Band, choir, and piano filled the hours of her youth. Going off to nursing school, she picked up the guitar, and started folk-singing in clubs during graduate school. Later, a workshop on creativity challenged Susan to compose, and she was hooked!

Susan composes in a variety of genres, weaving her life experiences into the music.

Her community health nursing degree helped her write a theme song for “Schools for Healthy Life Styles” in Oklahoma City. This song is used every morning before class.

A CD & performance packet titled “Arrive Alive - traffic safety songs for kids” was a joint effort with the National Safe Kids Coalition. Grants put this packet in every daycare in Oklahoma and in 100+ schools in Oregon.

Years of participating in Christmas programs helped her create “Come & Celebrate,” a Christmas pageant performed several times in Oklahoma City and Eugene.

Years of listening to music lessons and playing piano primed Susan to write piano solos. Thanks to the International Alliance of Women in Music, a number of Susan compositions continue to be used in competitions in Serbia, where, after years of only being allowed to play pieces written by men, students are now required to play at least one song written by a woman composer.

Lastly, her husband’s death, her major involvement with End of Life Choices Oregon and her role as co-facilitator of Unity’s grief support group have greatly influenced Susan’s music. Coupled with her spiritual journey, these experiences have caused a deepening of her heart and spirit. “Compassion,” “Love’s Journey” and “I’ll Be There for You” come from that space.

To purchase Susan’s sheet music, please email her at:

susana.smith@comcast.net

Multi-award winning pianist, composer and producer Doug Hammer has been involved with music his whole life, starting piano at age six. He is educated in contemporary, jazz and classical styles of music.

A scholarship graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Doug’s musical world continued to flourish, gaining experience in everything from record production to orchestration and arranging. After Berklee, he opened his own project studio and production company, Dreamworld Productions. His studio and skills have served the needs of many, working on projects for film, web, TV, radio and corporations. He has produced countless artists in a diversity of styles.

After many years of success with his business, Doug started releasing his own music. It has won countless awards and nominations from radio, websites and media. His music is widely popular on internet, satellite and radio stations all over the world. It has received hundreds of millions of plays on Pandora, Spotify, Music Choice and Whisperings Solo Piano Radio. His album, Solace, is a big hit on Pandora and his double album, Travels, won Album of the Year on Whisperings Solo Piano Radio.

Doug’s 14h release, Night, is a 6-song minimalist mini-album of quiet, introspective songs. It debuted at #1 for a week on both the Amazon Hot New Releases and Bestseller New Age Charts.

Doug continues to tour regularly across the United States. He has performed at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall.

To purchase Doug’s sheet music and recordings, please visit DougHammer.net .

Rickie Byars is one of the most acclaimed and beloved singer-songwriters there is in the genre of inspirational/New Thought music. Through her three decade career as both a solo artist, Music & Arts Director and as Founder /Director of the world-renowned Agape International Choir, Byars’ deeply soulful and heart-felt songs of spiritual renewal, uplift and empower and have struck a powerful chord with audiences around the globe. She has built an impressive international following as well. Indeed, the vibrations of “realness” in her music are so strong that they resonate with everyone from residents of L.A.’s SkidRow to South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all of whom she has had the honor of performing for,the latter on five different occasions.Byars’ charismatic joy and authenticity on stage ensure that she is in high demand to speak and appear in concert at festivals and conferences. But she has amassed such an impressive catalog of compositions — writing and co-writing over 200 original songs and chants — that even when she’s not physically on hand to present her work her message of transcendent love is still being delivered by the many individual singers and choirs that regularly perform her material at New Thought churches and spiritual gatherings across the country every Sunday.

Several of her songs, “I Release,” “We Let it Be,” “The Spirit of God is Upon Me” and “Wholly Holy Way,” are considered modern classics of inspirational/New Thought music.Byars has released nine CDs as a solo artist: “I Found a Deeper Love” (1993); “In the Land of I Am” (2000), “Soul Fulfilling” (2002),“From Within” (2003), “Pray For Me” (2004), “Supreme Inspiration” (2007), “The Love Project” (2009), “Let My Soul Surrender”, which was accompanied by a book of autobiographical stories written by Byars (2011), and “My Oh My It’s Time To Fly” (2018). Now as she discovers the world again, on her own terms as a solo artist, her writing has increased with new songs that are lighting up her powerful new B-hood Community, Rickie’s Sanctified Saturday Devotionals; and at Rickie’s favorite devotional spot - The Hot N Cool Cafe in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.

Rickie Byars dedicates most of her time, energy and talents in empowering others to develop their unique gifts and talents so that they may contribute them in service to humanity. Recognizing that freedom must exist on both the individual and collective levels, Byars is fully engaged in a number of endeavors that address both.

To learn more about her work, please visit RickieByars.org .

Born and raised in the small sylvan town of Mendham, New Jersey, David Tolk studied classical piano from an early age with his mother, Marilyn Tolk, who is a graduate of The Juilliard School. During his teenage years, David became more interested in learning to play the music of Rush, Journey, Van Halen, Kansas, Genesis, Yes, and other bands on the piano and his Korg synthesizers. He quickly discovered that he could play most songs on the radio by ear. After his freshman year at Mendham High School, David's family moved to Brentwood, Tennessee, where his father became a professor of physics at Vanderbilt University.

While in Tennessee, David's love for music continued to grow and flourish. He studied jazz and improvisational piano from an instructor in Nashville. David also formed and performed in the band, Toast, with his high school friends. Toast brilliantly performed Foreplay/Longtime by Boston at the Brentwood High School battle of the bands in 1987 but was disqualified because the singer from Toast was not a student at that high school. Although that disqualification from the battle of the bands could have very easily signaled the end of David's music career, David chose to rise from the ashes and began composing peaceful instrumental piano music while still in high school.

David studied English literature at Brigham Young University and obtained his Bachelor's Degree in 1993. While at B.Y.U. he met and married the love of his life, Lisa Harris, from northern California, who was also an English major. David also performed and recorded an album with Ali Ali Oxen Free while in college. With that band, David opened for the British band, The Sundays, in 1991 in Salt Lake City.

In 1993, David began studying law at the University of Utah College of Law. While in law school, David began performing and recording with folk artist, Peter Breinholt. David recorded multiple albums with Peter and performed with him all across the United States. Before graduating from law school, David recorded and released his first album, Mendham, a tribute to his childhood hometown. In May of 1996, he graduated from law school in the Kingsbury Hall theater on the campus of the University of Utah. Later that same evening, he performed to a sold out audience with Peter Breinholt in that same theater.

David has released ten new age instrumental piano albums which have received national distribution and radio airplay. David's 2010 instrumental piano CD release, "David Tolk Christmas," peaked at #8 on the Billboard New Age Chart for the week of December 25, 2010. In February of 2022, David released his newest album, Blessings, which peaked as the #1 best-selling new-age album on Amazon shortly after its release. David's music has received more than 380 million streams on Pandora Internet Radio and more than 45 million streams on Spotify. His music has been featured on Public Radio programs including "Hearts of Space" and "Echoes." David has composed music for Warner/Chappell Production Music for licensing in film and commercials. David's music is available for purchase at www.davidtolk.com, iTunes, Amazon.com, and numerous other digital download sites. You can also listen to his music for free on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and many other streaming sites.

David lives at the base of the Wasatch mountains with his wife and four children. When he is not practicing the piano, he practices law with his partners at Richards Brandt in Salt Lake City, Utah.

To purchase David’s sheet music and recordings, please visit DavidTolk.com .