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Dave Bennett doesn’t fit the mold.

For starters, you don’t find many jazz clarinet players who name Alice Cooper, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Chris Isaak among their influences. You also won’t find many musicians who are equally conversant with the music of Benny Goodman (the “King of Swing”) and Roy Orbison (“The Soul of Rock and Roll”).

Bennett is a clarinet virtuoso who plays electric guitar, piano, drums, AND vocalizes.  Saluting Swing to Rock: covering music from the Swing Era to early Rockabilly and Country, to Elvis Presley and more.Leading His Tribute to Benny Goodman, Dave has been a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops (2013) and has played the show with 35 other US and Canadian orchestras including Nashville, Detroit, Rochester, Omaha, Toronto, Vancouver, Orlando, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Portland, OR and Portland, ME, and Houston. Fifty performing arts centers across the USA have had success with his presentations.

An annual fixture at several American music festivals, Dave’s “Rockin the ‘50s” show always brings down the house!  Dave pays tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis (piano and vocals), and Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley (electric guitar and vocals). Dave’s original compositions are influenced by the style of Roy Orbison, the “Soul of Rock and Roll”. Some of his annual “roots music” presenters include The Sacramento Music Festival, The Southern Oregon Music Festival, The Central Illinois Jazz Festival, The Clambake Jazz Festival, and The Redwood Coast Music Festival.

Dave has been featured on NPR Radio’s “Jazz at Riverwalk.” He made his European debut in 2008 at the The Bern Jazz Festival (Switzerland) in a combo with jazz legends and Benny Goodman band alumni guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and vibraphonist, the late Peter Appleyard.

Dave is a Mack Avenue Records artist. His 2013 CD “Don’t Be That Way” met with critical acclaim.

His second release, Blood Moon, which features five originals and six pop/jazz covers, hit the  Billboard Jazz charts in 2018. 

Noted in the New York Times as part of "a new wave of female conductors in their late 20's through early 40's", Sarah Hicks's versatile and vibrant musicianship has secured her place in "the next generation of up-and-coming American conductors". Since October of 2009 she has been Principal Conductor of Orchestra Live with the Minnesota Orchestra; she has been instrumental in creating new Pops productions while also heading the innovative classical series, "Inside the Classics". Throughout her career she has collaborated with diverse artists, from Jamie Laredo and Hilary Hahn to Josh Groban and Smokey Robinson; during the summer of 2011 she was on a two-month tour with Sting as conductor of the final leg of his Symphonicities Tour.

Ms. Hicks has guest conducted extensively both in the States and abroad, including the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Detroit Symphony, National Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic and Prime Philharmonic (Seoul, Korea). She led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in July 4th concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 2012, 2013 and 2015. 2016-17 highlights include debuts with the Brisbane Symphony, Lisbon Symphony, Calgary Symphony and Dallas Symphony Orchestras as well as return engagements in San Diego, San Francisco and Cincinnati.

Ms. Hicks's past affiliations include positions with the North Carolina Symphony, Richmond Symphony and Florida Philharmonic. She was on faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music from 2000 to 2005 and continues her affiliation as Staff Conductor. Her opera appearances have included Verdi's Aïda with the East Slovak State Opera Theater, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites and Handel's Alcina with the Curtis Opera Studio and a semi-staged production of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel with the Minnesota Orchestra 2009.

A committed proponent of the performance of new music, Ms. Hicks conceived and completed a Microcommission Project, the first of its kind, with the Minnesota Orchestra in which hundreds of people made microdonations to fund a major new work by composer Judd Greenstein. Her recording project with the Vermont Symphony, "Triple Doubles", featuring music of Richard Danielpour and David Ludwig with Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, soloists was recently released on the Bridge Label. She has also conducted performances with Composers in the Shape of a Pear (Cleveland) and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.

Sarah Hicks was born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in Honolulu, HI. Trained on both the piano and the viola, she was a prizewinning pianist by her early teens. She received her BA magna cum laude from Harvard University in composition. She holds an Artists' Degree in conducting from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with the late renowned pedagogue Otto-Werner Mueller. In her spare time, Ms. Hicks enjoys running, yoga, her Papillon, cooking (and eating) with her husband, traveling and sketching.