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Justin Benavidez leads an active career as a performer and educator. He is the Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Florida State University and previously held a similar professorship at the Ithaca College School of Music. Benavidez is the Tuba-Artist Faculty at the Round Top Summer Music Festival. An acclaimed international solo artist, Benavidez has performed in venues throughout the world. He is a prizewinner of several national and international solo competitions and is a past winner of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition. Pianist Nick Weiser is steeped in both the jazz and classical idioms and has performed at events as far reaching as the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and Switzerland s Montreux Jazz Festival. During his formative years in western Kansas, Weiser studied piano with the late jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Frank Mantooth before matriculating to the University of Kansas. There, he developed his classical background while maintaining an active involvement in the jazz and musical theater programs, winning the prestigious Dick Wright Jazz Award in 2006. He received his Bachelor of Music degree with highest distinction in 2008 before attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he earned both his MM and DMA in Jazz and Contemporary Media.