Michael Kollwitz

Michael is an award winning Billboard artist and one of the pioneer players of a revolutionary stringed instrument known as The Chapman Stick®. Capable of astounding expressiveness and simultaneous multi-part arrangements, ‘The Stick’ combines elements of guitar, bass, keyboards, and percussion all into one instrument that is played more like a piano than a guitar. Michael has had 26 independent releases. His last three albums, Serenity II, Serenity III and Santa Plays The Stick have all charted as Top 10 albums on Billboard’s New Age album charts. His music has received considerable airplay, awards, nominations, and rave reviews worldwide. In addition, his music is being played on numerous airlines and in hundreds of U.S. hospitals on The CARE Channel.

Serenity III debuted in the Top Five of all three of the major New Age charts including Billboard twice: #3 in Jan ‘19 and #2 in Feb 2019. Serenity III also won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards in June 2019. Serenity II made the Billboard Top Ten New Age albums chart at #8 in 2018 in addition to receiving Grammy nomination consideration. Santa Plays The Stick debuted at #4 on Billboard and #3 on the New Age Music Chart in Nov 2019. It also won a Silver Medal in the Instrumental category from GMA. At a chance meeting at a gig on Maui, Carlos Santana was visibly impressed and described Michael’s music as “a gift of the heart” that made him feel good instantly.

Walton Mendelson

Walton Mendelson grew up in Cleveland, playing the saxophone and flute as a child. In the late ‘60s, making the requisite pilgrimages to New York and L.A., he immersed himself in the folk, rock, and jazz scenes. Later, intrigued by early music—generally, music that was written before 1850 and performed on period instruments—he studied,
performed, and wrote about it. “From the chromatic dissonances of Guesaldo to the expected free, jazz-like, interpretations of melodic lines, early music is surprisingly contemporary.”

In 1989 he relocated to Prescott, Arizona, and began playing the Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI) soon after. He produced and performed on an album of experimental chamber music entitled

The Isle of Melancholy & Madness: The Music of Frederick Sommer in 1998 (Nazreali Press). Kelly Everding of Rain Taxi said of the album, “The music stands up to the best of 20th Century avant-garde composers, like Philip Glass and Steve Reich.”

In 2012, he began performing with local singer-songwriter Jo Berger as the duo Jo B. & Walton. In 2018, he met Michael Kollwitz at a local venue where their very first impromptu jam earned them a standing ovation from the audience. They discovered the sound of The Stick, and the EWI together was magic.

In addition to music, he is an actor, performing in one or two plays a year, from Sam Shepard’s ‘Fool for Love’ to Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art.’ Thanks to support and encouragement from mentor Frederick Sommer, he is also a visual artist. He works in computer graphics, creating digital collages based on 19th-century woodcuts and steel engravings. “The different instruments, different genres, and different art forms, rather than diluting my work, contribute through cross-fertilizing and enriching each project. I want to think that as Fred used to say, I’m a thief greater than his loot.”