Eric A. Thomas is a scholar, pastor, and activist. His work invites us to imagine everyday embodiments of freedom, flourishing, and futures, alongside communities for whom such pursuits are impeded by imperial Christianity and its attendant logics of heteronormativity, respectability politics, and erotophobia. Eric is a graduate of Drew University where he completed the Ph.D. in New Testament with concentrations in Africana, and Women and Gender Studies, and the Interdenominational Theological Center where he completed his M.Div. He enjoys naps, spending quality time with his spouse Carlos, and being an awesome uncle to Jayden, Nia, and Devin, when not conspiring with his comrades to dream otherwise.

Buck McDaniel is a composer, conductor, organist, and curator. His choral collaboration with recording artist Sam Smith was presented on NBC’s Saturday Night Live (2023), and his chamber work Memory Ground (2021) for the Desdemona Ensemble was commissioned by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Earlier this year, he worked with South-African director Oliver Hermanus on a feature film, starring Paul Mescal, scheduled for release in 2025. Other projects include a four-week festival McDaniel curated with scholars Eric Thomas and Carla Roland focusing on Queer identity at The General Theological Seminary, and in 2023 he appeared as organ soloist with the Queer Urban Orchestra in New York City. Other works include Landscape Piece (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), Fire on the Water (Cleveland Public Theatre), and the small ensemble version of Nico Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons (Boston University Tanglewood Institute). More information at www.BuckMcDaniel.com

Van Parker enjoys a dynamic career as a highly sought-after orchestral and chamber musician, soloist, recording artist, new music collaborator, and music educator. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, they have been featured as a recitalist throughout the Great Lakes region and perform frequently with the Akron, Ashland, Firelands, Lima, Mansfield, and Youngstown Symphonies, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and Cleveland Opera Theater.

Van is an advocate for the works of living composers and has participated in premieres of works by Eric Whitacre, Lewis Nielsen, John Wineglass, and Deborah Phelps, from whom he commissioned the piece Cui Bono, a duet for horn and violin. They are also a frequent performer on historical instruments as a member of Orchestra19, an ensemble dedicated to period performance of 19th century music, and as a member of the Evelyn Dunbar Early Music Festival they have performed Niccolo Piccini’s 18th century opera, La Buona Figliuola. This performance marked the opera’s first fully-staged presentation in the United States using period instruments, pitch, and tuning. Van has toured internationally with Ensemble du Monde and is a member of New York’s Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra. They are also principal horn with the Charleston, SC-based Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, a unique ensemble showcasing the talents of black musicians from around the world.

Currently, Van is on faculty at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, Ohio and serves as a brass coach for the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony and Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra, in addition to being an assistant director of the All-Ohio State Fair Band. They received their M.M. from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, their B.M. from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

Tenor Matthew Jones, originally from Savannah, Georgia, is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance (Voice) at Shenandoah Conservatory. A frequent orchestral soloist and recitalist, Jones holds a Master of Music in voice performance from Cleveland State School of Music.