Collaborations
Perhaps the most important element to the creative ventures seen and heard on this website is collaboration with friends. Craig Hara and Steve Heitzeg are amongst very important collaborators for Charles.
You’ll see why Craig’s vast experience makes him the perfect producer. He is a true renaissance man.
Craig Hara
Craig Hara is a multi-faceted musician and educator, playing Trumpet, Drums, Percussion, EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument), Keyboards and Synthesizers.
As a drummer, he can be heard on pianist Mary Louise Knutson’s recent Billboard chart-topping CD, “Call Me When You Get There,” and on the upcoming CD release from the jazz quartet Zona. He has performed with various Twin Cities artists, including the David Singley trio, Laura Caviani, Pete Whitman, and Global Jazz.
Mr. Hara’s trumpet playing can be heard on the score for the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries “The Legend of Earthsea,” the TV Movie “Netforce,” as well as on the recently released original television soundtrack from the series “Chicago Hope,” for which he played solo trumpet for the first three seasons of the series. He is a member of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the River Falls Brass, is principal trumpet of the La Crosse Symphony, and has played with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, VocalEssence, and in orchestras behind the Three Tenors, Manhattan Transfer, the World Choral Symposium and the World Saxophone Congress.
Craig has performed in North America, Japan, and Europe with many of the world’s most emminent musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Bill Conti, Zubin Mehta, Helmut Rilling, Michael Tilson Thomas, and John Williams, artists Louis Bellson, David Benoit, José Carreras, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Hiroshima, Kiri Te Kanawa, Chuck Mangione, Itzhak Perlman, Mark Isham, and Sarah Vaughn.
Craig holds Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the California Institute of the Arts. His primary teachers were Mario Guarneri, Roy Poper, Rob Roy McGregor and Boyde Hood on trumpet, and Peter Donald, Peter Erskine, Jerry Steinholtz, and Tarnoth Rao on drums and percussion. Craig is currently on faculty at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, and at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN.
Steve Heitzeg’s music speaks for itself. Steve was gracious enough to let Charles and Craig arrange his music for “Solo Settings” Here’s more about Steve:
Steve Heitzeg
Emmy Award-winning composer Steve Heitzeg is known for his music written in celebration of the natural world with lyrical scores frequently including naturally-found instruments, such as stones, bones and shells.
Heitzeg has composed scores for the Minnesota Orchestra’s award-winning children’s video On the Day You Were Born and for the public television documentary Death of the Dream: Farmhouses in the Heartland.
Addressing social and environmental justice issues, Heitzeg’s works include the Nobel Symphony, Voice of the Everglades, Endangered, Wounded Fields and Aqua (Hommage à Jacques-Yves Cousteau). His music has been performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and Chanticleer, among others. earthworks: music in honor of nature, his debut recording, was released in April 1998. Heitzeg lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. www.steveheitzeg.com