Tom Masinter currently is an arranger for Wonder of Sound. Having composed music in nearly every genre, his music has been performed by a wide variety of artists. Tom’s electronic compositions were featured in the video game Abigail in Nightmare Land. Other works include music for chamber orchestra, incidental music for several stage plays, and religious anthems and choral responses. Warner Brothers, Alfred, Noteworthy, RBC, and Star Dreams Publications publish many of his piano pieces and arrangements. When not composing, he serves as a judge for musical contests and has been a judge for the NGTP Original Composition contest.

In addition to creating music for the piano, Tom has composed music for nine original stage musicals including Gone to Texas, the musical of The Alamo, which won the Alamo Theatre Arts Council 2002 Globe Award for Best Original Musical Score and was performed by a Broadway cast at The York Theatre in New York City in 2006. Tom holds a B.A. in Music Composition and a M.A. in Musicology from Trinity University. He is a member of numerous professional organizations including the American society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and has served on the Board of the San Antonio Opera Company.

Since his earliest memories as a child sleeping under the piano as his parents rehearsed Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”, music has been Semyon’s constant companion and guide through life. The son of two prominent classical musicians, Semyon began playing piano and violin at an early age. Although Semyon managed to forcefully quit both instruments, his parents introduced him to the cello, which has been his voice ever since. Semyon studied with the late “Grande Dame of the Cello”, Magaret Rowell, Irene Sharp, and master cellist Bernard Greenhouse.

After years of studying the classical canon for cello, Semyon began experimenting with improvisation in high school by learning how to play bass guitar in jazz band. The spontaneity of improvisational music introduced new ways of playing music to Semyon and began a quest for musical “freedom” that he has pursued ever since. Much like his father, Daniel Kobialka, has been a pioneer in ambient music, Semyon has always been interested in the ways that music and sound affect people. If music can heal, make you laugh, cry or dance, Semyon has always been interested in understanding the mystery behind how and why humans interact with music.

Along those lines, Semyon continued to explore different genres of music and worked to prove that the versatility of the cello allowed the instrument to blend into just about any ensemble. He has played the cello in rock, jazz, funk, salsa, and many other types of ensembles with great success.

Over the years of working with musicians outside of the classical music world, Semyon began developing a way of strumming and plucking the cello in order to communicate his musical ideas to musicians unschooled in reading musical notation. This technique blossomed into an unusual method of utilizing the cello as a cross between a guitar and a bass – by strumming and plucking chords on the cello, Semyon is able to provide an instrumental base that he can sing over. This ability to sing and play songs with the cello as the central instrument has allowed Semyon to perform his original material as a solo singer-songwriter.

Semyon showcased this new technique on his debut solo album, “Wabi Sabi”, in 2007 released by Duckhole Records. He has performed in various venues ranging from bars and clubs to concert halls and theaters to rave reviews. His second album, “The Miracle Mile”, is scheduled for release in fall 2009 with new songs and larger arrangements surrounding the cello as the centerpiece of the compositions.

Chris Cline has seen well over a decade of action as a recording engineer and producer. Having been a musician for most of his life, he decided to take the recording engineer/sound arts route as his area of study instead of that as a classically trained musician. Since entering the professional world of audio, Chris has had the honor of working on a number of projects in the independent music scene. Bands and artists that Chris has worked with include: And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Scrabbel, Seventeen Evergreen, Deerhoof, the Society of Rockets, Elephone, and many others. A number of his recordings and mastering jobs have graced the College Music Journal Charts and have seen success both critically and commercially.

As a musician Chris has played in both the studio and live arenas with a wide array of bands and artists. Projects that he has been involved with as a drummer include: Scrabbel (Three Ring Records), IV Thieves (New West/One Little Indian), We Is Shore Dedicated (Huevo Imaginary), Seventeen Evergreen (Pacific Radio Fire/Lucky Number U.K.), Mentallo and the Fixer (Metropolis Records) and ASP (Three Ring Records). Chris has had the honor of sharing the stage with Architetcure In Helsinki, Snapcase, Cake, Money Mark (Beastie Boys), Rogue Wave, Jonathan Richman, Clan of Xymox and a plethora of others.

Chris co-owns the successful San Francisco independent record label Three Ring Records. Three Ring has released almost 100 lp's and ep's to date along with it's three subsidiaries, Snowstorm Music, Mission Freak Records and 500 Records.