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President - Gilles Noyer
Vice President - Randy Adamsick
Treasurer - Peter Gottlieb
Secretary - Mason H Drake

Andrew Block
Stephen Burns
Hannah B. Higgins
Rex Martin
Bronwyn Poole
Daniel Ratner

President Emeritus - Judith Neisser

Sounding Board

Bruce Adolphe
David Baker
Michael Barrett
Peter Lieberson
Susan Lipman
Wynton Marsalis
Mark Neikrug
Robert Xavier Rodriguez
Lucy Shelton
Fred Sherry
David Stock
George Tsontakis
Susan Wadsworth

Management/Staff

Artistic Director - Stephen Burns

Executive Director - Sophia Wong Boccio

Education Program Director/Musician Union Contractor - Jeff Handley

Media Relations - The Silverman Group, Inc.

Lighting Designer - Geoffrey Bushor

Programming Assistant - Noé Cuéllar

Brochure Writer - Jeffrey Arena

Graphic Design - JNL Graphic Design

Web Design - Mightybytes Inc.

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Peter Gottlieb is president of North Star INvestment Managment Corporation and member of the Investment Committee. Previously, Peter was Senior Portfolio Manager of First Albany Asset Management. There, he was a member of the Investment Strategy Committee, responsible for the management of equity, balanced and fixed income portfolios. Prior to joining First Albany, Peter served as Vice President and Portfolio Manager for Oppenheimer Investment Advisors and was Vice President and Portfolio Manager for Rodman Advisory Services and Financial Advisor for Bear Stearns. Peter has been a director of Midwest Bank and Trust Company and Franklin Capital Corporation. Peter earned his BA degree from the University of Michigan School of Business. A member of numerous civic, political and charitable organizations, Peter and his family live in Chicago.
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Mason H Drake was born Chicago, Illinois, 1965; admitted to bar, 1994, New York; 2005, Illinois. Education: Harvard University (A.B., magna cum laude, 1987); Northwestern University School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1993). Member, Order of the Coif. Book Review and Research Editor, Northwestern University Law Review (1992-93). Formerly with Davis Polk & Wardwell (1993-97). Currently an attorney/shareholder of Greenberg Traurig LLP in Chicago, Max Drake concentrates his practice on private mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital investments and investment fund formation, secured debt and structured finance transactions, and employment agreements and compensation arrangements. He counsels business entities and their owners at all stages of their development, from start-up to growth financing and through to ultimate sale. He also represents minority investors and management teams and individuals in related transactions.

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Trumpet virtuoso and conductor Stephen Burns is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago. He has been acclaimed on four continents for his consistently and widely varied performances encompassing recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber ensemble engagements, and innovative multi-media presentations involving video, dance theatre, and sculpture.

In 1998 Stephen Burns was invited to create innovative new music programs as the Artist in Residence with Performing Arts Chicago. He founded Fulcrum Point New Music Project whose mission is to champion classical music influenced and inspired by Pop culture, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Latin, Folk, Klezmer, World Music, literature, film, art, dance, and theatre.

Originally from Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, Stephen Burns studied under Armando Ghitalla, Gerard Schwarz, Pierre Thibaud, and Arnold Jacobs at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Julliard School (BM/MM 1981-82), as well as in Paris and Chicago for post-graduate studies. He has won many prestigious awards including the 1981 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, 1982 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 1983 National Endowment for the Arts Recitalist Grant, the Naumburg Scholarship at Juilliard, “Outstanding Brass Player” at Tanglewood and the aforementioned 1988 Maurice Andre Concour International de Paris. Sought after internationally for master classes, Mr. Burns is a former tenured Professor of Music at Indiana University and Visiting Lecturer at the Arturo Toscanini Foundation Corso MYTHOS in Bologna, Italy. He presently resides in Chicago with his wife, school psychologist, Kate Neisser and their twin sons Edward and Isaac. Stephen Burns is a Yamaha performing artist.

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Hannah Higgins is the author of an important history of the Fluxus movement, Fluxus Experience, published in 2002 by the University of California Press. The Grid Book, her interdisciplinary history of this defining form in Western culture, was published by MIT Press in early 2009. With Douglas Kahn, she is co-editing an anthology of computer art (1960-1970) called Mainframe Experimentalism.

She attended preparatory school in New York at the Dalton School. She received her B.A. in 1988 from Oberlin College, her M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1990, and graduated with her Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Chicago. The daughter of Fluxus artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, Higgins is married to Joe Reinstein, Deputy Social Secretary at the White House, and has two children: Zoe and Nathalie. Her twin sister, Jessica Higgins, is a New York and Massachusetts based intermedia artist.

She is leaving her job as associate professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago to teach a course on Black Mountain College (home in the 1950s to innovative artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Robert Motherwell and Willem and Elaine de Kooning) as a fellow at the Phillips Collection Center for the Study of Modern Art.

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Rex Martin, professor of music at Northwestern University, has been playing the tuba since the age of nine. He received performance degrees from Illinois State University and Northwestern University, where he studied with Arnold Jacobs and Edward Livingston. His playing can be heard on more than 100 recordings of various ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Pro Musica, Tower Brass, Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Mannheim Steamroller and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has performed on more than 3000 television and radio commercials and has also performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (Osaka), Lucerne Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. His students occupy positions in orchestras and universities throughout the world, and he was awarded the Outstanding Young Alumni Award by Illinois State University. He previously held professorships at DePaul University, Illinois State University, University of Illinois at Chicago, The University of Notre Dame and The Oberlin Conservatory. As a soloist and clinician, he has performed and taught throughout North America, the Far East and Europe. A Swiss citizen, he also teaches at Ticino Musica in Lugano, Switzerland, and has traveled to Europe 103 times to give recitals and master classes. His solo CD "Rex Martin Live in Japan" is available on the WAKO label.

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Bronwyn Poole is a change leadership advisor who helps senior executives implement new business strategies and manage the human and cultural aspects of major transitions. She specializes in merger integration, change program design and management, culture assessment, leadership alignment, organization redesign and change communications. Her clients include global corporations, private partnerships and new ventures. As an independent consultant, she is affiliated with Gagen MacDonald and a network of alliance partners. Bronwyn earned her MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and her BA from Wesleyan University. She studied contemporary choreography and is an enthusiast of new music. Bronwyn lives in Chicago with her husband Peter Schmitz.

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Dan Ratner considers himself aChicago-based serial entrepreneur, writer, raconteur, boulevardier and a "man about town".  He is the Chairman of Sittercity.com, co-author of two books on nanotechnology and a proud board member of Open Books, Chicago’s biggest literacy non-profit, now Fulcrum Point, Chicago’s leading new music arts organization and OperaModa, an opera company dedicated to featuring young and emerging opera artists.

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Sophia Wong Boccio brings to Fulcrum Point New Music Project a wealth of international business expertise and six years of experience as managing director of Cinema/Chicago, the not-for-profit presenter of Chicago International Film Festival. As managing director of Cinema/Chicago, Ms. Boccio managed all aspects of finance, fundraising and corporate sponsorships, marketing and public relations programs, annual galas, special events and outreach programs.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Ms. Boccio moved permanently to Chicago in 2000. For almost 20 years prior to that, Ms Boccio worked in Beijing and Hong Kong representing international and US companies that traded with China for commodities including wheat, metals and minerals, oil, coal and fertilizers. She also worked for two years in Sydney, Australia where she served as the administrative director for the NSW Branch of the Australia China Business Council. Between 1993-96, Ms. Boccio became an entrepreneur, establishing an independent film program in Beijing that provided groundbreaking opportunities for Chinese filmmakers to showcase their work to the international marketplace. She was responsible for all facets of the development, management and promotion of the program. Three years later, she gave the program to US-based Cherry Lane Productions.

Ms. Boccio earned a degree in business administration from Sacred Heart Commercial School in Hong Kong and completed advance coursework at Fordham University in New York. She resides with her husband, Michael, in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.

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Jeff Handley is a highly sought after percussionist in Chicago.  He is Principal Percussionist and Education/Outreach Program Director with Chicago Sinfonietta, which includes several recordings and tours to Switzerland and the Canary Islands.  Jeff is also a member of Fulcrum Point New Music Project, serving as percussionist, Musician’s Union Contractor, and Education Director. Other ensembles Jeff performs with are: Chicago Opera Theater, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, Lyric Opera, Grant Park Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Jeff was recently heard with Andrea Bocelli, Peter Cetera, Dennis DeYoung, Charlotte Church, and productions of “Les Mizerables”, “Spamalot”, “Wicked”, “Color Purple”, and “Mary Poppins” at the Cadillac Palace Theater.  An active clinician and educator, Jeff received his Masters of Music Performance degree in 1988 from DePaul University.

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Noé Cuéllar is a sound artist and photographer originally from South Texas, graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

A variety of his work has been performed or exhibited at the Third Coast International Audio Festival, New Music at the Green Mill (Chicago); Neighborhood Public Radio/Whitney Biennial (NYC); Megapolis Audio Art and Documentary Festival (Boston); MEXIC-Arte Museum (Austin); Burren College of Art (Ireland); The 5th Annual Carnival of e-Creativity (India); among others.

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