Drummer Jack Mouse's extensive background began when, upon graduating from college, he spent three years as featured soloist with the "Falconaires," the official jazz ensemble of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has since performed with outstanding jazz artists.   Jack's multi-faceted career has been the subject of recent interviews in Modern Drummer and Jazz Improv magazines. In April, 2005 he was a featured artist during the first online Virtual Percussion Festival presented at the University of Manitoba by the ALIVE Project (Accessible Live Internet Video Education). Currently an adjunct faculty member of the North Central College Jazz Studies Program, Jack has also served on the faculties of the American Conservatory of Music, Benedictine University, Saskatchewan School of the Arts, Clark Terry Great Plains Jazz Camp, National Stage Band Camps, Jamey Aebersold Combo-Improvisation Camps and Birch Creek Farm Academy for the Performing Arts. He has been a faculty artist member of the Janice Borla Vocal Jazz Camp since its founding in 1989. As a member of the Bunky Green Quartet, he was among the first musicians to introduce jazz education to the Montreux Jazz Festival.  Jack has presented clinics and workshops at jazz festivals, music conventions, colleges and high schools throughout the United States, and is now available to do clinics online through the ALIVE Project (Accessible Live Internet Video Education). He is a staff artist/clinician for Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Aquarian Drum Heads and Vic Firth Drum Sticks.

Janice Borla has made utilizing her voice as a jazz instrument her artistic mission, applying it to her explorations of instrumental jazz tunes by modern and contemporary jazz composers and participating in the improvisatory process as an equal member of an ensemble. Her recordings and performances have earned consistently high praise as a result of her luxurious sound, superb technique, adventurous repertoire and truly imaginative vocal improvisations.  Often cited for her adventurous, risk-taking approach, Borla continually challenges herself, keeping vocal improvisation front-and-center in her performances. As veteran jazz journalist and broadcaster Neil Tesser notes: "She shatters the stereotype of the jazz vocalist as a poseur or wannabe, infatuated with the idea of improvisation but lacking the mettle to carry it off: she's a musician who happens to play voice." And she manages to do so while remaining equally adept at expressing a lyric.  Acknowledged as a pioneer in vocal jazz education, Borla founded the Janice Borla Vocal Jazz Camp and Hot Jazz - 6 Cool Nites Series, cited by Jazziz as "one of the most innovative and dynamic summer jazz educational programs in the country." The annual summer event has been featured on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" (PBS), HDNET-TV, WGN-TV, WTTW Channel 11 Chicago and WBEZ-FM's "Performance Space." Borla is currently Director of Vocal Jazz with the Jazz Studies Program at North Central College. As a guest artist and clinician she has performed at high schools, colleges and festivals in the U.S., Canada and Europe, served as a judge for the 2007 DownBeat Student Music Awards, and is now available to do clinics online through the ALIVE Project (Accessible Live Internet Video Education). She has written articles on vocal jazz for the Jazz Educators Journal, the IAJE Illinois Unit Newsletter and DownBeat, including that magazine's first vocal transcription and the first written by a woman.

Saxophonist/guitarist Steve Jones has been teaching music for 34 years. He is an instructor at Malspina College, now Vancouver Island University, in Nanaimo where he was the Chair of Music from 1981-2001. More recently, he has been teaching in the Jazz Academy program at Wellington secondary School in Nanaimo.   Steve performs with his own trio, leads a ten-piece jazz-funk band for which he arranges and composes, and is the musical director of the Nanaimo Musicians Association Community Big Band.  Steve has adjudicated at many festivals including Musicfest Canada and at the West Coast Jazz Festival where he has been host and Site Chair for many years.  He has taught at jazz camps in western Canada and the Yukon and is proud to be returning to Melville for the annual Jazz Retreat.  Steve is about to release his first CD.

Stewart Smith holds degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and Northwestern University. His performance experience on euphonium and trombone includes orchestras, wind bands, chamber groups, and jazz ensembles. Mr. Smith has been an instrumental music instructor at the middle and high school level for 27 years and remains active as a clinician in the areas of low brass, jazz, and music technology, all of which he has taught at music camps in Canada and the United States. As a composer/arranger, his works have been performed by jazz ensembles at a number of universities, as well as the Manitoba High School All-Star Big Band, the International Music Camp's Faculty Big Band, and the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra. Stewart Smith is a co-founder (with Allan Molnar of New York) of the "ALIVE Project" (Accessible Live Internet Video Education), which has advanced real time video education over the internet and brought together music educators, performers and students from across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. In January Stewart and Allan will give a second presentation regarding online distance education at the 2011 Jazz Educator’s Network Conference in New Orleans. In addition to full time work in the instrumental music department at St John's-Ravenscourt School in Winnipeg, Stewart is a sessional instructor in the Marcel Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba and at Providence College. In the summer he instructs at the International Music Camp and the Manitoba Band Association’s Summer Band Camps. Stewart has always considered the Melville Jazz Retreat to be a highlight of the year.

Steve Kirby is a seasoned jazzman who has played with some of the biggest names in the business, including Lester Bowie, Joe Lovano and James Carter. In 2003, the bassist left New York and moved to Winnipeg after he was appointed director of the jazz program at University of Manitoba. Kirby also works as a consultant for the Winnipeg Jazz Festival. Kirby and guitarist Larry Roy, a long-time collaborator, recently released the album Wicked Grin.  In the summer of 2003, Steve Kirby accepted the position as the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Manitoba. Since then, Steve has overseen a full-fledged rejuvenation of the jazz scene in Winnipeg.  Steve has taken the opportunity to travel throughout the province of Manitoba and offer Jazz clinics to local high schools and educational organizations. Likewise, he is performing in a variety of settings with Manitoba‘s finest musicians, groups and organizations including the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra and Ground Swell New Music Series.   Steve is in the process of creating the Jazz Studies Degree at the U of M. This comprehensive program will be the first of its kind in Western Canada.  Steve Kirby’s career as a jazz musician spans over 25 years of performance collaboration with many of the finest artists in the field, both in North America and abroad.  Steve has performed extensively and recorded with some of the most high profile Jazz Artists on the scene today.  In addition to his busy performing career, Steve received his Masters Degree in Jazz Composition from the Manhattan Faculty of Music.  In 2002, executive director Loren Schoenberg appointed Steve Kirby as a permanent member of the planning conference committee for the Jazz Museum in Harlem. For the past several years he has given workshops and clinics with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Outreach Program, as well as Lincoln Center Jazz Educators.