The Cosmos

Christopher Marshall is based in Orlando, Florida. In the years since his arrival in Orlando Florida he has continued to carve out a successful freelance career, securing commissions from top performers, including, most recently Summit Brass, Gail Robertson and Richard Stoezel. His music has featured on concert programmes in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Barbican in London. It his been performed from Austria to Australia, from Sweden to Singapore to Saudi Arabia. This summer alone will see premieres in New Zealand, Philadelphia and Denver, as well as here in Melbourne.

Born in France of New Zealand parents, Christopher received his early music education in New South Wales, Australia. He holds a Masters Degree in Music with Honors from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a Fellowship in Composition from Trinity College, London. He has twice held the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago, New Zealand and in 1996 was Fulbright Composer in Residence at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Prior to taking up these positions he spent three years teaching and composing in the South Pacific island nation, Samoa, and for ten years prior to that taught English to Indochinese refugees in Auckland.

Many influences can be heard in Christopher Marshall's works, from Bach and Brahms to traditional Polynesian music, particularly Maori chant. The foundation of his style is his strong belief that music is primarily a means of expressive communication with the listener. Singable, memorable melody coupled with a subtle use of the tonal harmonic system is central, but is only effective when integrated into a convincing formal structure.

Christopher chose to spend the last seven years as Composer in Residence and Professor of Composition at UCF, singlehandedly building up a highly successful composition studio from scratch. Students of this program have won prestigious national competitions and, even more remarkably have had works published by national firms. This summer, after much deliberation Christopher left the music department at UCF in order to devote more time to his composing.

Sen. Bill Nelson is a true son of Florida, his family coming to the Panhandle in 1829, and his grandparents homesteading in the early 20th Century on land that today is the Kennedy Space Center.

From a spot near there Nelson would launch into space in 1986 and spend six days orbiting the Earth aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

Nearly three decades later he still vividly recalls looking back at our planet from the window of the shuttle and not seeing any political, religious or racial divides.

"From that perspective, you can see how we’re all in this together," he says. "If we could just remember that, we’d sure get a lot more done."

It's that kind of perspective that has earned Nelson a reputation as a thoughtful, moderate voice in an increasingly partisan political world.

Nelson's public service career began in 1972, with his election to the Florida Legislature. He then served six terms in the U.S. Congress representing Orlando and the Space Coast, becoming an early champion of the environment.

In 1994, Nelson was elected to the Florida Cabinet as state Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal. During his six years in the post, he showed he was a common-sense problem solver and strong consumer advocate.

Nelson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2000. Since then, he's stood up to the insurance companies, Wall Street banks and Big Oil. He's exposed the lies of BP about the Gulf spill. And he's created a blueprint forward for our nation’s space agency. Now in his third term, he's continuing to fight for lower taxes, better education, Medicare and Social Security.

He's someone who thinks public service is a noble calling - which is why he is devoted his life to serving his community, his state and his country.