Artist Bios

Myron McKinley — Music Director and Keyboardist for Earth, Wind & Fire

McKinley has toured with Grammy award winner Whitney Houston (World Tour), Kenny Lattimore (For You, World Tour), Stanley Clarke, En Vogue (World Tour), and has toured as the Musical Director for Philip Bailey (Japan Tour), Cherokee (Polo Tour), Doc Powell (Smooth Jazz Tour), Shai (World Tour) and currently, for the last twelve years, serves as the Musical Director for Grammy award winners and pop music giants Earth, Wind and Fire, while also touring with his own incomparable band, The Myron McKinley Trio, which twice toured as United States Jazz Ambassador to Suriname, both to perform and teach, and for a second year in a row, brought the house down at Carnegie Hall.

Kenton Chen – Singer, actor, and songwriter based in Los Angeles.

A graduate of USC Thornton’s jazz program, Kenton first gained national attention on NBC’s The Sing-Off. Since then, he has lent his classical, pop, and jazz voice to many projects, most notably Scary Pockets, Stories, and Postmodern Jukebox. He has sung for artists as Kesha, Portugal the Man, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Hudson, and currently, Katy Perry.

When he is not performing, writing, or teaching, Kenton enjoys improvisational cooking and NPR.

Crystal Starr – R&B singer, music artist
 
Crystal Starr began singing in church in her hometown of West Covina, California. She landed her first professional gig at age sixteen singing background for Pop sensation Jessica Simpson. In between classes at Santa Monica College where Crystal majored in music, she shared the stage with major artists Stevie Wonder, Yolanda Adams, Kanye West, Jermaine Jackson, Tito Jackson, Heather Headley, Neyo, Nancy Wilson, John Legend, Babyface, Howard McCrary, Joss Stone and Smokey Robinson, and also appeared on hit TV show American Idol.