FOUNDER

Stephen Spottswood, native of Silver Spring, Maryland, moved to Columbus, Ohio to study music education at Capital University. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies, Stephen went on to start his solo career performing as a hip-hop and jazz violinist, while simultaneously working as a middle school orchestra teacher at Reynoldsburg City Schools. Stephen has worked to inspire African-American classically trained musicians to incorporate contemporary genres in their performance. Stephen is married to Jhay Spottswood, and they live in Olde Towne East.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Megan Rae Wetzel is a Columbus based musician working with music education focused nonprofits, retail brands, as well as individual artists and bands to produce positive musical messages and creative content.

Megan is the Executive Director for The Columbus Cultural Orchestra. Her private lesson studio for violin, viola, and general elementary music is hosted at Music Royale. Megan performs with Rankin’s 13, Bourbon Legend, and The Chapters. Follow her to find more performance dates with other local bands and musicians.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Back for his second year as the Columbus Cultural Orchestra Artistic Director is Norman Murri-Cardwell. Norman has been with us for three years in the viola section. He also teaches musicianship and ensemble musicality to the students in the Classical Crossover Crew.

OPERATIONS MANAGER

Our newest staff member of the Classical Crossover Crew. After three years holding it down in the violin section, she's now stepping up as the Columbus Cultural Orchestra’s Operations Manager.

BUSINESS MANAGER

Ashton Hood joined the Ohio Attorney General’s Office in 2019 and works in the Collections Enforcement Section as an Assistant Attorney General on behalf of various agencies within the State of Ohio.  He represents the Ohio Department of Transportation in most of their delinquent collections efforts, Finding for Recovery Matters on behalf of the Ohio Auditor of State, Probate and Estate Collection Matters on behalf of the Ohio Department of Taxation, and is currently serving as the interim liaison for the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation.

VIOLIN TEACHER

Chris Shaw is a violinist and multi instrumentalist playing music professionally since around 2002. Early on he studied classical moving through various Columbus youth programs like CSYO, Columbus Chamber Connection, and various summer camps. His high school Gahanna Lincoln had an amazing teacher Carolyn Osbourne (Cutler at the time) who taught an after school group in fiddling covering bluegrass, irish, cajun, as well as improvisation. He plays in several bands and has toured in over 7 countries playing fiddle in a country band. He is passionate about teaching, music, and is always looking toward the next big thing in his career.

BASS/CELLO TEACHER

Chris Shaw is My name is Donovan Layne Panian. I'm an apprentice Luthier, double bassist, and cellist. I graduated from Wittenberg University in 2023 with a music degree and I'm very excited to work with CCO this season.