Prometheus Unbound Members
Tim Pettet: His love of poetry and language and his connection to his flute as a means of finding and expressing beauty and harmony are threads that have woven their way into Timothy Pettet’s life since he was a kid. Burma Shave signs read aloud on Sunday drives in the mountains of Idaho and his mother’s voice giving him the rhythms and textures of the Psalms awakened him to the possibilities of language as a musical form. Despite years of writing poems and getting many of them published, he didn't begin to realize the depth of those possibilities until he began collaborating with the musicians of the ensemble, Prometheus Unbound. He remembers practicing the melody to Red River Valley in the basement of his childhood home, and he still plays the same professional model flute his mother bought him in high school. After six decades on the planet, he found James Bell, Nick Baker and Thomas Nelson. His work with them and other members of the ensemble has provided him with a profoundly satisfying way of sharing the beauty of his music and the music of his words, by bringing them both into world of performance art.
Thomas Nelson: Thomas M. Nelson is a guitarist and composer of contemporary music, born in Kansas City, MO in 1978. Fostered by a musical family, Thomas completed his youthful education at the Paseo Academy of the Fine and Performing Arts. This included a comprehensive arts education, performance and composition opportunities, and it concluded with the composition of orchestra works performed by Kansas CIty Symphony Orchestra. Receiving the Morton Gould Scholarship Award enabled a four year education at the Conservatory of Music at UMKC in Kansas City, MO. Thomas has participated in many an ensemble as performer and composer and took part in an educational exchange in Capetown, S. Africa, At the University of Western Cape. Thomas now composes and performs with Prometheus Unbound, which he co-founded in 2001. This has allowed him to visit and reside in various parts of the southwest and west coast. He currently resides in Kansas CIty, MO.
Nick Baker: Nick's first profound musical experience was hearing a recording of Scott Joplin's The Entertainer at the age of 5. He played the cello for a year at age 10 and traded it for the trumpet the following year. That same year Nick was being drawn to drums and percussion and found playing the drums as a way of spending time with his father, Jerry, who played the electric bass. They spent several years writing and recording songs together on the weekends in the basement. When Nick came upon a keyboard in an old music store he realized the magic of harmony, melody, and polyphony. He was restricted in his drum set playing as his mother's house because of the volume so he taught himself how to create multi-track recordings on a boom box dual tape deck. While enjoying the exploration of these electronic recordings, Nick has always enjoyed playing music with others. He has played drums with various singers/songwriters in Kansas City including Joel Kraft, Kasey Rausch, Mikal Shapiro, ZZ Rose, Zamiriahu Yisrael, and Emily Tummons as well as the rockabilly band The Rivercity Revelators and the classical-prog group the Nova Project. Nick began playing the marimba in 2003 as a requisite for an audition and fell in love with its timbre and its fusion of the drums and keyboard. When he met Thomas Nelson in 2004 they both had a good feeling about the combination of marimba and guitar. Nelsonʼs compositions provided a beautiful space for the exploration and creativity on the marimba. In addition to Prometheus, Nick also plays marimba with the neo-classical Melek Taʼus Ensemble and the reggae band Jahration. He is currently pursuing a music degree at UMKC ʼs Conservatory of Music.
D-Mott: D-Mott is currently working towards his Bachelor of Science in Music Education and Bachelor of Arts in Music with percussion performance emphasis. D-Mott played with The Burntends (folk, country, rock), Kinesthetic (hip-hop), Kansas City Civic Orchestra, Johnson County Symphonic Winds, and most currently with Prometheus and The St. Joseph Symphony for the 2008-2009 season. He is influenced by rock, jazz, classical, Brazilian, Cuban, pop, hip-hop, and avant-garde. D-Mott plays congas, bongos, suspended cymbal, and the drum set with Prometheus. D-Mott is from Kansas City Missouri, age 27.
Scott Taylor: Scott’s musical odyssey began at age 3, singing to the am radio in Mom’s Austin Healy with the top down. “Joy to the world” is still one of his favorite songs. Most of his early memories center around the family record player that belted out anything from Bachman Turner Overdrive to Johann Sebastian Bach. In his formal education, he was privileged to attend one of the most unique and rewarding musical programs imaginable. Being surrounded by talented, inspired people with a common goal, he was allowed to utilize his potential to it’s fullest. The rest is just a natural curiosity and a lot of life. Scott now builds and plays Native American flutes and acoustic guitars as well as playing tenor sax with Prometheus Unbound.
Amory N.C. Bottorff: Amory is a violinist who performs locally with several instrumental ensembles in the Kansas City area. He studied privately with Marge Kuenn of Kansas City and went on to college to study with Kenneth Todd of Gunnison Colorado. Holding a B.A. in Music Performance from the Western State College of Colorado, he worked to become the Concertmaster of the WSC Community Orchestra and String Ensemble. While his primary focus was the classical repertoire, he began studying jazz and improvisation. Influenced by the unique sounds of eastern Europe, Amory explored world music, improvisation, traditional Balkan music, and improvised musical collaborations by traveling and performing at festivals and venues throughout Oregon, California, Montana, and Colorado. Continuing his pursuit of art he performs with The Melek Taus Ensemble and The Prometheus Unbound Art Ensemble in Kansas City