Billy Shepherd(piano) was born in Camden, SC and began formal piano study with Sandra Crater at Boylan-Haven-Mather Academy (Camden), a private college preparatory school founded to serve the children of freedmen. Billy continued piano study, at age twelve, with John Adams, Artist-In Residence at the University of SC School of Music, Columbia. After a short period of work at London Records – NY headquarters, he resumed piano studies with Joel Spiegelman, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY.

Returning to South Carolina, Mr. Shepherd became a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in piano performance with Raymond Dudley at the University of SC – School of Music.

Mr. Shepherd has produced and performed in various concert series at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County. He & Susan Harper, Executive Director of Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County, co-founded the Celebration Gospel Ensemble, a nine-voice a cappella group that has performed throughout South Carolina, including concert collaborations with Hootie and the Blowfish, Edwin McCain and BeBe Winans.

Mr. Shepherd was invited by Sylvia Upton Wood, philanthropist and Camden resident, to become pianist of the Trio in 1989. Mrs. Wood commissioned the Trio to present chamber music concerts for artistically underserved in Kershaw County schools. His leadership inspired the creation of four independently produced compact discs. The first being a recording of Tchaikovsky’s A minor Trio; the second, Carmen/Mendelssohn Trio II with violinist Mary Lee Taylor and cellist Jacqueline Taylor. The third CD was their most daring, ambitious, and successful project to date.

The Evolutions CD, contained a specially commissioned jazz suite by Dick Goodwin, Shostakovich’s E Minor Trio, and Mary Lee Taylor’s compositional debut, “Trilogy” quickly sold out, charted on local radio, and was broadcast coast-to-coast on NPR.

NBC Nightly News featured The Upton Trio under Mr. Shepherd’s direction. The piece focused on the National Endowment for the Arts’ work in rural America.

Billy is an active church musician and enjoys road biking and landscape gardening. He resides in Camden.

Mary Lee Taylor (violin) started playing the violin at the age of 5. She played chamber music with her sister Jacqueline (see above) since childhood. At 15 she played in the SCPO (Then the Columbia Philharmonic). After graduating from USC, she then went to California to play with the San Jose Symphony. In 1990 she won the chair of principal second violin in the Nashville Symphony. In 1997 she joined the Upton Trio. The two share a unique chemistry and charisma in their ensemble which few performers can match.

In the busy life of a gigging musician, there is little time to take a breather–except in the summertime. In the dog days of 2003 Ms. Taylor began dusted off an old song she made up back in her Nashville days, built on it, and came up with Trilogy.

Having little formal training in composition, there was no way of knowing how the world would respond, but audience seemed to really like it. A copy of the Evolutions CD ended up on the desk of the host of NPR’s Theme and Variations. He broadcast Trilogy hailing it as a piece of modern chamber music that was accessible and listenable.

On the one year anniversary of 9/11 a ferocious syncopated piece one piano started to be heard played in the Taylor household. This became Evocation: In Memoriam (September 11, 2001).

The following summer, as a follow up to their school concert programs, Mary Lee decided to compose American Dance Suite from all genres of American music.

Summer of 2004 saw a radical idea. In addition to being a musician Ms. Taylor is also an avid science fiction fan and a brilliant mathematician. One night while reading the thought came to her. What about crossing disciplines?

Fundamental Forces: The Music of Science was born! This is the first expression of the fundamental forces of the universe (gravity, electromagnetism etc.) not in mathematical terms but in musical terms.

Four Elements took it a step farther and represented a quantum leap forward in her composition. With the movements of “Currents of Air,” “River Rythms,” “Mother Earth” and “Firedance” she shows a greater depth and complexity than she ever showed before.

The Upton Trio’s fourth compact disk “Transformations” is an all Mary Lee Taylor program. Produced in 2007, the disk is available online at I-Tunes and is sold retail in SC by Papa Jazz (Greene St. – 5-Points, Columbia), Sounds Familiar and Manifest Records, both in Columbia

She is Concertmaster of the South Carolina Philharmonic and Assistant Concertmaster of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra. see www.scphilharmonic.com for more details.

Dusan Vukajlovic (cello) was born into a musical family in Belgrade, Serbia and began to play the cello at the early age of five.

He obtained his undergraduate degree from the Belgrade Music Academy and went on to study with Martha Gerscefski at the Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia where he completed his Masters degree in 2003. Following that he spent a year studying with Johanne Perron at the Lynn University in Florida.
Dusan has been active as an orchestral musician since an early age and performed regularly with the Belgrade Philharmonic as well as with various orchestras in Georgia and Florida. As a soloist he has had a successful career which began with winning the first prize at the Yugoslavian National Cello Competition in Sarajevo in 1987. Two years later he was a member of the piano trio (Do-mi-sol) that won the first prize in the National Chamber Competition in Dubrovnik. In 1991, he won the first prize at a chamber competition in Stressa, Italy. In addition he regularly performed on national radio and television. Dusan has participated in master-classes with Tim Eddy, Bonnie Hampton, Kiril Rodin and Ksenija Jankovic.

Currently, Dusan is working towards completing his DMA with Robert Jesselson at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.