Second Nature

Olivia Pidi Weiss

Trumpet player Olivia Pidi Weiss is an active freelancer in the New York Metropolitan area. She has enjoyed a number of musical performances at Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regional theaters including the St. James Theater, The Public Theater, and The Paper Mill Playhouse. Most recently, Weiss held the first trumpet chair at Paper Mill’s 2023 production of Fiddler on the Roof and the trumpet chair at The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ’s 2024 production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. She was the trumpet fellow of APEX Ensemble (formerly The Montclair Orchestra) and she has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Reading Symphony Orchestra, and National Concerts Orchestra. Weiss is a member of the NYC quintet Calliope Brass and frequently performs as a member of the New Jersey Symphony Brass Quintet. Weiss studied at Manhattan School of Music and Oberlin Conservatory. In addition to performance, Weiss completed a bachelor’s degree in musicology, with studies focused on early music and musical notation development.

Rebecca Steinberg

Based in New York City, trumpet player Rebecca Steinberg has a career marked by her warm, inviting sound and stylistic versatility. You can find Steinberg in the pit of New York City’s many theater productions, performing alongside her brass quintet Calliope Brass, and teaching music both privately and in the classroom. Steinberg currently holds a trumpet chair in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical SUFFS. In  2023 she held a trumpet chair in the Tony-winning Broadway musical New York, New York. Other notable appearances include SUFFS (The Public Theater), Sound of Music, Sister Act, and Jolly Holiday (Paper Mill Playhouse), City Center Encores! Off-Center production of  Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at Stage 42, and two National  Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene productions: The Sorceress and The Golden Bride.

Erin Paul Ozolins

Erin Paul Ozolins is a New York based French hornist, known for a versatile performance career, as a co-founder of the nonprofit ensemble Calliope Brass, and the host of Doublers Podcast. With a mantra of “have horn, will travel,” Ozolins’ diverse resume includes Broadway, Carnegie Hall, the Las Vegas Strip, barns in France, historic theaters in Eastern Europe, and with major artists including Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, and Marie Osmund. As a classical artist, she has appeared with the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Opera Tampa, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Palm Beach Symphony, Florida Grand Opera, and the New Haven Symphony.

Sara Mayo

Sara Mayo is a native of the Pacific Northwest who now splits her time between the West and the East Coast, and therefore now mostly lives in the sky. On the left side of the country, she is the principal trombonist of the Yakima Symphony, and has also previously performed with groups such as the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Symphony Tacoma, the Spokane Symphony, and the Eugene Symphony. On the right side of the country, she works as a freelancer in New York City. She is the tenor trombonist of Calliope Brass and regularly performs with other groups such as the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, the Chelsea Symphony, and anyone else who’ll hire her.

Samantha Lake

Dr. Samantha Lake is a freelance performer and educator in New York City. While performing tuba in multiple ensembles including Calliope Brass, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Orchestra, Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, and the Ridgefield Symphony, Lake has also earned recognition as a soloist. Her passion for solo performances was ignited when she won the Young Artist Solo Competition in New London CT in 2012, resulting in a solo performance accompanied by the U.S. Coast Guard Band. In the past few years, she has won the Rutgers Concerto Competition, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp Staff Solo Competition, and University of Connecticut Concerto Competition, and placed second in the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra Instrumental Competition.