Hailed by The Washington Post as “Sweetly Lyrical,” violinist, composer, and community organizer Ariel Horowitz (they/them or she/her) cannot remember life before loving music. In 2020, Ariel joined the prestigious Concert Artists Guild roster for North American management, and enjoys an active touring schedule as a soloist and as one-half of Vision Duo, an ensemble formed with fellow CAG artist Britton-René Collins in 2021. As a composer, songwriter, and avid improviser, Ariel's original music centers themes of healing, community, and liberation. She has performed her compositions and songs around the world, including at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. As a community organizer, Ariel is honored to be the Founder and Artistic Director of the Heartbeat Music Project. Ariel's organizing for this work is as a long-term co-conspirator for Indigenous-led decolonization and land back efforts, and as a guest on the sovereign Navajo Nation. In 2022, HMP received the Lewis Prize for Music’s Accelerator Award in the amount of $500,000 to support their work with Navajo youth. Ariel’s debut album Hearth, which features original compositions, poetry, and songs bookended by works of the Western classical canon, will be released in October 2024.

Hello! I am Sharon Nelson, and I serve as Executive Director for the Heartbeat Music Project. Prior to this position, I also served as a Recruiter and Assistant in 2016 and as Project Director from 2017-2018. In the current capacity as Executive Director, I oversee the program at the Navajo Technical University (NTU) campus in Crownpoint, New Mexico. This involves synchronizing NTU Departments so that Heartbeat functions effectively. Most importantly, I ensure NTU provides a safe and culturally relevant space for Teacher Artists and students to make intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and musical connections. Heartbeat has given underprivileged and underserved Diné children the musical opportunity to convert their own vibrations of thought, heart, and soul using western instruments, allowing them to become centered and explore endless possibilities. In addition to my work with Heartbeat, I am Diné and teach at the Navajo Technical University as Assistant Professor of Diné Culture, Language, and Leadership. Tódích’íí’nii nishłį̨́, Ta’neeszahnii baa shishchiin, Tótsohii da shicheii dóó Tł’ááshchí’í éídah shinalí (I am Bitter Water clan, born for Tangle Water clan, Big Water are my maternal grandfathers, and Painted Cheeks are my paternal grandfathers).

Praised for his “brilliant technique” (Chronicle Journal) and “wonderful musical personality” (Winnipeg Free Press), Gregory Lewis enjoys an international career as a soloist and chamber musician. Lewis has appeared with the Winnipeg, Kitchener-Waterloo, Thunder Bay, Consortium Aurora Borealis, and Strathcona symphony orchestras, among others. One of CBC’s “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30”, Lewis received First Prize at the 2017 Canadian National Music Festival and is a winner of the 2023 Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank Competition. Lewis’s appearances include the Ravinia Festival, Yellow Barn, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and the Toronto, Montreal, Norfolk, and Ottawa chamber music festivals. He has performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, Kaufman Center, Jordan Hall, and 92nd Y. Lewis is a graduate of Yale University and the Colburn Conservatory, and performs on the 1768 "Miller" Gagliano, on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Natalie R. Desiderio is a recent graduate of Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, New Mexico, a small community on the Eastern side of the Navajo Reservation. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Diné Culture, Language, and Leadership. She currently serves as an Office Assistant in the Graduate and Undergraduate Diné Culture, Language, and Leadership program at Navajo Technical University. Since 2018, Desiderio has been a researcher for a Navajo Language Program under the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is building an Online Lexicon for Navajo Language learners. The program works to preserve the Navajo language and helps non-Navajo speakers learn the language. Recently, she became part of the Heartbeat Music Project as its Administrative Assistant.

Desiderio helps to advertise the program, accommodate the participants’ and their parents’ needs, and inform them of upcoming events. An Indigenous individual that helps many programs, Desiderio is family orientated. Her beliefs and values are strongly rooted in her Navajo (Diné) culture. She is a modern Navajo who likes to applyNavajo culture and language to today’s society. Ms. Desiderio feels like her knowledge in the Diné philosophy can help shape and provide guidance to the younger Diné generation. With outside sources and opportunities available to Diné children, we can spark young minds to look within themselves and evolve to become greater individuals. 

Lehuanani DeFranco is a mixed Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) protector for Indigenous rights and a Brooklyn-based dancer. She organizes with Uprooted& Rising to end higher education’s support for Big Food and white supremacy in the food system. She is currently campaigning for the University of California to divest from the Thirty-Meter Telescope in order to protect Mauna Kea from desecration.  DeFranco is also the Interim Coordinator with Roadwork Center, an organization formed in 1978 to build multi-racial coalitions through women’s culture by focusing on the intersection of arts and BIPOC- and LGBTQIA-led social justice movements.  Recently, she became the Director ofCharitable Giving for The Heartbeat Music Project. 

DeFranco is also an artist with Te Ao Mana, a performance group expanding the presence of Polynesian culture worldwide through creative projects, dance classes, workshops, and community gathering. While learning her ancestral language, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, DeFranco explores how the study of language lends itself to the creation of movement scores in her own performance work.Her work investigates how our brains and bodies recognize and form coalitions with others through this intersection of movement and language.  DeFranco graduated Cum Laude from Skidmore College with a B.A. double major in History and Dance. In 2015, she graduated with an M.F.A. in Dance from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. DeFranco is a guest on Lenape and Canarsie lands.