The mission of InstantEncore.com is to be the world’s leading resource for delivering and enjoying live classical music anywhere and anytime. Classical music is presented with a unique opportunity ~ to embrace the power of the Internet in order to revitalize the classical music industry while maintaining the highest artistic integrity. InstantEncore.com’s dynamic classical music site provides tools for the classical music lover, concert presenter, ensemble, artist, composer, and educator to connect, enhance and extend the concert experience. We are committed to keeping classical music vital and accessible to the audience of today and tomorrow while providing organizations with the opportunity to utilize the media model of our time, the Internet.

Bill Stensrud graduated from MIT in 1971 majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He held a variety of technical, marketing and executive positions in the communications industry. He was a founder of StrataCom (acquired by Cisco), the CEO of Primary Access (acquired by 3Com) and an early investor and Director of Juniper Networks. He was a partner with a major venture capital firm in San Diego and ranked by Forbes Magazine as one of the top 25 “Movers and Shakers” in the venture capital industry. Bill is now a private investor and mentor to entrepreneurs.

Bill has been a philanthropist and an active supporter of the arts for many years. He has served on the boards of Scripps Health, the Neurosciences Institute, the San Diego Telecom Council, the University of California at San Diego Foundation, the National Venture Capital Association. He is a past President of the San Diego Opera and is a passionate lover of classical music in all of its many forms.

A 1999 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Margo comes to InstantEncore as one of the most recognized young cellists in America. She has performed as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician throughout Asia, Europe, South America, and the US, and has collaborated with the world's leading artists including members of the Emerson, Guarneri, Miami, Orion, and Tokyo Quartets, the Beaux Arts and KLR Trios, Jonathan Biss, Yefim Bronfman, and Ida Kavafian. Ms. Drakos currently serves on the cello faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

This season Margo is performing sextets throughout the US with “Curtis on Tour” with Curtis President Roberto Diaz and current students. As the cellist of the American String Quartet from 2002-2006, Margo served as artist-in-residence at the Aspen Music Festival and recorded Richard Danielpour’s String Quartets for Arabesque Records. Ms. Drakos has also served as Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony and Principal Cellist of the San Diego and Oregon Symphonies. Deeply committed to contemporary music, Margo has premiered many works including David Ludwig’s Cello Concerto for the Vermont Symphony’s 70th birthday, Jaime Laredo conducting. Margo has spent multiple summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and has toured with “Musicians from Marlboro”.

Margo received her Masters degree in 2008 from Columbia University in Human Rights. Margo's publications include Extracting Corporate Responsibility: Towards an HRIA in the Cornell International Law Journal, Spring 2007 and Getting Human Rights Right in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, December 2007. She has presented her articles at the Yale Law School's Young Scholars Conference and the Netherland's International Human Rights Conference on Business and Human Rights, November 2007.

Evan Schumacher is InstantEncore’s Chief Technical Officer. He was introduced to classical music in college when he was part of a summer project (with then roommate Ross Stensrud) to build a media player designed for classical music for InstantEncore CEO Bill Stensrud. The technology born in that project has formed the foundation for InstantEncore’s classical music focused technologies. These technologies are driven by a need to organize the world of classical music with the end goal of allowing people to access the music and information at anytime, anywhere. Evan went to the University of California, San Diego and received his B.S. and Masters in Electrical Engineering, with a focus in Computer Vision.

While studying mechanical engineering at the University of California at San Diego, Ross Stensrud began developing websites for friends and family as a hobby. During his studies, Ross was commissioned along with roommate Evan Schumacher (CTO) to build a digital music system to catalog the classical music CD collection of InstantEncore founder and CEO, Bill Stensrud. Through the early stages of InstantEncore, at the time known as Fortuna Classical Music, Ross discovered his passion for programming and quickly taught himself the languages of Visual Basic, ColdFusion, ASP.net and C#. Upon graduation Ross pursued a career in his field of study before becoming the Director of Product Management in 2005 for Fortuna Classical Music. Currently Ross is addressing the challenges of creating a classical music destination complex enough to engage all who are interested, yet simple enough to be navigated by an octogenarian classical music enthusiast.

Steven Carlson is the Director of Music and Media at InstantEncore.com. In 2005, Steven joined Fortuna Classical Music, the parent company of InstantEncore, where he helped create a database of classical music recordings for the MAESTRO music player. From there, he moved into his current duties with InstantEncore where he currently oversees the expansion of InstantEncore's concert listings. Steven's passion for classical music began in his early school days while learning to play numerous wind instruments. He soon landed his first job as a classical music radio announcer, and eventually served as music director, program director, and senior manager for several radio stations including Minnesota Public Radio and Classical Public Radio Network. Steven also created the Fine Arts News Service in 1997, an arts news website for classical music broadcasters.