STEVE FULTON

On a summer night in South Carolina, a 7-year-old Steve Fulton stood near a stage on which a man in an Uncle Sam costume and leg braces wailed on Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World."

It is a surreal moment now, though it is vividly locked in Fulton's memory as the moment he decided on a career in music.

Born in Idaho, Fulton moved around with his family while his dad completed his military service. By the time they settled in Idaho, Fulton, 12, had started piano lessons. He played percussion keyboards in his high school band. Then he picked up a guitar, and ever since he's been pursuing a passion for music.

"My life mantra is 'live life in music.' That's what I do in every conceivable way," Fulton said. "Music touches everyone in some way. That's why I do what I do. I love being involved in the production of it, the performance of it and to help others find their music."

Fulton has been a player in Boise's music scene for more than 30 years through several bands, including the High Tops and House of Hoi Polloi, which will reunite Friday at Visual Arts Collective in Garden City.

Fulton has made the trip to Los Angeles to break into the music biz, and in 1992 he was a finalist on "Star Search." (That was the '90s version of "American Idol.") Then he came back to Boise to carve out a life as a working musician.

Today, he is nearing completion on a new high-tech recording studio, Audio Lab, part of the Visual Arts Collective. He also is a partner in that burgeoning performance venue. Fulton performs with his latest band, Steve Fulton Music Project, as a duo with long-time friend Tim Willis and as a solo acoustic act.

In July, Fulton won a Boise Mayor's Award in the Arts in addition to this fellowship.

"One of the most difficult thing is to not be influenced by what the music industry thinks you should be and do. I have a problem with that," Fulton said. "There are these catch phases: 'I'm going to get signed,' and 'I'm going to make it.' I used to get caught up in that, but making it in the traditional sense is not realistic any more. For me, it is about making a living doing my art form."

Fulton will use part of his fellowship money to help finish off the new Audio Lab and to create a writing space for himself at his home.

Hear him: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 26, with Tim Willis at Bungalow, 1520. N. 13th St., Boise.

VINCENT CROFTS

Vincent Crofts played his first notes when his dad showed him a few chords on the mandolin.

"He grew up in a mining town where they just made their own music," Crofts said. " He taught himself to play and then taught me a bit."

Crofts went from high school band to rock bands in college. When he got married at age 22, "I put the electric stuff away and started being drawn to bluegrass." Hearing Doc Watson's flat-picking guitar changed everything.

"That guitar really caught my ear," he said.

Crofts kept working on his style, adding fiddle to the mix, while he ran his family's potato packing business. Music became a bigger and bigger part of his life and when the business closed in 2002, he started playing full-time with bands such as Shelley and Kelly Band in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and singer-songwriter Stephanie Davis, with whom he toured Europe.

Crofts plays swing guitar and "crooked" style fiddle in several musical projects, including Shelley and Kelly, an old-time string band called the Wild Coyotes and a successful retro cowboy music duet, Vince and Mindi. That's where his current passion is.

"I'm addicted to music," Crofts said. "And I've fallen in love with these old styles. I love to dig up something obscure and put our own flavor on it."

Crofts plans to use his fellowship to promote and develop his music career.

Hear him: Crofts is scheduled to appear on Boise State Radio's "Art and Soul" series. No date has been set.

DAVID ALAN EARNEST

When he was about 7, David Alan Earnest picked up his uncle's clarinet .

"As soon as I blew the first note, I knew music was it for me," he said.

That set him on a path to a musical career that came with some surprising twists. For example: how did he get from playing bass guitar in the heavy rock band Rampage to classical composer?

"I was in Minneapolis playing in a few bands and my roommate's mother had left a box of old records. I found a recording of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. That changed my whole direction," he said.

Earnest came back to Boise and took a job with the then fledgling Micron Corp., saved his money and went to Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Illinois to study composition.

Today, he works at North By Northwest production. He also composes classical works for chamber and choral groups, orchestras and the Langroise Trio.

"I can write the most difficult thing you can think of, and they can play it. How often do you get that situation?"

Composing keeps Earnest engaged and excited as an artist, because there is an infinite number of combinations of tones and possibilities, he said.

Earnest's style blends dissonance with rich tonality. Earnest writes his music on a computer, which gives clear and perfectly rendered versions of his music.

His latest project is a commission through the Langroise Trio for a suite inspired by Norman Rockwell's paintings. It is like his version of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," he said.

He offers a musical tour of some of Rockwell's most iconic works, many of which appeared on Saturday Evening Post covers. It starts with a promenade theme, the variations of which take you from picture to picture. Each of the seven Rockwells becomes a musical painting.

Earnest plans to use part of his fellowship money to travel to Paris.

Hear him: The Langroise Trio will premiere Earnest's Rockwell piece Nov. 13 and 14 in Caldwell and Boise.

MATTHEW CAMERON CLARK

Matthew Cameron Clark's taste in art was honed when he was very young. His mother, Anne, is an abstract painter. "It was never, 'Here's a pretty picture of a lady.' It was, 'That orange is amazing,'" he said.

Growing up with that kind of nuance and complexity paved his way to becoming a theater artist and continues to feed his aesthetic.

"I am drawn to complicated stories," he said. "For me, it's about surprises, stories that reveal things you, as the audience, didn't see coming."

Clark discovered acting in college. He started as an English major but spent most of his time in the Whitman College theater department. He spent time in Seattle planning on grad school for theater but a trip back to Boise changed his direction.

He met Charles Fee, Idaho Shakespeare Festival's artistic director, in 1995. "He had me audition and hired me as an actor. I carried spear for a summer and learned a lot."

Clark started producing his own theater, such as "Lone Star" and "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea," in open storefronts around Boise,

He founded Boise Contemporary Theater in 1997.

"I started as an actor who wanted to create opportunity for myself. And it's been great. I've been able to meet and work with so many people, and as an actor I'm getting better every time I do it. That's my goal: to find roles that challenge me and then rise up to that challenge."

This fellowship award is for Clark's work as an actor, although he also is a director and artistic director of Boise Contemporary Theater.

That fact makes the award more personal, he said.

"How the company is connected to my personal growth as an artist is unavoidable. It's all connected. I'm the artistic director. My taste is evolving and expanding. It is part of my job to participate on all those levels and try to produce contemporary theater that's better than what we did last year," he said.

Clark plans to use the fellowship money to "continue being an artist," he said.

See him: Boise Contemporary Theater's season opens in October. Find out more at www.bctheater.org.