San Diego, CA ensemble:
Nicole Mitchell, flutes/composition
Creative flutist, composer and Doris Duke artist Nicole Mitchell composes for contemporary ensembles (incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression), and is an Assistant Professor of Music of the Integrated Composition Improvisation and Technology Program at University of California Irvine.
www.nicolemitchell.com
Myra Melford, piano
Bay Area-based pianist, composer and bandleader Myra Melford is the winner of the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music, an esteemed veteran of the international creative music community, and an Associate Professor of contemporary improvised music at the University of California, Berkeley.
www.myramelford.com
Mark Dresser, bass/composition
Mark Dresser is an internationally renowned contrabassist, improviser, composer, interdisciplinary collaborator and Professor of Music at University of California, San Diego.
www.mark-dresser.com
Michael Dessen, trombone/composition
Composer and trombonist Michael Dessen creates music for improvisers, explores technologies such as telematic performance, live electronics, and networked scores, and is a faculty member in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology at the University of California, Irvine.
www.mdessen.com
Stony Brook, NY ensemble:
Jane Ira Bloom, soprano saxophone
Jane Ira Bloom is a soprano saxophonist/composer, pioneer in usage of live electronics and movement in jazz, a Professor at the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC, and named Soprano Saxophone of the Year in 2012 for the sixth time by the Jazz Journalists Association.
www.janeirabloom.com
Min Xiao-Fen, pipa and voice
Min Xiao-Fen is a Chinese pipa player/vocalist/composer internationally recognized for her work in traditional Chinese music, contemporary classical music, experimental jazz, and introducing the pipa to composers and audiences globally.
www.bluepipa.org
Ray Anderson, trombone
Ray Anderson is a seminal trombonist/composer bridging swing, bop, free jazz, blues, gospel, and New Orleans funk styles, Director of Jazz Studies at Stony Brook University, and named five straight years as Best Trombonist in the Downbeat Critics Poll.
www.rayanderson.org
Matt Wilson, drumset
Matt Wilson is a New York-based jazz drummer/composer, Grammy nominee, featured on the covers of both Downbeat and Jazz Times in 2009, and for five consecutive years was named the #1 Rising Star Drummer in the Downbeat Critics Poll.
www.mattwilsonjazz.com
Doug Van Nort, laptop, sonifications
Doug Van Nort is a computer performer/composer/researcher, working in creation of improvising and interactive machine systems, telematic music, and laptop ensemble, Research Associate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and featured in the International Computer Music Association.
www.music.mcgill.ca/~doug/
Sarah Weaver, conductor/composition
Sarah Weaver is a New York-based composer/conductor/technologist, internationally recognized at the forefront of localized and telematic experimental large ensembles works, pursuing her Ph.D. in Music Composition at Stony Brook University, and is known for music peace projects with the United Nations.
www.sarahweaver.org
Zurich, Switzerland ensemble:
Matthias Ziegler, flutes/composition
Matthias Ziegler, a professor of flute at the Zurich University of Arts and a co-founder of the Collegium Novum Zurich, is committed to traditional flute literature as well as contemporary and improvised music, and in the search for new sounds has broadened the flute’s expressive potential partly by putting microphones inside the contrabass flute and by developing new playing techniques.
www.matthias-ziegler.ch
Gerry Hemingway, drums/composition
Gerry Hemingway is a composer, improvisor, percussionist, educator, sound and visual artist who, since 1974, has been actively creating and producing music for solo, small ensemble, chamber and orchestral settings, and currently teaches at the Hochschule Luzern in Switzerland.
www.gerryhemingway.com
Amherst, MA ensemble
Marty Ehrlich, alto saxophone and clarinets/composition
Marty Ehrlich is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who began performing with the Human Arts Ensemble in St. Louis in 1970, and has strived to understand that ideal up to the music we will make tonight.
www.martyehrlich.com
Jason, Robinson, saxophones/composition
American saxophonist, composer and scholar Jason Robinson (Assistant Professor, Amherst College) is a celebrated and distinctive voice in a new generation of creative musicians equally interested in improvisation and composition, acoustic music and electronics, tradition and experimentalism.
www.jasonrobinson.com
Bob Weiner, drums
Drummer and percussionist Bob Weiner has toured and performed with Harry Belafonte, Itzhak Perlman, Betty Buckley, Jon Lucien, Dianne Reeves, Andy Statman, Rebecca Paris, Kenny Werner, Bob Moses and many others, teaches drums and percussion, and has co-authored two known books on Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms.