Claire Elizabeth Barratt
dance
Bronx, NY

Claire Elizabeth Barratt has a Dance and Musical Theater background, with training received in her native country of Britain at the London Studio Center of Performing Arts and the Laban Center for Movement and Dance.

She spent ten years in the southern states of Tennessee and North Carolina, where she held the position of Co -Director for "Circle Modern Dance" as well as choreographing for Opera, Musical Theater, Music Video, Commercials and collaborating with Multi-Media, Film, Visual, Music and Literary Artists.

Now based in the Bronx, NY, she runs "Cilla_Vee Movement Projects", a multi-disciplinary performing arts company, performing in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan and is performance curator for Haven Gallery. She served a one year apprenticeship with Lori Belilove & Company of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation and has recently been featured in Art Basel Miami, the Washington DC International Improv Festival and the Transmodern Age Festival in Baltimore, MD.

"My work as a movement artist blurs boundaries and crosses categories. Re-defining the traditional concepts of a "piece", challenging the conventions of choreography, performance, time, space and audience relationships".
[hhproduction.org]

Clare Cooper
guzheng, harp
Newtown, Australia

Harpist and Digital Media Artist Clare Cooper is coming to Baltimore for the first time armed with a Guzheng (Chinese table harp) that has closer links to a Groove Box or DX7 synth than a Koto when in her hands.

Clare's recent compositions and improvisations have been hailed as "awe-inspiring in precision, quiet confidence and beauty", "from the percussive opening, which was not unlike a million Jaffas hurtling down the stepped aisle of a cinema, to the glorious watery sounds of the treated guzheng in the second, the seismic guzheng and prickly synth of the fourth, and the Guzheng's snarls sending a DX7 heartbeat racing towards cardiac arrest in the last." (RealtimeArts65 / Sydney Morning Herald, January 2005)

Clare is Co-Director of 'the NOW now festival of spontaneous music', now Australia's key experimental sound and film festival.
[gutstring.net]

Rosie Hertlein
violin, voice
Staten Island, NY

Rosi Hertlein's musical background is divided equally between the worlds of improvisation and contemporary classical music. She began serious study of both violin and piano in the late 70's, before switching her focus to violin and vocals in the 80's. She earned a degree in Sociology in 1989, subsequently traveling to Ghana to study the links between society and music in Western Africa. After returning to Germany, she began teaching and working as a composer, violinist, singer and percussionist in a variety of settings.

Her work in recent years includes collaborations with multi instrumentalists Joe McPhee and Daniel Carter and performances with composer Pauline Oliveros' "New Circle Five". In June 2002 she premiered Cecil Taylor's "With Blazing Eyes and Open'd Mouth" with the "Sound Vision Orchestra" and Mr. Taylor on piano. She performed with Reggie Workman's "African-American Legacy Project" and with the "Jump Arts Orchestra", conducted by Butch Morris, she collaborated with guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil on original music and other projects. She performs with her band "The Improvising Chamber Ensemble (ICE)", with Howard Johnson, Dave Taylor, Vincent Chancey, Jay Rosen, Charlie Burnham and herself on violin and vocals. This project features her particular compositions and concepts. She also sings and plays in numerous classical ensembles and settings and collaborates and performs regularly with dancers.

Mazen Kerbaj
trumpet
Beirut, Lebanon

Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut and lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting and music.

In 2000 he plays for the first time in concert, in the Strike's pub in Beirut. This concert, a duo with Lebanese sax player Christine Sehnaoui, is probably the first improvised music concert in the Middle East.

In 2001, together with guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui, he creates the MILL association that curates since "IRTIJAL" an annual international festival for free music in Beirut as well as various concerts and events. In august 2002, together with Sharif Sehnaoui and bass player Raed Yassine he recorded the album A released in Beirut.

After meeting Franz Hautzinger in Lebanon in 2003, they played in duo in Beirut and in Paris and recorded an album (abu tarek). Then they were joined by Sharif Sehnaoui and Helge Hinteregger to form Oriental Space quartet (record released by aRtonal)

In 2005, he launches his own label Al Maslakh (the slaughterhouse) to document the Lebanese scene (2 releases, solo and quartet)

Mazen Kerbaj played in solo and various groups in Lebanon, Syria, France, Austria, Germany, Spain and the USA. Regular and occasional partners includes: Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, Franz Hautzinger, LÍ Quan Ninh, Bertrand Denzler, Guillermo Gregorio, Gene Coleman, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Mike Bullock, Vic Rawlings, Jack Wright...
[kerbaj.com]

Tatsuya Nakatani
percussion
Bronx, NY

Originally from Kobe and Osaka, Japan, Tatsuya Nakatani has resided in the USA since 1995. He had been based in New York City for four years, but now resides in Easton, PA. He has been recognized as a key player in New York's ever-burgeoning creative music scene. His music often defies category or genre and is broadly influenced by various cultures as well as improvised music, experimental music, jazz, free Jazz, and rock. An intense freedom combined with impeccable sensitivity and depth of thought characterizes his approach.

He is widely recognized and sought out as a solo and ensemble performer. His elements of percussion are drum set, gong, cymbal, singing bowls, pieces of metal objects, various sticks and bows. In addition to live performances, he provides sound design for television and film, and collaborates regularly with dancers and visual artists. Nakatani has established an independent record label and recording studio “H&HPRODUCTION” from where he dispatches his music creations to the rest of the world. He has been a recipient of the New York, Bronx Art council individual artist grant.
[hhproduction.org]

LaDonna Smith
violin
Birmingham, AL

As violinist and violist, LaDonna Smith has been on the international new music scene for nearly 30 years. She is an active performer, as well as an educator and native of Birmingham, Alabama. LaDonna has created a style of improvisation on violin and viola that is uniquely her own. Alternating classical and extended techniques, she explores her instrument, painting scenarios and sound pictures as she plays. She has performed at practically every major improvisations festival and many of the New Music Festivals. She has toured Europe on numerous occasions, playing solo and in collaboration with many musicians. Her travels have taken her from New Music America to the former USSR, Siberia, China an Japan. In addition, she and guitarist, Davey Williams, have toured North America an Europe many times as TransMuseq. By networking with organizers and musicians from other cities, she has been responsible for keeping improvised music alive in the South Eastern United States from its very beginnings. In 1996 and 2004 she was Director of the Birmingham Improvisation Festival, featuring performers form Sweden, Russia, Japan and the Ukraine in concert and workshop, as well as a host of regional and national participants in music, theatre and dance. She has presented workshops in free improvisation throughout the US canada to community teachers and students.

LaDonna has a long history with dance, since 1978, from the early TransMusiq and Birmingham Creative Dance to collaborations with Katie Duck, Ann Law, and others.

Birgit Ulher
trumpet
Hamburg, Germany

Born 1961 in Nuremberg, Birgit studied visual arts, which still has an important influence on her music- abstract painting and the Fluxus movement with its affinity to music.

As a visual artist she works recently on drawings, environments and graphic works on Polaroids.

Since moving to Hamburg in 1982 she has been involved in free improvisation, co-founding a musicians collective, dance projects and solo performances, played often in occasional once only groupings with many of the European and American improvisers.

Birgit has performed recently in Germany, England, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Spain and USA, together with UNSK, Jurgen Morgenster, Matin Klapper, the Trio PUT, Marianne Kipp, Tim Hodgkinson, Dorothea Schurch, Ernst Thoma, John Edwards, Michael Zerang, Gino Robair and Martin Blume.
[birgit-ulher.de]

C. Spencer Yeh
voice, violin
Cincinnati, OH

C. Spencer Yeh Born 1975 in Taipei, Taiwan, moved to the US in 1980, and now based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. C. Spencer Yeh is active both as a solo and ensemble artist, as well as with his primary organized sound project, Burning Star Core. As an improviser, Yeh has been focused on developing a personal vocabulary using violin, voice, and electronics. Though those are his preferred methods, Yeh believes that an ideal player should be able to tackle most any instrument or object to create sound of interest, through focus and listening.

Collaborative partners over the years have included Double Leopards, Comets on Fire, John Olson (of Wolf Eyes and Dead Machines), Hair Police, Thurston Moore's Dream/Aktion Unit, Pete Nolan (of Magik Markers), Jessica Rylan, Larry Marotta, and others. When possible, Yeh plays in a trio with Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty, as a member of Pengo, and Gordy Horn, a Cincinnati-based improv group led by Tim Schwallie of BPA and Wolverton Brothers. Yeh has toured up and down both coasts and the Midwest, and has made appearances at the Victoriaville, Avantronics, the Destijl/Freedom From and the No Fun festivals.

Yeh is also active in many other mediums, including most recently editing videos and authoring DVDs for Hair Police, The Beast People (both of which were recently featured at the IFFR Rotterdam), LoVid, and others. He also works extensively on artwork for Burning Star Core and other releases. (photo: Bill T Miller)
[dronedisco.com]

From Baltimore:

Samuel Burt
clarinet, voice, laptop

It is said that during the Peabody Symphony Orchestra's reading of Samuel Burt's massive composition Parametric Transmutations that one of the violinists began to cry, tormented by the difficulty of her part. Burt's compositions are uncompromisingly different from the norm. They force everyone involved to come to terms with circumstances with which they are unprepared. This can also be said of his improvisations. He thrives on situations in which he must adapt, whether its playing live or setting up the framework for a new composition.

Samuel Burt began his musical career crying in the nursery of a church building to the sound of congregational singing. Eventually, the child migrated to a brief stint with the piano, an early introduction to turn tables, and an Atari XE computer. Now with training in composition, clarinet, electronic music, and voice, Burt has embarked from the Peabody Conservatory to discover more challenging waters. A Collaboration with John Berndt in 2004 resulted in the Speakeroids installation at Baltimore's Contemporary Museum which is now housed in the Berndt Exhibition Space. He created TRAD custom software for the homemade instrument wielding duo THUS. He attended a performance of his work Uncoiled Oscillations at the Society of Electro-acoustic Music of the United States in 2005. His current projects involve computer-interactive performance systems and frontier exploration of clarinet extended technique.
[pcm.peabody.jhu.edu]

Audrey Chen
cello, voice

Mother of Iven (5 years), cellist, vocalist, performance artist, runner, cyclist, organizer, and voted Baltimore's "Best local musician" in 2004, Chen has rehaired her bow 5 times in the last year. She has also toured extensively around the world bringing her sounds and intuition to Poland, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, China, Japan, and the United States.

Past collaborations include: Jaap Blonk, Michael Zerang, Tony Buck, Assif Tsahar, Scott Rosenberg, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Peter Jaquemyn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, and many others. Some current projects include: duo projects with Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) and Gianni Gebbia (saxophone) from Palermo, Sicily. The Nakatani-Chen Duo just released their debut CD LIMN. Also, Trockeneis, which includes local luminaries, Catherine Pancake, Paul Neidhardt, Andy Hayleck, and Dan Breen.

"Were she playing in a shoebox, Audrey Chen would be unforgettable. Making her Australian debut, the Baltimore cellist and singer was a highlight of the current arts feast, attacking her instrument in more ways than the press Mark Latham (Australian politician), extracting rich, velvet tones and all manner of percussive effects. Meanwhile, her voice encompassed everything from the operatic to the lunatic to the imitation of her cello. As startling as this was, her performance was also profoundly moving, funny, and unremittingly intense. It culminated in cello and voice becoming one as she blew raspberries on her instrument and smothered it in kisses. Lucky cello." (Joe Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1/22/05)

Che Davis
trombone, conch

Baltimore native, Che Davis grew up in a musically encouraging home environment filled with instruments- guitars, flutes, drums, keys, saxophones, bass, kalimbas, trumpets and computers. Davis began concentrating on trombone at age eleven. He has been influenced by many accomplished educator/performers in his years at Baltimore School for the Arts, among them: Carl Grubbs, Chuck Casey, Dr. Ron Carter and Carolyn Foulkes. Davis has performed in a wide variety of music scenes in Baltimore playing with the Baltimore Afrobeat Society, Devolution, Vattel Cherry as well as in reggae groups, spoken word and poetry ensembles.

Jay Kishor
surbahar, sitar

Sitar and Surbahar Artist, Jay Kishor (pronounced: "Jai Kee-Shore") approaches the meditative and mystical Art of Indian Classical Music more as a Poet than a Musician; treating the ancient Ragas with a lyricism, depth, thoughtfulness and grace.

Though groomed in the traditional "master-disciple" training known in Indian Classical Music from reknown masters like Mrs. Annapurna Devi, Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, and Dr. Raj Bhan Singh Thakursaheb, Jay is constantly attempting to expand the definitions of "Raga" and "Sitar" through his collaborations with legendary guitarists such as Stanley Jordan, and the late Michael Hedges.

Jay Kishor is the also founder of "touchingGrace", a Sitar based World Music group that combines the ancient and spiritual qualities of Indian Classical Music with the structure of Western Classical, the improvisation and complex rhythm of Jazz, the raw emotion of the Blues, and the energy and verve of Rock.

"The RajDhani Quartet" is an Indian Classical Fusion Ensemble, also created by Jay Kishor, that merges the diverse musics of North (Hindustani) and South (Carnatik) India, while incorporating Raga-based tonal harmonies and Western themes.