Ishmael Ali is a dynamic cellist, guitarist, improviser, and composer based out of Chicago. His work centers on exploring sound through improvisation, experimentation, composition, and collaboration, focusing on a wide array of idiomatic approaches in an ever-changing, always-growing list of projects informed by diverse influences.

While varying drastically, a common thread in his work is the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate elements to create something new: both foreign and familiar.

Ishmael is leader or co-leader of a plethora of working projects including Hearsay, Ensemble Ziraph, and Akjai.

He has also performed or recorded with Kahil El Zabar and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Avreeayl Ra, Josh Berman, Jim Baker, Fred Jackson, Ed Wilkerson, Angel Bat Dawid, Jason Stein, and many more.

In addition to performing, Mr. Ali is a co-curator of the Thursday night Improvised Music Series at Elastic Arts, a co-founder and audio engineer at Marmalade, a recording and rehearsal space in the West Loop, and along with close friend and collaborator Bill Harris, runs the co-operative record label Amalgam Music.

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Darien Baiza is a drummer living in Baltimore. Coming from primarily an extreme metal background, he began working within the space of free-improvisation to "loosen the girders" in search of higher peaks and deeper valleys. He began playing drums at the early age of 5 years old and is self-taught. Inspired by impermanence, he utilizes the drumset as a familiar medium to invite, acquaint, and reconcile the obscure. He has performed under the names of, and with members of various collectives throughout the East Coast.

CK Barlow turns real-time and field recordings into performable solo pieces using a variety of hardware instruments, laptops, and mobile devices. As an ensemble player, CK loves live-sampling her stage-mates, having spent 14 years using a custom live-sampling setup with the acclaimed Santa Fe avant-orchestral conduction-improv group Out of Context (conducted by sampling legend JA Dino Deane). Other New Mexico bands included Useless Eaters (w/Deane and DJ Ultraviolet), and mJane with Molly Sturges — along with a variety of rock, metal and salsa bands. She has scored two feature-length films and dozens of short films, theater productions and choreographic works; and has had music used in more than 2,000 television episodes.

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photo credit: Stewart Mostofsky

As a flutist, Rachel Beetz plays “elegantly” (Washington Post) while “evoking the roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). Beetz performs with ensembles who share her values such as International Contemporary Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Bozzini Quartet, Wild Up, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Wasteland Music. She holds a doctorate in Contemporary Performance Practice from the UC San Diego. As a composer and sound artist, Rachel Beetz explores presence through sound and listening. Her works recreate physical atmospheres based on her deep listening adventures in the wild, exploring hidden worlds of nature and machines. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Beetz’s sound projects have taken her from a sunless winter fjord to the mountains of Southern California, and to empty grain bins of the American Midwest. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can find her music on Orenda and Populist records in addition to her independent artist bandcamp website.

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Tiziana Bertoncini graduated with a Master in Violin at Siena Conservatory and a Master in Painting at the Fine Arts’ Academy in Carrara. Completed by Studies in Art history, and specialization masterclasses for chamber music and music didactics.

After being playing in orchestras and chamber music ensembles, she focused on contemporary music, written and improvised.

Her work is developing from interpretation ad improvisation towards composition and collaboration with artists of other medias. At the same time her interest is focused on the crossing and synthesis between visual elements and music/sound.

She has been performing in many international festivals and contexts and has been part of numerous dance, theatre, video and multi-media projects, contributing the musical part of them.

Her solo work includes composition, performance and installation.

In 2011 her electro-acoustic piece Nur Sand was awarded at the competition Ferrari (r)écouté announced by hr2-kultur, ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics.

She is a member of the ensemble]h[iatus, which moves in the territories of improvisation and interpretation of contemporary pieces. She was artist in residence at the Bridge guard – Residential Art/Science Centre in Stúrovo/SK, AIR Krems, Centre National de Création Musicale Césaré in Reims/F, Künstlerahus Otte1 Eckernförde and GEDOK Lübeck/D.

*Supported by Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKÖS)

Che Davis is a native of Baltimore and multi-instrumentalist/performer.

As an active artist in the Baltimore Music scene, Che has worked with many distinguished artists locally and nationally. Zebulon and the Fullness Reggae band, Vatel Cherry Orchestra Devolution, and Fasimbas Afrikan Roots Dubwize Soundsystem.

Che Davis currently composes and performs with Breath of The Magi which aims to play with the intention of purity, mindfulness, and wholeness of Sound Visual Healing.

Obie Feldi of Baltimore, previously resided in Oklahoma. Current obsessions perhaps originate somewhere between the topsoil and shelf of limestone buried 3000 beneath the surface. Obie is a composer of electroacoustic music. Obie has ongoing collaborations with Ben Starkey (as Two Weeks) and M.C. Schmidt.

Thomas regularly tours with his trio Dig dug dug with double bassist Bänz Oester and drummer Samuel Dühsler (first album released in 2022), as well as playing solo piano (2 albums).

His musical research has led him to collaborate with improvised music and free jazz artists, notably in a trio with drummer Nicolas Field and saxophonist John Dikeman, and with the electroacoustic trio Re-Ghoster with Nicolas Field and Valerio Tricoli/Jérome Noetinger), and in an extended version with Nate Wooley and Fritz Welch.

Active in Japan since 2018, Thomas regularly collaborates with many Japanese artists. Thomas has spent 6 months in Japan in 2023, during which time he presented around fifty concerts throughout the country. Thomas Florin is a member of Geneva's Fanfareduloup collective as pianist, trumpet player, composer and arranger.

Thomas Florin has performed in various contexts with artists such as Hans Koch, Jeff Carey, Akira Sakata, Jeb Bishop, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, Shinpei Ruike, Jasper Stadhouders, Keigo Iwami, Bjørnar Habbestad, Matthieu Michel, among others.

Thomas is part of Konnekt, Geneva based association active in the field of sound arts.

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Putu Hiranmayena is an Indonesian artist-scholar serving as Assistant Professor of Music (Performance and Creativity) at Grinnell College, where he directs the Balinese Sound Ensemble and teaches courses on Heavy Metal Music, Electronic Music, and Noise and Activism. He also is a founding member of Balinese Experimental duo, ghOstMiSt, with dancer-anthropologist, Dewa Ayu Eka Putri; PAK Yeh (free-improvisation trio) from Denver, Colorado; and T.A.T.W.D. (improvised noise-metal trio) from Urbana, Illinois.

Hiranmayena’s academic, performance, and compositional research focuses on the intersections of Cosmology, Indigeneity, Environmental Activism, and Performativity in Balinese Gamelan, Heavy Metal, and Noise. He takes post-colonial, performance studies, and creative ethnographic approaches to looking at the state of sound in the social sciences and humanities. His work constitutes equitable forms of knowledge production in the form of public-facing academic articles and Glocal creative artistic pieces.

As a creative ethnographer, Hiranmayena has written articles, coupled with artistic compositions, that interrogate the state of performance in South-East Asian performing arts. Hiranmayena continues to perform and compose internationally while also maintaining status as board member of Insitu Recordings and Gamelan Tunas Mekar.

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Bonnie Lander (Baltimore) Classically trained soprano Bonnie Lander performs modern and experimental music with a “signature ability to embody a seemingly endless supply of vocal timbres and personalities.” Based in Baltimore, Bonnie is a member of the High Zero Foundation, SSAA vocal quartet the Charm City Trebles, and is a regular collaborator with Performing Arts Services in NYC. In her spare time Bonnie works at UMBC and collaborates frequently with local artists Shelly Purdy, John Dierker, Sam Pluta and Ruby Fulton.

Thomas Lehn is a pianist, analogue synthesizer player and a composer-performer of contemporary music. He has been one of the most innovative and successful musical personalities in the field of electroacoustic music in the practices of improvisation and composition for years. He was trained as a sound engineer and pianist at the music academies in Detmold and Cologne from 1979 to 1987.

Rooted in the experiences as an pianist, he has been developing his unique live electronic music since the early 1990s, focusing on the use of analogue synthesizer systems, which allow direct access to the elements of electronic sound synthesis.

As a synthesizer interpreter – live and on CD studio productions – he has realized works by Éliane Radigue, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Bogusław Schaeffer and Zbigniew Karkowski, among others. He was soloist in the world premiere of Peter Jakober's dort with Klangforum Wien at musikprotokoll festival and in the CD recording of Christopher Fox's Topophony with the WDR Symphony Orchestra.

Thomas Lehn is pianist and founding member of ensemble]h[iatus, since 2006 dedicated to contemporary improvisation and interpretation, with whom he had premierred commissioned works by Vinko Globokar, Anthony Pateras, Jennifer Walshe, Jürg Frey a.m.o.

He demonstrates continuity in longstanding activities in ensembles such as KONK PACK, TOOT, THERMAL, MIMEO, SPEAK EASY, 6ix or duos with Marcus Schmickler, Tiziana Bertoncini, Gerry Hemingway and Paul Lovens. More recent are trios with John Butcher the pianists John Tilbury and Matthew Shipp, the trios LDL with Urs Leimgruber and Jacques Demierre, electrovoX with Ute Wassermann and Richard Scott, the quintet Quatuor BRAC Extended and Companion Species in duo with Jennifer Walshe.

Concert tours have taken him throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and the USA. His artistic work is documented on about 100 recordings.

*Supported by Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKÖS)

Mickey Lusk is a harpist, improviser, composer and visual artist living in Baltimore. She has developed her own approach to harp playing, embedding shapes and patterns into the muscle memory of the hands. Her music is experienced solely in real time, lush with hypnotic polyrhythms and moody flourishes or spacious and minimal, depending on factors such as caffeine intake or obliquity of the earth or relative humidity.

Patrick McMinn is a performer, composer, sound and lighting designer, and improviser. While he’s never seen an instrument he didn’t want to learn, his primary vehicle for improvisation is a system for trumpet and electronics coded in SuperCollider that he has been working on in some form or fashion for over a decade. He is interested in modifying acoustic instruments with electronics, the extremes of expression through sound, compositions and installations of architectural length, and maximalist multimedia experiences. In addition to a solo composition practice, he performs with drone trio The Arm, punk marching outfit Bedlam Brass, dreampop band Cora Sone, and on pedal steel with Cowboy Band.

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Jamal R. Moore is a native of Baltimore Maryland who is a multi-instrumentalist, composer/performer and educator.

His background includes California Institute of The Arts (M.F.A. 2012), Berklee College of Music (B.M 2005), Eubie Blake Jazz Orchestra (2000) under the direction of Christopher Calloway Brooks and historical acclaimed Frederick Douglass Sr. High whom notable alumni Thurgood Marshall, Cab Calloway, and Ethel Ennis graduated from.

Some notable luminaries Jamal has worked and recorded with are Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Nicole Mitchell, Archie Shepp, David Ornette Cherry, Tomeka Reid, Dr. Bill Cole, DJ Lou Gorbea, George Duke, Sheila E, David Murray, JD Parran, Ras Moshe, Hprizm, (Antipop Consortium) Tatsua Nakatani, Hamid Drake and the late Yahyah Abdul Majid (Sun Ra Arkestra).

He is an affiliate of The Pan African Peoples Arkestra of the late Horace Tapscott, Black Praxis of David Boykin, and member of Konjur Collective. Jamal currently leads his own groups, Akebulan Arkestra, Napata Strings, Black Elements Quartet, Organix Trio, and Mojuba Duo.

“As musicians we are healers of humanity and have a responsibility to cleanse disease through positive tones, frequencies and vibrations. Music is the nucleus and universal language of the oversoul, mind, body and spirit.”

Sam Newsome stands as a multifaceted figure in improvised music, renowned as a saxophonist, music professor, and author. In 2023, he released two duo recordings: "Soprano-Logues" with saxophonist Dave Liebman and "Cosmic Unconsciousness Unplugged" with pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, showcasing his skill in engaging in sonically rich musical dialogues.

Newsome's contributions to music have garnered significant recognition. In 2022, he received the Bronx BRIO Award for Instrumental Music and was named Soprano Saxophonist of the Year in the 14th Annual International Critics Poll. His accolades also include the 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, the 2018 Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Music Composition, and the 2016 NYFA Fellowship for Music Composition, along with consistent nominations for Soprano Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

In addition to his musical achievements, Newsome is a prolific author, having written "Be Inspired, Stay Focused" (2022) and "Life Lessons from the Horn" (2015). In 2023, his essay “From NoHa to SoBro” was featured in the Bronx Memoir Project Anthology VII.

Newsome's avant-garde approach, particularly with the prepared saxophone, has made him a sought-after figure in New York's improvised music scene. His innovative voice has resonated in collaborations with artists such as Elliot Sharpe, William Parker, Fay Victor, Daniel Carter, Joe Morris, and Dave Liebman.

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Roman Norfleet (1988 n. American born) is an interdisciplinary cultural producer, healer and mystic that uses visual art, music composition, performance and social organizing as instruments in exploring his committed interest in spiritual and social development.

Originally hailing from Lockport, Illinois, Roman’s formative years were spent immersed in the vernacular traditions of the Baptist Church where his parents Mose Ella and Rev. Robert Norfleet attended and provided Roman the foundation to seek spiritual enlightenment on his own. His development journey led him to Los Angeles where he lived in an Gaudiya Vaishnava Ashram and also studied Hindu/ Vedic Philosophies of Swamini Turiyasangitanada (Alice Coltrane) with her students. These years of deep immersion into his spiritual practices greatly influenced the way Norfleet approaches music and provided expansive insight into the sacred power of sound.

Norfleet has been surrounded by and involved in music and the arts since a child in his hometown, but has been further artistically cultivated by the visual art and music scenes of Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, the DMV area and Portland, OR.

As Founder and creative director of “Be Present Art Group” Norfleet believes deeply in the power perception and persistence has on elevating one's consciousness. He is currently devising a curriculum workbook that translates these teachings into practical applications. Norfleet recently released an album with BPAG as bandleader on Mississippi Records and is gearing up for another release under the label with a trio he founded called The Cosmic Tones Research Trio.

Norfleet has released a range of expressive projects that address his ever evolving approaches to honoring the divinity of creation. He seeks to continue that artistic, expressive expansion by continuing to incorporate visual and performance art elements that challenges the status quo, encourages spiritual expansion and calls for audiences to be present in the now moment.

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photo credit: Jason Hill "Favorite Things" photography exhibit (2024)

Sam Pluta is a composer, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating musical systems of shared agency, Pluta’s vibrant sonic universe focuses on the visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds. He has worked with Wet Ink Ensemble, Peter Evans Ensemble, Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, and PANG, and his performances and production can be found on over 50 albums of new music and jazz.

Youtube: Pluta and Smythe
Youtube: Pluta and Lytton
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The Emperor King Bishop, Solomon Selassie, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and all-around multi disciplinary artist.

Selassie does not consider himself as a musician fitting into any particular genre, but knows himself as a sound scientist, a sonic alchemist.

Through divine connection with The Most High, Selassie uses various art forms and sound for healing, grounding, ascension, teaching, and connecting with the hearts and souls of the listeners/observers, Ancestors, and The Most High.

Selassie has headlined and performed at the Monterey Jazz festival, Keystone Korner, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and much more.

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Mary Staubitz is an improvisational artist residing in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. A series of experimental accidents led to her setup of mostly metal found objects played on a steel turntable, and incorporates her environment into performance using a resonant garden rake to play floors, surfaces, and windows, bringing a literal meaning to "playing the room". Mary has been performing for twenty years and collaborates with artists all over New England. She is also known as noise artist Donna Parker and half of the field recording duo Staubitz and Waterhouse.

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photo credit: Russ Waterhouse

Luc Vitk is a composer, improviser, and performer (accordion, hichiriki, synthesizer, harmonica, voice, and dance) from the Czech Republic, living in New York. Their compositions focus on sonification, while in their improvisation practice, Luc works with the characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In Luc’s recent work, they are interested in the social-political aspects of music in relation to everyday life and in reusing materials to build sonic costumes and instruments. Luc has been commissioned by the Roulette Intermedium in 2017 and 2023 and was their resident artist in 2018. They have organized the NYC Constellation Ensemble and the OPERA Ensemble. Their dissertation, Compositional Techniques of Christian Wolff and Social Aspects in Music, was published in 2021.

They have studied at JAMU Brno (CZ), the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL), the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (USA), the Universität der Künste in Berlin (D), Columbia University in New York (USA), and New York University.

Luc’s teachers and collaborators include George Lewis, Miya Masaoka, Petr Kotík, Hitomi Nakamura, Christian Wolff, Merche Blasco, Viola Yip, Teerapat Parnmongkol, Muyassar Kurdi, Haruhiko Okabe, Leo Chang, Teodora Stepančić, James Ilgenfritz, Mae May, and Graham Haynes.

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Bandcamp: Cave Acoustics
Bandcamp: Environment
Bandcamp: Sea Section

photo credit: Steve Sosa

Chris Ryan Williams is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. His work takes the form of electroacoustic composition and performance installation and deals with decoding family history, ambience, and time-space compression. His debut EP ‘Live’ received praise from Jazz Right Now and The Quietus for “dazzling collaged pieces that ricochet between improvised passages and written material” (Peter Margasak, The Quietus). He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, has been commissioned by WasteLAnd and International Contemporary Ensemble.

He has been in residence with BANFF Centre for the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Musik Installationen Nürnberg and is 2023 American Composers Forum Fellow and 2024 Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. He has collaborated with creators including Eyvind Kang, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Imani Dennison, Wendy Eisenberg, Luke Stewart, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders. Williams also has an ongoing collaboration with cellist Lester St. Louis under the moniker HxH, a duo which has “embraced the challenge of bringing laptop instrumentalism into a wide personal world by making sounds that are at once art-minded and accessible, and true to the tenets of spontaneous composition and “social music,” (Piotr Orlov, Pioneer Works)

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Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, ethnomusicologist, writer, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition and the Autophysiopsychic Millennium collective. He is an active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and he serves on the Board of the Live the Spirit Residency, producer of the annual Englewood Jazz Festival. Adam plays flute, double bass, saxophone and other instruments. His Heliacal Rising of Sothis project is a collection of original compositions dedicated to his teacher, Kelan Phil Cohran. Adam also performs regularly with the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, Sura Dupart's Sidepocket Experience, and with Angel Bat Dawid and the Brothahood. He received his PhD in music with a certificate in Africana Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. Adam’s highest ambition is to be a community musician: to cultivate and share knowledge through music in order to help heal, strengthen, and empower the Black community.