Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher.[1] Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. Among the array of instruments he plays are the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-Melody, F alto, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.

Critic Chris Kelsey writes that "Although Braxton exhibited a genuine — if highly idiosyncratic — ability to play older forms (influenced especially by saxophonists Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, and Eric Dolphy), he was never really accepted by the jazz establishment, due to his manifest infatuation with the practices of such non-jazz artists as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Many of the mainstream's most popular musicians (Wynton Marsalis among them) insisted that Braxton's music was not jazz at all. Whatever one calls it, however, there is no questioning the originality of his vision; Anthony Braxton created music of enormous sophistication and passion that was unlike anything else that had come before it."

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years.

Mark Dresser (b. 1952) has been composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music professionally since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Emerging from the L.A. "free" jazz scene of the early 70's, Dresser performed with the "Black Music Infinity", led by Stanley Crouch, and included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, David Murray, and James Newton. Concurrently he was performing with the San Diego Symphony. After completing B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCSD where he studied with contrabass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky and a 1983 Fulbright Fellowship in Italy with maestro Franco Petracchi, Dresser relocated to New York in 1986 after being invited to join the quartet of composer/saxophonist, Anthony Braxton. Dresser played with Braxton's longest performing quartet for nine years.

Once in NY, Dresser began working with a wide variety of musicians in the greater New York community including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Davis, Fred Frith, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, and others. He focused on composing for a pair of cooperative groups, Tambastics with flutist Robert Dick, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, and pianist Denman Maroney and the string trio, ARCADO, with violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Hank Roberts. Numerous European tours, awards, six CD's, and several commissions resulted, including "For Not the Law," a composition for ARCADO and orchestra from WDR Radio of Cologne Germany, "Armadillo" for ARCADO and the WDR Big Band, and "Bosnia," a work written for the Trio du Clarinettes of France and ARCADO.

His current collaborative projects include the trio, C/D/E, master drummer Andrew Cyrille and with multi-reed player virtuoso, Marty Ehrlich, a duo, trio and quartet with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney, the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Helias, a duo with the cello virtuoso, Frances-Marie Uitti , a duo with the gifted drummer Susie Ibarra, and a duo with celebrated trombonist, Ray Anderson, .

Since 1999, Mark Dresser's trio includes flutist Matthias Ziegler and pianist Denman Maroney. Their electroacoustic performance inspired video artist, Tom Leeser to create two video works, Subtonium and Sonomatopoeia which the trio performs live in performance in addition to “Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper” a solo bass collaboration with animator, Sarah Jane Lapp.

Mark Dresser's Modular Ensemble performs his chamber works. Earlier projects include the mixed quintet, Force Green featuring Dave Douglas on trumpet, Theo Bleckmann on voice, Denman Maroney on hyperpiano, and Phil Haynes on drums for Soul Note. THe Mark Dresser Quartet and two different trios perform his music for silent film. He has composed and recorded original music for two silent film projects; the German expressionist silent film classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Knitting Factory) and the French Surrealist collaboration of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou. (Knitting Factory) Solo performance is one of Dresser's specialties. He has designed custom made electronics for purposes of amplifying normally inaudible sounds. Invocation (Knitting Factory) is a solo CD documenting compositions from 1983-94. (Knitting Factory) Additional original solo bass music was composed and performed for the New York Shakespeare Festival Production of HENRY VI.

Commissions include, “Resomance” for Quarter tone flutes and String Quartet written for Matthias Zieger (2004), “The Five Outer Planets” for amplified contrabass written for the sculptures of Robert Taplin, “Remudadero” for the saxophone quartet, Rova, "Banquet," a double concerto for various flutes, contrabass and string quartet written for Swiss flute virtuoso Matthias Ziegler.(Tzadik CD-1997), "Air to Mir," commissioned by the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress (Marinade-Tzadik CD-2000.) Also "Althaus" for tuba virtuoso, David LeClair with bass, cello, alto sax, and clarinet is recorded on Marinade, “For Not the Law” for Arcado String trio and West Deutsch Rundfunk Orchestra.

A chapter on his extended techniques for contrabass, "A Personal Pedogogy," appears in the book, ARCANA (Granary Books). Other articles on this research appear in DOWNBEAT, MUSICIAN MAGAZINE, & JAZZIZ.

He has performed and recorded over one hundred CDs with some of the strongest personalities in contemporary music and jazz including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Bobby Bradford, Tom Cora, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Fred Frith, Diamanda Galas, Vinny Golia, Earl Howard, Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Misha Mengelberg, Ikue Mori, James Newton, Evan Parker, Sonny Simmons, Louis Sclavis, Vladimir Tarasov, Henry Threadgill, and John Zorn. He was nominated for a 2003 Grammy for the performance of Osvaldo Golijov's CD, Yiddishbbuk. (EMI). He has given lecture demonstrations at the Julliard School, Princeton, New England Conservatory, National Superior Conservatory of Paris, Conservatory of Amsterdam, UCSD, and many others. He has been on faculty at New School University, Hampshire College, and was a 2004 Lecturer in the Council of Humanities and Department of Music at Princeton University. He is professor of music at UCSD.

Gerry Hemingway has been making a living as a composer and performer solo and ensemble music since 1974. He has led numerous groups, including (since 1997) his quartet with Ellery Eskelin, Herb Robertson and Mark Helias as well collaborative groups with Mark Helias & Ray Anderson (BassDrumBone) celebrating its 30th year anniversary in 2007, Reggie Workman & Miya Masaoka (Brew), Georg Graewe & Ernst Reijseger (GRH trio), WHO trio with Swiss pianist Michel Wintsch and bassist Baenz Oester, his duo w/Thomas Lehn, and also w/John Butcher. Mr. Hemingway is a Guggenheim fellow and has received numerous commissions for chamber and orchestral work including "Terrains", a concerto for percussionist and orchestra commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony. He also completed a production of “Songs”, two year recording project for the the German label, between the lines. He is well known for his eleven years in the Anthony Braxton Quartet, and his many collaborations with some of the world’s most outstanding improvisers and composers including Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Anthony Davis, George Lewis, Derek Bailey, Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Kenny Wheeler, Frank Gratkowski, John Cale, Marilyn Crispell, Michael Moore and many others.

Steve Coleman, born September 20, 1956 (1956-09-20) (age 53), is an American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.

Jonathan Finlayson is a New York based trumpeter/composer, who has performed throughout the United States and Europe with his own groups, as well as those led by Butch Morris, Kenny Woellsen, and Steve Coleman, with whom he has performed and recorded since 2003.

Nicole Margaret Mitchell has been noted as “a compelling improviser of wit, determination, positivity, and tremendous talent...on her way to becoming one of the greatest living flutists in jazz,” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader). A creative flutist, composer and bandleader, Mitchell placed first as Downbeat magazine’s "Rising Star Flutist 2005-2009, was awarded "Jazz Flutist of the Year 2008"by the Jazz Journalist Association and ““Chicagoan of the Year 2006” by the Chicago Tribune. The founder of the critically acclaimed Black Earth Ensemble and Black Earth Strings, Mitchell’s compositions reach across sound worlds, integrating new ideas with moments in the legacy of jazz, gospel, pop, and African percussion to create a fascinating synthesis of “postmodern jazz.” With her ensembles, as a featured flutist, and as a music educator, Mitchell has been a highlight at art venues, festivals throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Mitchell has performed with creative luminaries including George Lewis, Miya Masaoka, Lori Freedman, James Newton, Bill Dixon and Muhal Richard Abrams. She also works on ongoing projects with Anthony Braxton, Ed Wilkerson, David Boykin, Rob Mazurek, Hamid Drake and Arveeayl Ra. President of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Mitchell works to raise respect and integrity for the improvised flute, to contribute her innovative voice to the jazz legacy, and to continue the bold and exciting directions that the AACM has charted for decades. Mitchell is thankful to mentors and teachers including: Jimmy Cheatham, Donald Byrd, Brenda Jones, James Newton, George Lewis, John Eaton, Fred Anderson, Ernest Dawkins, John Fonville, Susan Levitin, Mary Stolper, John Sebastian Winston and Edward Wilkerson.

Nicole Mitchell is currently President of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and continues the exciting directions in music that AACM has charted for decades. As an educator, Mitchell has done jazz and composer residencies at Vancouver Jazz Festival, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, University of New Mexico, Cal State University Fullerton, Guelph University, and others. Chicagoan of the Year 2006 by the Chicago Tribune, Mitchell is also a member of the Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, Anthony Braxton’s 12+1-tet, Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, and David Boykin Expanse. As a composer, she has won fellowships from Chamber Music America and the Illinois Arts Council and has been commissioned by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Ravinia and the Jazz Institute of Chicago. Mitchell has six recordings as leader and several recordings as co-leader. Mitchell currently is a Visiting Professor at University of Illinois: Chicago, where she directs the UIC Jazz Ensemble, and teaches jazz history. She also teaches jazz at ChiArts, Chicago’s first public high school for the arts. Recent highlights for Mitchell include a commission from the Jazz Institute of Chicago, "Honoring Grace: Michelle Obama," Chicago's Dept of Cultural Affairs for Black Earth Orchestra and premiere of Many Paths to the Sea: A Tribute to Alice Coltrane, a chamber orchestra commission/premiere from Downtown Sound Gallery (Chicago) for Qualities of My Father, a tribute to Mitchell's father, the commission/premiere of Xenogenesis Suite, an award winning sci-fi writer and Afrofuturist, Octavia Butler by Chamber Music America (through the generous support of Doris Duke Foundation), a premiere of new music for award-winning poet Haki R. Madhubuti and the founding of new projects including the Nicole Mitchell Quartet, and Sonic Projections.

Composer/performer RICHARD TEITELBAUM is well known for his pioneering work in live electronic music, and his early explorations of intercultural improvisation and composition. He received his masters degree in theory and composition from Yale in 1964. After continuing his composition studies with Luigi Nono on a Fulbright in Italy, he co-founded the pioneering live electronic music group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) with Frederic Rzewski and Alvin Curran in Rome in 1966, bringing the first Moog synthesizer to Europe the following year.

He returned to the United States in 1970 to create the World Band, one of the first intercultural improvisation groups which was made up of master musicians from India, Japan, Korea, the Middle East and North America. His works since then have frequently combined live electronics with the music of other cultures. In 1977 he spent a year in Tokyo, studying shakuhachi (bamboo flute) with the great master Katsuya Yokoyama. His recent CD, Blends (New Albion), for shakuhachi, electronics and percussion, featuring Yokoyama was named one of the ten best contemporary classical CDs of 2002 by The Wire Magazine of London.

He has performed his works at Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Almeida Theater and South Bank in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and in concerts and festivals throughout Europe, North America, East Asia and Latin America. He has been commissioned by leading performers, including pianists Aki Takahashi and Ursula Oppens. In 2002 he received a Guggenheim fellowship to create Z'vi, the second opera in a projected trilogy dealing with Jewish mystical expressions of redemptive hopes. Extended sections of Z'vi were premiered at the opening of the Frank Gehry designed Performing Arts Center at Bard College and at the 2003 Venice Biennale. It will be presented again at the Center for Jewish History in New York in April 2005. The first opera of this series, Golem: An Interactive Opera, was premiered at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1989, and subsequently performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Linz, Victoriaville, Quebec and Seoul, South Korea.

Teitelbaum has received numerous awards, included a Guggenheim in 2002 to create his opera Z'vi, as well as two Fulbrights, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, and commissions from several German radio stations, the Venice Biennale, Meet the Composer/Readers Digest, and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust. In 2004 he received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation to compose an interactive instrumental and computer work for the Da Capo Chamber Players to be premiered in fall, 2005.

In addition to Blends (New Albion), his many recordings include: Golem: an Interactive Opera, on Tzadik; The Sea Between with Carlos Zingaro, on Victo; Live at Merkin Hall with Anthony Braxton on Music and Arts; Concerto Grosso, for Human Concertino and Robotic Ripieno, on Hat Art; and Spacecraft with Musica Elettronica Viva, on Alga Marghen.

Teitelbaum maintains an active schedule. In March, 2005 he will be in residence at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico, and featured composer at their International Festival of Electroacoustic Music. Following performances of his opera-in progress Z'vi and with Musica Eletttronica Viva in April, he will travel to Japan on a Freeman Foundation Research Grant in May.

Teitelbaum is also a Professor of Music at Bard College, in upstate New York, where he teaches electronic and experimental music, and co-chairs the music department of the Master of Fine Arts program.

Regarded as "a composer possessed of both rich imagination and the skill to bring his fancies to life" by Time Out New York, composer and bagpipe virtuoso Matthew Welch (b.1976) holds two degrees in Music Composition, a BFA from Simon Fraser University (1999), and an MA from Wesleyan University (2001), having studied with noted composers such as Barry Truax, Rodney Sharman, Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton. After locating to New York City in 2001, he has worked with a host of other artists such as John Zorn, Julia Wolfe, Zeena Parkins, and Ikue Mori. The eclectic breadth of his interests in Scottish bagpipe music, Balinese gamelan, minimalism, improvisation and rock converge in compositional amalgams ranging from traditional-like bagpipe tunes to electronic pieces, improvisation strategies and fully notated works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra and non-western instruments. Since 2002, Mr. Welch has been running and composing for his own eclectic ensemble, Blarvuster, whose repertoire the New York Times has claimed as "border-busting music; original and catchy." Mr. Welch has recorded for the Tzadik, Mode, Cantaloupe, Leo, Porter, Muud, Avian, Newsonic and Parallactic record labels.

Matthew-Welch.com

John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn's recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer, composer, or producer. His work has touched on a wide range of musical genres, often within a single composition, but he is best-known for his avant-garde, jazz, improvised and contemporary classical music. Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City, the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada and composed the associated 'Masada Songbooks', written concert music for classical ensembles, and produced music for film and documentary. Zorn has stated that "I've got an incredibly short attention span. My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast... All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there."

After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and attracted wide acclaim in 1985 when he released The Big Gundown with his interpretations of music composed by Ennio Morricone. This was followed by the album Spillane in 1987, and the first album by Naked City in 1989 which all attracted further worldwide attention. Zorn then recorded on the Japanese DIW label and curated the Avant subsidiary label before forming Tzadik in 1995, where he has been prolific, issuing several new recordings each year and releasing works by many other musicians.

Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the early 1980s but has since composed and performed with a wide range of musicians working in diverse musical areas. By the early 1990s Zorn was working extensively in Japan, attracted by that culture's openness about borrowing and remixing ingredients from elsewhere, where he performed and recorded under the name Dekoboko Hajime, before returning to New York as a permanent base in the mid 1990's. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with varying ensembles to display his diverse output.

Two-time Grammy-nominated jazz musician Dave Douglas is arguably the most prolific and original trumpeter-composer of his generation. From his New York base, where he has lived since the mid 1980s, Mr. Douglas has continued to earn lavish national and international acclaim including prizes from such organizations as the New York Jazz Awards, Down Beat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, and the Italian Jazz Critics Society. His solo recording career began in 1993 with Parallel Worlds on Soul Note Records, and he has since released more than 30 recordings. In 2005, after seven critically acclaimed albums for Bluebird/RCA, Mr. Douglas launched his own record label, Greenleaf Music. The same year, he was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. On Greenleaf, Mr. Douglas has released albums with his long-standing quintet, the electronic sextet Keystone, and the mixed chamber ensemble Nomad. In 2009, he released Spirit Moves with his new brass quintet, Brass Ecstasy and his first big band recording, A Single Sky, a collaboration with Jim McNeely and Frankfurt Radio Bigband. This year brings a new collection of work by Keystone entitled, Spark of Being, a retelling of the Frankenstein myth in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison.

Mr. Douglas is currently the artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at The Banff Centre in Canada and the co-founder and director of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which celebrates its eight anniversary in 2010. As a composer, Mr. Douglas has been commissioned by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Essen Philharmonie, Library of Congress, Stanford University, Walker Arts Center, and Turning Point Ensemble.

New York-born Brad Christopher Jones is a bassist, composer, and educator. He has recorded, performed, and toured around the world with a diverse array of artists that include Ornette Coleman, Elvis Costello, Elvin Jones, David Byrne, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sheryl Crow, Deborah Harry, Dave Douglas, Vernon Reid, John Zorn, Don Byron, Marc Ribot, and The Jazz Passengers. As a leader, Brad has recorded three CDs: Uncivilized Poise (Knitting Factory Records) with his band, Aka Alias; Pouring My Heart In (Senoj Music) with the Brad Jones Quartet, and the soon to be released follow-up to the first Aka Alias recording, The Embodiment.

Brad studied under the renowned jazz bassist Lisle Atkinson and classical bass under Lou Kosma of the Metropolitan Opera. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in education from Jersey City State College in 1986. He has been a teacher and band director in both the Waldwick and Teaneck, New Jersey school systems, as well as the Harlem School of the Arts, and workshops in Germany, France, and Italy. In addition to his Columbia teaching, he maintains an active schedule performing, recording, and composing music.

Gerry Hemingway has been making a living as a composer and performer solo and ensemble music since 1974. He has led numerous groups, including (since 1997) his quartet with Ellery Eskelin, Herb Robertson and Mark Helias as well collaborative groups with Mark Helias & Ray Anderson (BassDrumBone) celebrating its 30th year anniversary in 2007, Reggie Workman & Miya Masaoka (Brew), Georg Graewe & Ernst Reijseger (GRH trio), WHO trio with Swiss pianist Michel Wintsch and bassist Baenz Oester, his duo w/Thomas Lehn, and also w/John Butcher. Mr. Hemingway is a Guggenheim fellow and has received numerous commissions for chamber and orchestral work including "Terrains", a concerto for percussionist and orchestra commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony. He also completed a production of “Songs”, two year recording project for the the German label, between the lines. He is well known for his eleven years in the Anthony Braxton Quartet, and his many collaborations with some of the world’s most outstanding improvisers and composers including Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Anthony Davis, George Lewis, Derek Bailey, Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Kenny Wheeler, Frank Gratkowski, John Cale, Marilyn Crispell, Michael Moore and many others.