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nuscope recordings biographies According to Stuart Broomer in Cadence magazine, "In a landscape in which small labels producing CDs of improvised music seem to proliferate, nuscope has already demonstrated its significance."Below are biographies of the following musicians that have helped nuscope gain fertile recognition in the new music community: Claudia Ulla Binder was born in 1959, and has lived in Zürich since 1986. An important turning point in her career was attending the Creative Music Workshop in Woodstock, New York in 1980. Binder has performed and/or recorded with such notable musicians as Lol Coxhill, Phil Durrant, Hans Koch, George E. Lewis, John Russell, Roger Turner, Phil Minton, Jean-Marc Montera, Dorothea Schürch, Martin Schütz, Irene Schweizer, Co Streiff, Phil Wachsmann, Christian Weber, and Christian Wolfarth. Since 1983, percussionist Martin Blume has worked as a performer and composer with several musicians and in different musical situations, both as a collaborator and leader. Musicians that Blume has worked with include Peter Brötzmann, John Butcher, Lol Coxhill, Frank Gratkowski, Earl Howard, the late Peter Kowald, the late Werner Lüdi, Marcio Mattos, Phil Minton, Jay Oliver, Melvyn Poore, Richard Teitelbaum, Sebi Tramontana, Phil Wachsmann, and many others.Blume's own projects include Lines with Axel D örner, Jim Denley, Phil Wachsmann, and Marcio Mattos, FOURinONE with Luc Houtkamp, Johannes Bauer, and Dieter Mandersheid, Axon with Phil Minton and Marcio Mattos, Manufacts with Georg Graewe, and duos with Phil Wachsmann and Xu Feng Xia.For many years, Alberto Braida has been
active as a pianist, improviser, and composer. John Butcher lives in London and began performing in improvisation and ‘new-music’ in the early 1980s - whilst also completing a doctorate on the theoretical properties of charmed quarks. His playing now ranges through free improvisation, compositions, multi-tracked recordings, and tape pieces. Solo concerts remain a continuing challenge, and he has released two solo CDs. His explorations into saxophone multiphonics and multi-tracking possibilities have been aided by three Arts Council research grants. He has run the record label ACTA since 1987, and was a director of the London Musicians’ Collective for four years. Butcher has toured, given workshops and broadcast in over 20 countries. Groups he has been involved with include John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Butcher/Durrant/Russell trio, Chris Burn’s Ensemble, various of Derek Bailey’s Company Weeks, Butch Morris’s London Skyscraper, the Phil Minton Quartet, and an electro-manipulations duo with Phil Durrant. Robert Dick, soloist, improviser, and composer, is frequently compared to Paganini and Jimi Hendrix as a creative virtuoso who has not only mastered his instrument, but also redefined it. He plays the full range of flutes, from the contrabass flute up to piccolo, including his striking invention, the "glissando headjoint", which transforms the flute just as the "whammy bar" transforms the electric guitar. Critically hailed for his originality worldwide, Dick is a member of the A.D.D. Trio, New Winds, Steel and Bamboo, Oscura Luminosa, and Tambastics. Robert Dick has also played with Steve Lacy, John Zorn, Mark Dresser, George Lewis, and a myriad of other creative musicians. He is well represented on CD, with nineteen solo and ensemble discs. Mark Dresser 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 performed 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. His current collaborative projects include the trio, C/D/E with master drummer Andrew Cyrille and multi-reed player virtuoso, Marty Ehrlich, a duo with hyperpianist Denman Maroney, the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Helias, a duo with the cello virtuoso, Frances-Marie Uitti, a duo with drummer Susie Ibarra, and another with legendary trombonist, Roswell Rudd. Bassist Trevor Dunn is already known for his intense musical diversity: 1) as co-founder/composer of the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle and 2) as the ubiquitous sideman of countless groups in the jazz circuit of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as Graham Connah's Sour Note Seven (Andrew Hill/Mingus inspired septet), Ben Goldberg's various Trios and Sextets, and John Schott's Diaglossia Ensemble. With a background in punk/death metal, the instrumental and compositional studies of contemporary classical music, and the experience of playing blues, standards, and free-jazz, Trevor is now leading his own Trio-Convulsant with guitarist Adam Levy and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Trevor has also worked with the Kronos Quartet, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Wayne Horvitz, William Winant, Terry Riley, James Tenney, Ellery Eskelin, Gerry Hemingway, Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Kaiser, Mark Izu, and Eyvind Kang. Violinist/electronics musician Phil Durrant studied classical violin and piano at the London College Of Music. Since 1977 he has been a freelance musician, improviser and composer. He has performed at festivals all over Europe, U.S.A and Canada and has had his music broadcast on radio and television in many countries. During his career he has played with many creative and important musicians, including: Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Grooverider, John Zorn, Phil Minton, and Tom Cora. He has also been awarded various Arts Council grants to research and develop his use of electronics. Harris Eisenstadt works as a drummer, percussionist, composer, bandleader and educator in a wide variety of musical settings. The recipient of a B.A. cum laude in Literature and Music (1998) from Colby College and an M.F.A. in African American Improvisational Music (2001) on scholarship from the California Institute of the Arts, Eisenstadt has received many awards and commissions. Eisenstadt has released five albums as a leader, and appears as a sideman and co-leader on 35 other recordings. Eisenstadt has appeared at major international festivals throughout North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and West Africa, at Adelaide Festival of Arts, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, World New Music Days Switzerland, The Wire/Empty Bottle Adventures in Modern Music Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and at traditional Mandinka and Wolof celebrations in Gambia and Senegal, West Africa. Scott Fields is a composer and guitarist who developed as part of the Chicago free-jazz scene in the 1960s and early 1970s. After a hiatus of nearly 15 years, Fields resumed performing improvised music in 1990. Since then he has been commissioned to write concert and dance music, he has performed widely, and he has recorded CDs for the CRI, Music and Arts, and his own Geode labels. Cor Fuhler is, in the words of synthesist Thomas Lehn, "a beyond-all-musical-styles partner with an amazingly wide range of useful musical vocabularies contributed with care, clarity, and imagination. But, as much he is a musician, he is also an astonishing inventor." Fuhler, who started studying piano and organ at the age of 6, later studied under jazz pianist Misha Mengelberg at the Sweetlinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Fuhler, who has invented instruments as unique and diverse as the keyolin (a keyboard-controlled violin), and mbirinthesizer (oscillators and filters controlled by thumb-pianos), performs in several different ensembles, including the Fuhler/Bennink/deJoode trio, the Firts with Gert-Jan Prins, MIMEO, and the Cortet with Thomas Lehn, Rhodri Davies, and John Butcher. Ben Goldberg grew up in Denver, Colorado. He received his undergraduate music degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master of Arts in Composition from Mills College. He was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo, and studied with Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Ben’s group New Klezmer Trio took a slightly different view of Jewish music. Their CD Masks and Faces was listed as one of the ten best recordings of 1992 by Cadence magazine, which called it "great free improvisation." Masks and Faces and Melt Zonk Rewire, as well as the group's third CD Short for Something, are on the Tzadik label. Ben's other recordings include two records by Junk Genius (with John Schott, Trevor Dunn, and Kenny Wollesen), Here by Now (Music and Arts), What Comes Before (Tzadik), Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin (Victo), and Twelve Minor (Avant). Louis Goldstein has studied with Rudolf Ganz, Joseph Hungate (Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory), Leonard Stein, Leonid Hambro (Master of Fine Arts from Cal Arts), and David Burge (Doctor of Musical Arts degree and Performer’s Certificate from Eastman). Long fascinated with music of his own time, Goldstein was co-founder and co-director of the California New Music Ensemble and an associate member of the Los Angeles Group for Contemporary Music and Newband, in New York City. Goldstein's interpretation of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories is considered one of the best of all of the currently available versions. According to Grant Chu Covell at the La Folia website, "This has got to be 2000’s best piano recording. These two discs (Triadic Memories coupled with John Cage's One5) had better garner prizes and commendations throughout the industry or else Western Civilization is coming to an end. Everything comes together in this phenomenally well-recorded 2 CD set. The piano is rich and closely miked, and the piano’s tuning is superb. Louis Goldstein plays with control and delicacy."
Georg Graewe, who has been
composing and performing professionally since the age of 15, formed his first quintet in
1974. He has consequently led a variety of ensembles ranging from trio to chamber
orchestra formats, which have involved some of the major soloists in contemporary music.
His compositions have been performed around the world; concerts in New York, Istanbul,
Berlin, Rome, Boston, Köln, Vancouver, Paris, Chicago, Amsterdam, Zagreb, San Francisco,
Wien, Montreal, Dallas, London, Toronto, San Diego, Zürich, New Orleans, and elsewhere
have established Graewe’s international reputation.
Graewe's
compositions, which include works for solo piano, chamber music, pieces for symphony
orchestra, and scores for theater productions, radio drama, and video. Graewe is currently
working on orchestral pieces for Klangforum Wien, and a string quartet for Quatuor
Bozzoni,
Since 1999,
Graewe has been associated with CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technology) at the Graewe has also performed and recorded with Anthony Braxton, Mats Gustafsson, Barry Guy, Joëlle Léandre, Paul Lovens, Evan Parker, Barre Phillips, Ken Vandermark, among others. Projects include the Georg Graewe Quartet with Frank Gratkowski, Kent Kessler, and Hamid Drake, a trio with Wilbert de Joode and Mark Sanders, and a new quintet with Tobias Delius,
Frank Gratkowski,
who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1963, started playing saxophone at 16. Following a
period at the Hamburg Conservatory (Hamburger Musikhochschule), he moved to Cologne,
Germany in 1985 to study at the Köln Conservatory of Music, and graduated in 1990.
Gratkowski also studied with Charlie Mariano, Sal Nistico, and Steve Lacy. Guillermo Gregorio,
who was born
May 1, 1941 in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, started private clarinet
studies at the age of 14. He studied
Semiotics, 20th Century
art, and music at the Di Tella Institute, and received a Masters in
Architecture from the University of Buenos Aires.
He also studied
saxophone
and improvisation with Hugo Pierre in Buenos Aires and improvisation
with Warne Marsh in Los Angeles.
Barry
Guy is an innovative double-bass player and composer whose creative diversity in the
fields of jazz improvisation, solo recitals, and chamber and orchestral performance is the
outcome both of an unusually varied training and a zest for experimentation. Guy underpins
this zest with a dedication to the double bass and the ideal of musical communication. Gerry Hemingway, recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, has had a long and admirable career, as he has been composing and performing solo, ensemble and orchestral music since 1974. As bandleader, Hemingway has led various quartets and quintets since the mid-1980's. Hemingway was a member of the infamous Anthony Braxton Quartet from 1983-1994, and more recently has been performing as a member of the Reggie Workman Ensemble. He is a core member of Anthony Davis' Episteme Ensemble, and has performed and recorded on all of his opera's including the soon to be released "Tania." He is also performing and recording with the piano trios and projects of Marilyn Crispell and Michel Wintsch. Mr. Hemingway also participates in many collaborative projects including duos with Thomas Lehn and John Butcher, BassDrumBone with Ray Anderson and Mark Helias, and Thirteen Ways with Fred Hersch and Michael Moore. Mr. Hemingway recently composed "Sideband," a concerto for three improvisers and orchestra, and has completed a recording of songs for the German label Between the Lines. François Houle's clarinet playing reflects his ongoing interest in jazz experimentalism, contemporary classical vocabularies, and instrumental extended techniques. His improvisational style draws from Evan Parker and William O. Smith's multi-layered sonic explorations and Anthony Braxton's catalog of linear sound formings to create a highly personalized language synthesis. He has worked and performed with Marilyn Crispell, Evan Parker, Georg Graewe, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Joëlle Leandre, the Vancouver New Music Ensemble, and Standing Wave. Houle has toured Europe, the USA, and Canada extensively in the spheres of new music and improvised music. His recordings have received enthusiastic reviews from the international press and have been nominated for Canada's Juno Awards and the Pacific Music Industry Awards. As a saxophonist, Luc Houtkamp is largely self-taught. In the early 1970s, he studied at the Vrije Academie in his hometown. In its electronic music studio, he met leading electronic composers such as Gilius van Bergeijk, Tony van Campen, and Michel Waisvisz. Since then, Houtkamp has worked in a wide variety of musical situations as a solo performer, composer, and as the member of different ensembles. Both as a performer and as an organizer, Luc Houtkamp is interested in improvised music as one method for the production of music rather than as a stylistic form. That is, the music itself is more important than the method, whether it be composed, improvised, or somewhere in between. In 2005, Houtkamp won the VPRO / Boy Edgar Prijs, an important Dutch jazz award. Wilbert de Joode is a veritable research scientist of bass pizzicato and bowing techniques. A self-taught musician, he has been playing the double-bass since 1982. He began working in groups that improvised within a jazz framework. In 1990 Ab Baars recognized the progression in de Joode’s playing and invited him to join the Ab Baars Trio. De Joode is currently one of the most active bass players on the Dutch improvised music circuit. His individual style and musicality transforms the double-bass into an equal partner in varied ensembles. A personal tone color, exploration of the outer registers, idiosyncratic improvisations, and the use of gut strings contribute to an instantly recognizable and intriguing sound. De Joode plays regularly in festivals and concerts throughout the world. He has recently released a solo CD, Olo (Wig 06), “a suite of improvised, short, wayward, witty, gloomy, beautiful and freakish bass solos.”
Pandelis Karayorgis
(piano,
composer)
has performed internationally at
festivals and clubs in Europe and the United States. Recordings appear on
labels such as Leo Records, Hat Art, Cadence, Boxholder, Accurate, Leo Lab
and HatOLOGY among others. Achim Kaufmann (piano, composer) was born in Aachen, Germany, in 1962 and has been living in Amsterdam since 1996. He has written music for string quartet and works as a solo performer, as well as with a variety of group projects. He was awarded the German SWR award in 2001. Since the early 90s, Achim has focused on writing music for his own groups. After his move to Amsterdam, he formed a quartet with reeds player Michael Moore and percussionist John Hollenbeck. With this quartet, Kaufmann has released CDs on the Leo and Red Toucan labels. A (mostly improvised) solo piano record entitled knives was released on Leo Records in the fall of 2004. As a pianist, Achim strives to combine polyphonic pianism with subtly prepared and manipulated strings and interiors. Very recently, he has also added amplification and electronic processing to his vocabulary. In the spring of 2004, a new trio with reedist Michael Moore and drummer Dylan van der Schyff toured in Europe. Concerts with another trio featuring Han Bennink and Ernst Glerum are scheduled for 2005. Vancouver-based cellist Peggy Lee plays the field between opera, jazz and new music, currently receiving international recognition as one of Vancouver's finest improvisers. She is a member of Standing Wave, the NOW Orchestra, and Talking Pictures, and has worked with Elizabeth Fischer, Wayne Horvitz, Tony Wilson, and dance choreographers Pipo Damiano and Cornelius Fischer-Credo. She has several recordings to her credit including her most recent project The Peggy Lee Band. Composer, improviser, and anti-cellist Fredrick Lonberg-Holm currently resides in Chicago. Defying categorization, his work deals only with the context of the specific musical situation in which he finds/places/builds for himself. A former composition student of Morton Feldman and Anthony Braxton, his ongoing projects include the groups Terminal 4, In Zenith, and the Lonberg-Holm/Zerang Duo. In addition, he has performed with ensembles led by Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann, Anthony Coleman, Georg Graewe, and John Zorn. As an improviser, he has recorded and or performed with Barry Guy, Ken Vandermark, Jöelle Léandre, Axel Dörner, Paul Lytton, Misha Mengelberg, Mats Gustafsson, Peter Brötzmann, Paul Lovens, Jim O'Rourke, John Butcher, and many others. Son of microtonal reedist and theorist Joe Maneri, violinist/violist Mat Maneri began playing music with his father at the age of 7. Although Joe is himself a near-legend among avant-garde and jazz musicians, Mat has already surpassed his father's recorded output in the course of his relatively short career. Mat has worked with the Joe Morris Quartet, recorded various albums with his father, which has included various quartets featuring drummer Ralph Peterson, trios with the likes of Joe Morris or Barre Phillips, and a duo recording on ECM. He has also led recording sessions for ECM (the acoustic solo Trinity), Hatology, Leo, and Thirsty Ear. Maroney studied at the California Institute of the Arts (MFA ’74), Bennington College (audits '69 - '71) and Williams College (BA ’71). His teachers included John Bergamo, Alan Chaplin, Bill Dixon, Jimmy Garrison, Leonid Hambro, Ingram Marshall, Steven Mosko, Morton Subotnick, James Tenney and Ki Wasitadipuro. Maroney has received grants from: Chamber Music America's New Works Creation and Presentation Program; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to compose for Medicine Show's productions of Jack Agueros' The Sea of Chairs and e.e. cummings' HIM; Yale Summer School of Music & Art (YSSMA) for a composer-in-residence fellowship; ASCAP, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for a Roulette commission, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) for a composition fellowship, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for a Tambastics (quartet with Robert Dick, Mark Dresser, and Gerry Hemingway) commission, Jerome Robbins Foundation for a Nimbus Dance Theater commission, and Meet the Composer on several occasions. Maroney also has worked with such musicians as Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Shelley Hirsch, John King, Garrett List, Roger Miller, Michael Moore, Bob Ostertag, William Parker, Bobby Previte, Herb Robertson, Ed Schuller, Elliot Sharp and Peter Zummo. He has also worked with such dance and theater artists as Davidson Lloyd, Sin Cha Hong, Tom Keegan, Tom Lillard, Erin Martin, Wendy Osserman and Mel Wong. The Brazilian-born Marcio Mattos studied acoustic guitar in early teens, eventually switching to double bass and cello after becoming interested in jazz. Later, Mattos entered the Villa-Lobos Institute where he became involved in improvisation and electronic music. Since coming to Europe in 1970, Mattos has performed, recorded, and broadcast in Britain and abroad with such musicians as Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey, and Marilyn Crispell. Current projects include the Bardo State Orchestra, the Chris Burn Ensemble, Wooden Taps with Maggie Nicols, Lines, Tony Oxley's Celebration Orchestra, AXON (with Phil Minton and Martin Blume), among others. Nate McBride, who was born in 1971, is a very versatile double-bassist and electric bassist, and has performed with such important musicians as Dennis Gonzalez, Pandelis Karayorgis, and Ken Vandermark. McBride is a Boston native, and recently relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Drummer/vibes player Kjell Nordeson, who was born in 1964, currently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Nordeson studied classical percussion with Björn Liljeqvist, principal percussionist of the Stockholm Philharmonic. In 1986, Nordeson formed the longstanding AALY Trio with Mats Gustafsson. Nordeson has also collaborated with such musicians as Sten Sandell, Christer Bothén, Peter Söderberg, David Stackenäs, Martin Küchen, and Fredrik Ljunkvist. As a member of the AALY Trio, Low Dynamic Orchestra, Nacka Forum, Katzen Kapell, Firehouse, and Exploding Customer, Nordeson enjoys a healthy high profile in the Swedish music scene. In North America and Europe, Nordeson has done numerous tours with the AALY Trio and School Days. He has played in collaborations with Peter Brötzmann, Barry Guy, Joe Morris, William Parker, Paul Rutherford, Stephano Scodanibbio, and Ken Vandermark. In 1994, Nordeson founded Co. Alba with choreographer Nathalie Ruiz, which is also a platform for his work as a composer. Together, Ruiz and Nordeson produced a number of dance performances; the latest is the short film Désiré, a commission by Swedish Television. Nordeson has worked in theatre performances in Riksteatern, and The Royal Dramatic Theatre and Stadsteater in Stockholm. With choreographer Philippe Blanchard's ensemble Adekwhat, he toured Germany, Finland, Israel, and Egypt. Tony Oxley, who was born Sheffield, England in 1938, began playing improvised music in the mid-1960's with Derek Bailey and Gavin Bryars in the group Joseph Holbrooke. After the participants moved to London, Oxley becoming the house drummer at Ronnie Scott's while all the while continuing with experimental music. In the last 25 years, Oxley has performed and recorded in a wide variety of situations, from those where an emphasis on time-keeping is important, to free situations with such important musicians as Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor. In recent years, Tony Oxley has worked with his own quartet with Phil Wachsmann, Pat Thomas, and Matt Wand, his Celebration Orchestra, and in duo with trumpeter Bill Dixon (both are painters and musicians). Barre Phillips was born in San Francisco in 1934. He began playing the double bass at age 13. He migrated to New York City in 1962, but has lived in the south of France since 1972. As much a composer as a performer, Barre has worked in the areas of film, ballet and theater throughout the years. Parallel to these experiences, Barre Phillips has continued to perform and record. He has recorded over 100 records, 30 of them under his own name. Among the countless artists Barre has played with, on stage or record are: Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Chick Corea, George Russell, Lee Konitz, Charlie Mariano, Michel Portal, Albert Mangelsdorff, Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Joachim Kuhn, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Ornette Coleman, Joëlle Léandre, Cecil Taylor, and many others. Reuben Radding is a bassist, free improviser, teacher, and recording engineer based in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in Washington DC in 1966. After relocating to New York City in 1988 he studied the double bass with Mark Dresser and quickly became a busy stalwart of the so-called "Downtown" scene, performing with many of the most prominent new Jazz musicians of the time. Radding has taught master classes on extended bass techniques and free improvisation workshops He is also an accomplished recording engineer and producer, and owns Studio STATS, in Brooklyn, NY. Ernst Reijseger, who was born in Naarden, The Netherlands, has collaborated with many musicians and ensembles. Those collaborations include Sean Bergin, the Theo Loevendie Consort, the Guus Janssen Septet, the Amsterdam String Trio, the Arcado String Trio, Misha Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra, Trio Clusone, Louis Sclavis, Trilok Gurtu, fellow cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Tenore e Cuncordu de Orosei. In 1985, Reijseger won the Boy Edgar Prijs, a Dutch jazz award, and in 1995, he won the Bird Award at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Randy Raine-Reusch is an improvisationally-based composer/concert-artist specializing in new and experimental music for world instruments. An innovator interested in extending the boundaries of music, he has created distinct new performance styles on a number of instruments. Raine-Reusch has also been heralded as a "very multi-instrumentalist" (Folk Roots Magazine), due to his ability to play many of his collection of 600 world instruments. Raine-Reusch's unique combination of experimental, contemporary and world musics have led him to record and perform with a wide range of artists. These artists include rock's Aerosmith, the Cranberries, and Yes, new music legend Pauline Oliveros, and World Music artists such as Tuvan vocalist Sainkho Namtchylak, Korean kumungo innovator Jin Hi Kim, and Indian mrdingham master Trichy Sankaran. Raine-Reusch is the leader of the internationally touring world beat group ASZA. Raine-Reusch is also very active as a writer, artistic director, and media personality. Ned Rothenberg, who was born in 1956 in Boston, graduated from Oberlin College and studied at Oberlin Conservatory and the Berklee School of Music. He has received grants and commissions from many organizations, and has recorded with Paul Dresher, Yuji Takahashi, Sainkho Namchylak, Masahiko Sato, Elliott Sharp, Samm Bennett, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Marc Ribot, and many others. Rothenberg also owns and operates Animul Records. Jason Roebke is a double bassist and composer living in Chicago. Roebke has developed a sonic and physical language which incorporates movement, sound and silence. He has collaborated, as a soloist and composer, with choreographers Ayako Kato, Ruben Ornelas and others. Roebke has studied composition with Roscoe Mitchell and Kenneth Schaphorst and double bass with Stuart Sankey. From 1976 to 1986, Sten Sandell undertook wide-ranging studies; on piano with Mats Persson and Carl-Axel Dominique; in improvisation/composition with Sven-David Sandstrom; and in electro-acoustic music with Par Lindgren. Sandell attended the Academy of Music in Stockholm from 1981 to 1986. Sandell's influences include free improvisation, contemporary music (John Cage, Morton Feldman, I. Xenakis), and ethnic music (classical music from India, Japan, Iran; folk music from Sweden, Norway, and North Africa). From 1976, Sandell has been involved in group work, solo projects, and in dance, drama, and film. Nuscope Recordings released the first Sten Sandell recording featuring only piano, Solid Musik, in the autumn of 2002. A native of Seattle, drummer Michael Sarin relocated to New York in 1991, establishing himself as a high caliber jazz drummer and improviser while playing with the late Thomas Chapin. In addition to his time with Chapin, Sarin has worked frequently with such musicians as Dave Douglas, Mark Dresser, Drew Gress, Myra Melford, Mark Feldman, and Brad Shepik. John Schott is one of the Bay Area’s most visible guitarists and composers. Whether leading his eleven-member chamber group Ensemble Diglossia or performing on solo acoustic guitar, his work explores the intersection and expressive possibilities of multiple musical languages. Schott grew up in Seattle, Washington where he studied with jazz musicians Gary Peacock and Jerry Granelli; and classical composers David Schiff and Janice Giteck. Schott majored in classical composition at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts. Since moving to the Bay Area in 1988, Schott has recorded and performed with John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Duck Baker, Peter Apfelbaum, Fred Frith, and Julian Priester. Double-bass player Damon Smith studied with bassists as diverse as Bill Douglass, improviser Lisle Ellis, classical bassist Kristin Zerneg, and jazz double-bassist Michael Jones. He also had single lessons or attended workshops with Barre Phillips, Stefano Scodanibbio, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser, Peter Kowald, William Parker, Ken Filiano, Dave Holland, and Joëlle Léandre. Smith also continues semi-frequent studies with Bertram Turetzky. He has also done considerable research of the "sonic palette" of the double-bass, which has resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Smith is also very influenced by non-representational visual art and dance. He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians including Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra´s Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, Jim O'Rourke, and Richard Thompson. Damon has also collaborated with dancers, actors, and poets including poet Jack Brewer, scoring actor William Whaley's adaptation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn for actor and double-bass, and the west coast premier of the final collaboration of Merce Cunningham and John Cage entitled Ocean. Damon has eight CDs on his own Balance Point Acoustics label. Peter Van Bergen studied at the Royal Music Conservatory in The Hague from 1980-1985, and studied extended saxophone technique with Evan Parker from 1990-1992. Several composers have written pieces for him. With LOOS, the band he founded in '82, he won the Ooyevaer Award for new music from the city of The Hague in 1985; he was awarded the Podiumprijs for jazz and improvised music in 1987. During 1984-86, he was a member of Hoketus, the group founded by the outstanding Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. Since 1985 he has been a member of the Maarten Altena Ensemble. Other ensembles and projects he has taken part in include: the European Improvisers Orchestra, the John Carter Project, Cecil Taylor European Orchestra (Amsterdam and Berlin, 1988) and Guus Janssen's opera Noah. He has also worked with internationally renowned musicians such as John Zorn, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Ikue Mori, George Lewis, Derek Bailey, Gunther Christmann, and Radu Malfatti. Fred Van Hove was born 1937 in Antwerp, Belgium. Van Hove studied piano, theory and harmony at the Music Academy in Belgium and experimented with several jazz styles and dance music before making the transition to free improvisation with local musicians. In 1966, Van Hove began his collaboration with Peter Brötzmann, initially in quartet or larger groupings, then stabilizing into a trio format with Han Bennink. In 1972, Van Hove founded the musicians' collective Werkgroep Improviserende Musici (WIM), whose aim was to improve the situation of free music in Belgium. Van Hove has been Chairman of WIM ever since. Van Hove's first solo concert was played at the Avant-Garde Festival Gravensteen, Ghent, in 1970. Van Hove has also performed regularly with duo partners who have included Steve Lacy, Vinko Globokar, Lol Coxhill, Albert Mangelsdorf, Annick Nozati, Phil Wachsmann, Andre Goodbeek, and Paul Van Gyseghem. Between 1988 and 1998, Van Hove's trio with the late French singer Annick Nozati and German trombonist Johannes Bauer recorded and toured. Van Hove has also cooperated with other musicians, including Luc Houtkamp, Connie Bauer, and Wolfgang Fuchs. Van Hove has also held seminars and workshops on improvisation throughout Europe. In June 1996, the Belgium government gave Fred Van Hove the title of Cultural Ambassador of Flanders 1996, an award that also includes a grant for touring outside of Belgium. California native Michael Vatcher, now residing in Amsterdam, quickly progressed from hitting household furniture to taking vibraphone and snare drum lessons as a child. In California, he played with reedist Michael Moore, with whom Vatcher has had a long musical relationship, John Handy, and Terry Gibbs. After spending a year in New York City, Vatcher moved to Holland in 1981. Since arriving in Holland, Vatcher has played with such groups as the Tristan Honsinger Sextet, the Martin Altena Ensemble, John Zorn, The Ex, Roof (with Phil Minton, Tom Cora, and Luc Ex), and Van Dyke Parks. Vatcher is also a regular accompanist with the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, and has an ongoing musical relationship with dancers Katie Duck and Eileen Standley. Born in Germany, Vinkeloe studied and lived in France from 1974 to 1988. Since 1989, she has lived and worked in Sweden. The Swedish Council for Cultural Affairs has supported her for certain projects. Grants include the City of Kungolv 1995, Bohus Landstinget 1997, and the Council for Cultural Affairs in 1995 and 1998. In the spring of 2001, she was the Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Biggi Vinkeloe has her own trio since 1990. The bass players in her trio have been Barre Phillips, Georg Wolf, Peter Friis Nielsen, and Peter Kowald. The drummer is Peeter Uuskyla. She has released six albums under her name and made numerous radio productions. Vinkeloe has toured in many European countries and performed at festivals such as the Victoria Jazz Festival, the Du Maurier Jazz Festival Vancouver, Taktlos in Switzerland, Kerava Jazzfestival Finland, Vandoeuvre Jazz Festival France, Gothenburg Jazzfestival, Umea Jazzfestival Sweden, Greifswald Jazzfestival Germany. Vinkeloe has also performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor, Perry Robinson, Miya Masaoka, Ken Filiano, Steve Swell, Lotte Anker, Gino Robair, Lisle Ellis and many others. Vinkeloe's major projects include European Echoes at Roda Sten in Goteborg since 1996 and Over the Ocean in October 2000. In these projects, she creates performances, concerts, installations with sounds, colors, movements, and light together with painters, musicians, dancers, and artists from different countries. Vinkeloe has also performed in multi-media performances in Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland with visual artists Ebbe Pettersson and Andrew Cowie. Michael Zerang is a composer, percussionist and performance artist. He has been commissioned to write over 90 musical/sound compositions in collaboration with choreographers, theater companies, performance artists, new music ensembles, and film & video makers. Zerang has performed with many innovative musicians, including AACM co-founder Fred Anderson, Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker, Barre Phillips, Jim Baker, Hamid Drake, Glen Velez, Gene Coleman, and David Rothenberg. |