"Jean-Jacques Avenel, born 16 June 1948 in Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont ( Seine-Maritime ) and died 12 August 2014. He was a jazz bassist, a faithful companion to Steve Lacy, and participated in many other musical adventures. He was interested especially in African music, the kora and tradition Mandingo.

Jean-Jacques Avenel was self-taught, although he subsequently benefit from the lessons of Kent Carte. He began his career by participating in the free jazz movement, playing with Steve Waring, Colette Magny, Don Cherry, and with Noah Howard, the quartet of Frank Wright and Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra training François Tusques. He also accompanies the saxophonist Daunik Lazro.

From 1975, he began to be associated with different formations led by Steve Lacy. Trio, sextet, quartet... But also the quintet consisting addition Lacy and Avenel, saxophonist Steve Potts, drummer Oliver Johnson and pianist Bobby Few, often with the singer Irene Aebi. A long collaboration begins. He accompanied Steve Lacy for nearly 30 years, performing in many festivals and other places in Europe and the United States, and participating in more than twenty albums recordings. He had also the opportunity to accompany Butch Morris in 1980, and David Murray in the 1990s.

He participated in the achievements of Michel Edelin and particularly in the quartet with Simon Goubert and Jacques Di Donato since 1995. More recently, he worked with young European pianists Benoît Delbecq, and Gael Mevel. And with American Mal Waldron and Australian Chris Cody. Plus work with Richard Galliano, George Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Dino Saluzzi, Paul Bley, and other.

He also regularly collaborated with François Raulin. In 2000, at the 38th festival Roaring, Avenel, Raulin and Adama Drame together created the ARD trio, training mixing European jazz tradition and the Mandingo. Jean-Jacques Avenel passion for African music and plays the kora, in addition to the bass. In 2004, Avenel and Sissokho surrounded themselves Lansiné Kouyaté, Moriba Koita and Michel Edelin for Waraba project ( "the lion" in language Bamana ). Then in 2006, he formed the trio DAG Domancich and Simon Goubert.

He died of cancer August 12, 2014."

"Eliot Britton (b.1983) - composer, sound artist - integrates electronic and instrumental music to create an energetic and colourful personal language. Each of his compositions expresses his eclectic musical experience, including that of sound designer, producer, orchestral and jazz performer, DJ, and audio technician. By drawing on these sound worlds and others, Eliot Britton's compositions are bursting with a variety of resources only possible in the 21st century. His compositions have been heard by audiences across Canada and internationally.

Eliot Britton is currently pursuing his PhD in music research and composition at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Sean Ferguson. Here Britton has worked as a course lecturer, studio assistant and composer in residence for the Digital Composition Studios. He was awarded the director's prize for research on live electronic music and recently held the position of composer in residence for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble with the Digital Composition Studio. He currently holds a SSHRC Bombardier graduate scholarship to fund his research.

Prior to his work at McGill, Eliot Britton studied with Matthews and Fitzell at the University of Manitoba, and was also conferred with certification from the Precursor Productions School of Electronic Music. Throughout his studies, Eliot Britton has won numerous awards and scholarships. Recent accolades include 1st prize in the Hugh Le Caine Category in the SOCAN competition, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Scholarship (SSHRC), winner of the Winnipeg New Music Festival's Young Composers' Competition, and the Margaret H. Tyler Award in music. Select performances of Britton's work include: NIME Norway, EMS New York, the CCMW Toronto, McGill CME in Montreal, Winnipeg New Music Festival, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and the Pazzia Performing Arts Collective in Edinburgh, Eliot Britton continues to evolve musically.

Having recently finished his masters he continues pursuing a doctoral thesis on the analysis of rhythmic syntax in avant-garde electronic music and its relationship to electroacoustic music."

"Cassandra Miller (1976) is a Canadian composer living in London, and is Associate Head of Composition (Undergrad) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her present work involves direct and personal collaboration with solo musicians, engaging in embodied research related to non-notated collaborative practices and the place of voice and body in creative processes. Her notated compositions for ensembles and orchestras explore the transcription of pre-existing music as a way to translate its musicality/vocality into another experience.

Teaching takes a central role in her artistic life, holding the faculty position at Guildhall since September 2018. Her teaching philosophy prioritizes inclusivity and diversity, and questions canonization. Previously, she taught composition modules at the University of Huddersfield (2014-16) and the University of Victoria (2008-09).

She twice received the Jules-Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Canada's highest honour for composition, for Bel Canto in 2011 and About Bach in 2016. Her concerto written for the cellist Charles Curtis with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra was hailed as an 'unexpected highlight of the festival' (TEMPO).

Her works are often written with specific performers in mind, involving their intimate participation in the creative process. Her closest collaborators in this fashion have included soprano Juliet Fraser, the Quatuor Bozzini, conductor Ilan Volkov, cellist Charles Curtis, pianist Philip Thomas, violinist Silvia Tarozzi and violinist Mira Benjamin. Pieces written expressly for them have been toured and performed across the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway, Uruguay, the United States and Canada.

Over the last 15 years she has received over 25 professional commissions from soloists, ensembles and orchestras both in Canada and across Europe. Notable performers include the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, I Musici de Montréal, Ensemble Plus-Minus, the late great Ensemble Kore, Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Continuum Contemporary Music, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Festivals and venues featuring her music have included Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Tectonics Glasgow, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Only Connect Oslo, Ostrava Days, World Music Days (Ljubljana), Music we'd like to hear (London), Kammer Klang (Café OTO, London), Transit (Leuven), Music on Main (Vancouver), and Núcleo Música Nueva de Montevideo, among many others. In 2015, the AngelicA Festival of Bologna presented three concerts featuring her work.

After two decades working in the field, Cassandra returned to academic research in 2014. Her doctoral research at the University of Huddersfield (supervisor Dr Bryn Harrison, 2018) explored transcription and other translation methods as compositional processes, and compositional engagements with varied notions of voice and vocality.

In 2012, she studied privately with Michael Finnissy, whose impact continues to have a deep effect on her work. She holds a Master of Music from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague (2008, Richard Ayres, Yannis Kyriakides), where she explored narratology and narrative as tools for musical analysis. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria (2005), where she studied with Christopher Butterfield, whose radical pedagogical inclusivity and Dada-inspired artistic insight remain crucial foundations for her work to date.

From 2010 to 2013, she held the post of Artistic and General Director of Innovations en concert, a not-for-profit presenter of experimental chamber music concerts and festivals in Montreal. Under her directorship, the organization championed unusual programming, commissioned major new works, and became known for its support of young freelancers, building international connections for many Quebec artists.

Cassandra has been invited to give lectures about her work in the US at Columbia University; in the UK at the Royal Academy of Music, Bath Spa University Centre for Musical Research, Birmingham Conservatoire, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Centre for Research in New Music in Huddersfield, and Brunel University; in Canada at McGill University, the Cluster New Music and Integrated Arts Festival, and the Open Space Gallery of Victoria. She has additionally taught masterclasses and workshops at the Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting (NL), Brunel University, the University of Manitoba, and the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab.

A number of writings about her work have been published in recent years, notably, Along the grain: the music of Cassandra Miller (James Weeks, 2014, TEMPO, Vol 68, Issue 269), and Cassandra Miller's unclassifiable concert music (Richard Simas, 2012, Musicworks Magazine, Toronto, Issue 113). In Tim Rutherford-Johnson's book Music After The Fall: Modern Composition and Culture Since 1989 (2017, University of California Press), Chapter 4 includes an in-depth discussion of her piece Guide, through the lens of the tension between oral traditions and media technology. Her music also appears on the podcast Tentative Affinities (2014, Canada: the music of Generation X) by the late musicologist Bob Gilmore."