"Ellwood Epps was born in Toronto and grew up in nearby Mississauga. His father and grandfather played trumpet in the past, and when he began band classes in junior high school at age 11, the trumpet was chosen for him, despite having put down alto, tenor, and baritone saxophone as his three instrument choices. He attended an intensive arts highschool called Cawthra Park, where his first trumpet teachers were Mary Ann Fratia and Jim Lewis. At Cawthra he began improvising, composing, and falling in love with jazz music. During this time he played trumpet, bass clarinet, clarinet, flute, piano, and baritone saxophone, and also studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

He spent a brief period of time studying jazz at the University of Toronto and York University. He took private lessons from David Mott, meditated, wrote poetry, and travelled to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder Colorado, attending the classes of Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman and Reed Bye. Back in Toronto, he copublished a poetry journal and hosted a reading series called Poetry On The Roof at the Parliament Street loft where he lived. He also travelled to Bennington Vermont to study with Bill Dixon.

During the late 90's, Epps hosted Full Circle, a weekly jazz program on CIUT FM which featured in-studio performances, and organized the AS IS concert series at the Oasis on College Street. Some of Epps' first performances as an improviser were with the Woodchoppers Association, a large orchestra co-led by drummer Dave Clark and multi-inistrumentalist Lewis Melville. He joined the David Mott Quintet, which recorded two very under-recognized albums, and had a week-long performance residency at the Vancouver Jazz Festival.

In 2004 and 2005 Epps attended the Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, where he learned from George Lewis, Dave Douglas, Han Bennink, Mark Dresser, and Bill Frisell, and met Montreal musicians Pierre-Yves Martel and Philippe Lauzier. In 2004 he was invited to perform with Steve Lacy and an 8-piece ensemble in Montreal in a concert recorded and broadcast on French CBC Radio. Sadly Lacy passed a few months later, and the band never got to perform again. The experience made an impression, and Epps moved to Montreal in 2005, where he has worked regularly with the Montreal members of that band: Nicolas Caloia, John Heward, Lori Freedman, Jean Derome, and Rainer Wiens. That band also included American saxophonist Joe Giardullo; Epps played on Joe's 'Red Morocco', which was released on the French Rogue Art label.

In Montreal, Epps also began working with players of his own generation including Martel, Lauzier, Josh Zubot, and Isaiah Ceccarelli. Epps was an original member of Martel's Quartetski, and appears on its debut recording, ''Quartetski does Prokofiev''. In 2007 he formed Pink Saliva with Michel F Côté and Alexandre St-Onge. The band has released 6 recordings, and won the François Marcaurelle prize at the Off Jazz Festival in 2012. He is also a longstanding member of Nicolas Caloia's Ratchet Orchestra, and has performed with John Heward's Murray Street Band, Land of Marigold (a duet with Josh Zubot), as a duet with saxophonist Yves Charuest, and in many groups with Jean Derome. Currently his principal activity is the band Togetherness!, a quintet which plays music from South Africa and beyond.

Epps has performed in ad-hoc ensembles with Montreal improvers of all ages and backgrounds including Scott Thomson, Martin Tétreault, Émilie Girard-Charest, Malcolm Goldstein, Raphael Foisy-Couture, Ivan Bamford, Stéphan Diamantakiou, and Bernard Falaise. Since coming to Montreal he has also performed with many American and European musicians including William Parker, Bill Dixon, John Butcher, Matana Roberts, Henry Grimes, Axel Dörner, Marshall Allen, Xavier Charles, Wilbert DeJoode, Butch Morris, and Nate Wooley. He has completed two coast-to-coast Canadian tours, first playing solo concerts, and then with violinist Josh Zubot. He has performed often at the Guelph Jazz Festival, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), FONTMusic Canada, and l'Off Festival de Jazz de Montréal, and has appeared in New York at the Stone, CBGB's, the Jazz Gallery, and the FONT Festival.

In 2008 Epps and fellow trumpeter Philippe Battikha co-founded l'Envers, a loft venue in the Mile End that was a welcoming home for creative music, film, dance and more, and hosted over 400 concerts during its four years in business. In the same year he was one of four musicians who started the stilll-active Mardi Spaghetti series, just down the street at Le Cagibi café. In 2014 Epps and Aaron Shragge started the annual Festival of New Trumpet Music Canada, modelled after the FONT Festival in New York. FONTMusic Canada has presented great trumpet artists including Nicole Rampersaud, Lina Allemano, Amy Horvey, Ingrid Jensen, and Nate Wooley.

While living at l'Envers, Epps and Lévy Bourbonnais started a series of improvised music workshops called the Studio d'Improvisation de Montréal. SIM continues to operate, with nearly 200 students over the years, and has included workshops by guest teachers such as Henry Grimes, Lori Freedman, Joe Morris, and Tatsuya Nakatani. He has given workshops across Canada: in Vancouver (through the NOW Orchestra Society), as artist-in-residence at the 2015 Something Else! Festival in Hamilton, in Calgary, Kitchener, and at Carlton University in Ottawa. Epps has been teaching private trumpet lessons since his teenage years, following in the footsteps of master teacher Laurie Frink, with whom studied in New York over a 10-year period.

Ellwood has recorded on over 60 records for diverse labels including Ambiances Magnetiques, &Records, and Constellation (Montreal), VICTO, Rogue Art (France), Majmua (Philadelphia), Kakutopia (UK), Panospria and Drip Audio (Vancouver), Barnyard (Toronto), and Bug Incision (Calgary)."

"Joshua Zubot is a musician who spent his younger years honing his skills in the West. Gaining ground internationally, Josh toured with the former Barrage group from 1997-2002.

Moving to Montreal in 2003, Josh finished his BFA in Electroacoustic Studies after 4 years. In 2005, he produced his first solo album, Crouched Head, on the Drip Audio Label.

He now freelances full-time as a violinist. Mainly, Josh is a performer/composer fusing many means of styles through his violin. These styles range from somewhere in the middle of jazz, free jazz, avant garde, contemporary classical, folk, improvisational, rock and electronic.

Since then he has developped through the avant-garde scene in Montreal producing his own albums: Subtle Lip Can, Mendham, and Land of Marigold.

Over the last decade, Josh has played with numerous different groups and individuals. Some collaborations were with Chad VanGaalen, Lori Freedman, Patrick Watson, William Parker, Pierre-Yves Martel, Michael Blake, Bernard Falaise, Rainer Wiens, Michel F Coté, Sam Shalabi, Miles Perkin, Myra Melford, Marshall Allen, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, Jean Derome, Malcom Goldstein, Pierre Tanguay, Martha Wainwright, John Butcher, to name a few.

Josh performed in the Mozg Festival (Poland),International Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Guelph Jazz Festival, X Avant New Music Festival L'Off Festival de Jazz de Montreal, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Sound Travels (Sound Art Festival in Toronto), Guelph Jazz Festival, Osheaga, Pop Montreal, NXNE, as well as numerous festival circuits in Europe."