"Olaf Rupp (*1963) plays Improvised Music on the acoustic and electric guitar. The organic flow of his music is controlled neither by chance nor by dominant, wilful decisions. In his music he explores how more or less dense murmurations of notes (motion-clusters) can be perceived as one agglomerated sound in motion. This means that every note is a dot in a higher matrix and its colour is more important than the position of that note in any hierarchic classification system. So a sequence of notes creates a moving sound, not a melody. And the intrinsic colour of every note is more important than the melodic or harmonic burden which the listener may or may not put on it.

Besides many cooperations five solo albums are published so far on the labels FMP, GROB and GLIGG. Olaf Rupp has been touring in many countries and performed with extraordinary musicians such as Paul Lovens, Tristan Honsinger, Peter Brötzmann, Butch Morris, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn und Michael Wertmüller. Important groups are among others XENOFOX, his duo with Rudi Fischerlehner, a Duo with cello player Ulrike Brand, DIE DICKEN FINGER with Oli Steidle and Jan Roder (also a quartet with Peter Brötzmann) and WEIRD WEAPONS with Tony Buck and Joe Williamson."

"Ulrike Brand, born in Germany, was introduced to contemporary cello-playing by Siegfried Palm. At the Music-High-School of Cologne she studied with Peter Eötvös, Mauricio Kagel and the Amadeus String-Quartet.

Since 1985 she has partecipated as a soloist in the major festivals of contemporary music in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Greece, Slovacchia, Mexico, Russia and Uruguay. In 1986 she settled in Italy, where in 1987 she initiated the festival of the Quaderni Perugini di Musica Contemporanea, that she directed together with the artist Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi until 1997. In 2011 she moved to Berlin, where she actually lives and works.

She has worked closely with John Cage, as well she has commissioned and premiered works by several composers, among others: Christian Wolff, Barbara Monk-Feldman, Federico Incardona, Graciela Paraskevaidis, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Joachim Heintz, Stefano Trevisi, Cheol-Ha Park, Karen Odrobna Gerardi, Steven M. Miller, Marcello Fera, Giulio Castagnoli, Giovanni Damiani, Marco Lombardi, Silvia Colasanti, Gerolamo Deraco, Federico Gardella, Enrico Correggia, Alessandra Ravera, Eckart Beinke, Gwyn Pritchard, Stefan Streich, Martin Daske, Rainer Rubbert, Charlotte Seither, Laurie Schwartz.

She realized radio broadcasting productions in Italy, Swiss, Germany, France, Uruguay and Norway. Since 2002 she has been Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts of Bremen (D). She has given lectures and masterclasses at the Escuela Universitaria de Musica di Montevideo (UY) as well as at the Universities of Bergen (NO), Oldenburg (D), College of Santa Fe (USA), Trinity Laban Conservatoire London (GB), John Cabot University Rome (I), Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin (D), Hochschule f. Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover (D) and the Music Conservatories of Perugia and Bolzano (I). For the Editor L'Epos (Palermo) Ulrike Brand has curated two volumes about the work of John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi.

Her focus is on multimedial projects between conceptual sound-exploring, improvisation and performance. In this context she is working with performers as well as with visual artists and choreographers.

In 2015 she received the Research Grant by Berliner Senat and in 2016 the Scholarship Künstlerhaus Wiepersdof by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs Brandenburg. Ulrike Brand lives in Berlin."