"Guido Del Fabbro. Born Montréal, Québec, 1980. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (violin, electronics).

Born in Montréal, 1980, Guido Del Fabbro started violin lessons at age four. His taste for improvisation and composition first manifested itself around 1990; since then, he has taken several classes and workshops related to these fields. Del Fabbro is co-founder, creator and composer of Mouvement de Musique Présente, a large ensemble of up-and-coming musicians devoted to scored and improvised music. He is also a member of the groups Fanfare Pourpour, Rouge ciel and Concorde Crash. For 18 months, he toured North America with Gilles Ste-Croix's horse circus Cheval-Théâtre. As a performer, he has recorded a few soundtracks for film, television, theatre and dance. As a composer, he has written music for choreographers Élodie Lombardo (Blou take two, Gelsomina) and Séverine Lombardo (Les Accords d'elles). Del Fabbro released his first solo album, Carré de sable, in 2003, on Ambiances Magnétiques. He can be heard on the latest albums by Tomás Jensen and Loco Locass. He is an accompanying multi-instrumentalist in Pierre Lapointe's show La forêt des mal-aimés."

"The grandson of an accordion player, Luzio Altobelli was given his first accordion at the tender age of eight. A few years later, after percussion studies at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (1997-2001), he resumed his learning of the accordion. Around the same time, he formed Manouche, a group that has been active on the Montréal scene for eight years. In 2002, they recorded their first album Apprenti Moustachu, followed by St-Urbain Café three years later. A third album will follow in Spring 2009.

In 2004, Luzio Altobelli started the accordion sextet Fiszarmonia and Ironico Orkestra, a bass clarinet/accordion duo that has released its debut album in November 2007. In 2001, he jumped aboard Fanfare Pourpour, with whom he recorded Le Bal two years later. He also participated to the recording of Fanfare's third album Karousell Musik. In 2002-2003 he also played accordion in Jeszcze Raz, while working on arrangements and recordings for Che la vita with Marco Calliari. Since 2006, he is a member of the traditional folk group Bon Débarras, for whom he also arranges and writes.

With all these bands, Luzio is exercising his composition and arrangement muscles. With his trusty accordion, he loves to back singers, journeying that way through traditional music from here and abroad, ever since the last few years of the Cafe Sarajevo. His experiences have brought him to appear on several projects, if only for one song, including collaborations with Mara Tremblay, Tomas Jensen et les Faux-Monnayeurs, and many others.

Luzio has also recorded music for documentaries, TV series, movies and plays, often for Concordia University film students."

"Jean Derome. Born Montréal, Québec, 1955. esidence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (saxophones (alto, baritone, soprano), flutes (flute, bass flute, piccolo, alto flute, recorders), keyboards, small wind instruments (ocarinas, jew's harp, game calls, toys...), percussion, invented instruments, voice)

One of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome has managed to earn the recognition of a larger public, a rare feat in that field. Thanks to his large-scale musique actuelle projects, his compositions, his work as an improviser, his jazz groups and his music for the screen and the stage, Derome ranks as a major creative force, in Québec and abroad. He is experienced and innovative on both saxophone and flute, and his unique writing style cannot be mistaken for anyone else's. Sensitive and powerful, his music often features a funny strike that makes its complex nature more inviting.

Ever since Nébu (one of Québec's first avant-garde jazz groups) in the early '70s, Derome has been consistently renewing and diversifying his approach of composition. He impressed audience and critics first with the flute, then with the saxophone, as a lead character in the musique actuelle underground. He took part to the various artists' collectives looking for new ways to express themselves freely, without esthetic or social constraints, including the Ensemble de musique improvisée de Montréal. Later, in the early '80s, he co-founded Ambiances Magnétiques, a collective and record label that raised his profile at home and introduced his name to the outside world. Among his numerous projects, let us mention the duos Les Granules, Nous perçons les oreilles and Plinc! Plonc!, the dynamic group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms, and the large-scale projects Confitures de gagaku, Je me souviens - Hommage à Georges Perec and Canot-camping. Most of these projects are based on a unique form of synergy between composition, structured improvisation and genuine creative madness, all this articulated with unmatched playfulness. In 1992, Derome became the second artist to be presented with the Freddie Stone Award (bassist Lisle Ellis was the first).

Besides improvising on a regular basis with Ambiances Magnétiques' members and appearing in their projects, Derome has also shared the stage with several musicians of international stature, among others Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer, Louis Sclavis and Han Bennink. He performs regularly all over Canada, in the US and in Europe. He received a Prix Opus in 2001 for his exposure abroad.

Lately, jazz circles have been praising his undisputable qualities as a jazzman, thanks to the Thelonious Monk tribute project Évidence, the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble (whose Mingus Erectus CD is devoted to Charles Mingus' music), and the much-lauded Derome Guilbeault Tanguay Trio.

Although Jean Derome writes tirelessly for his own projects, he is much in demand in the fields of film, theatre and dance. A short list of this side of his work would have to include his numerous scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), especially for films by John Walker, Jacques Leduc, Fernand Bélanger and animated films by Pierre Hébert, Michèle Cournoyer and Jean Detheux; his incidental music for Théâtre UBU, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; not forgetting his work with several top choreographers, including Louise Bédard, Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Daniel Soulières and Ginette Laurin. Other music ensembles have commissioned works from him, including Tuyo, Bradyworks, the Hard Rubber Orchestra from Vancouver and Fanfare Pourpour. Incidentally, Derome is the musical director of the latter.

Over thirty years of music and 70 record credits later, Jean Derome still has sleeves bursting with tricks."

"Nova Scotian cellist Sheila Hannigan graduated from the Université de Montréal with a Master's in Performance under the direction of M. Yuli Turovsky. She also participated in masterclasses in Banff and Switzerland, and was the recipient of a bursary from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec to study non-classical improvisation techniques with M. Eugene Friesen of the Berklee College in Boston.

She can be heard regularly with Montreal ensembles such as l'Orchestre Métropolitain, l'Opéra de Montréal, I Musici de Montréal, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the SMCQ, La Piétà, Allegra Chamber Music, The Montreal Chamber Music Festival, and the Festival de Musique de Chambre de la Baie des Chaleurs.

Also interested in non-classical music, Ms Hannigan is a member of QAT - contemporary music and improvisation, the arab-jazz ensemble Absinthe, Cordâme trio, Persian singer Azam Ali, and the Romulo Larrea Tango Ensemble, with whom she has toured Europe, the US and Canada. She is presently touring with Danse Lhasa Danse.

Ms Hannigan also regularly collaborates with popular, world music, and jazz artists, such as Pierre Lapointe, Bia, Coral Egan, Sylvie Paquette, Diane Dufresne, and Remi Bolduc, to name a few. She was a guest soloist for the Canada-wide tour of The Tea Party, and can be heard on soundtracks of many films and multidisciplinary projects."

"Quebec City, Québec, 1956: Composer, Performer (drum set, percussion, voice)

A percussionist, composer and inveterate inventor, Pierre Tanguay is one of the most sought-after Montréal musicians on the Quebec scene. Since the beginning of the 80s, he has participated in an impressive number of ensembles, including Jean Derome and the dangereux zhoms, Évidence, Castor et compagnie, the Jean-François Groulx Trio, the ODD (a danse orchestra), Villemure Ô Carré, the Pierre Cartier Ensemble and Projet Riel. Among his collaborators are Jean Derome, Normand Guilbeault, Pierre Langevin, René Lussier, Karen Young, Fred Frith, Michel Donato, Daniel Mille, André Duchesne and Antoine Berthiaume. He is very active in the fileds of medieval and traditional music, jazz and musique actuelle. He is the co-founder of Strada, Midi Tapant, Derome/Tanguay.

He has composed works for dance (Lucie Grégoire, Andrew Harwood, Irène Stamou and Francine Gagné), as well as works for the theatre and film (Allan Booth, Imago and Roberto Ariganello). He regularly tours throughout Canada and Europe."