"Brandon K. Ross is an American jazz guitarist.

Ross was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and did clerical work for Leroy Jenkins before playing with Archie Shepp and Marion Brown in the second half of the 1970s. In the 1980s he worked with Geri Allen, Charles Burnham, and Oliver Lake in an ensemble, and also worked with Butch Morris.

He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Gene Lake, Marcus Rojas, John Lurie, Henry Threadgill, Don Byron, Cassandra Wilson and others."

"Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.

A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He leads the projects Carbon and Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction.

His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack deJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.

Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson's Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin. He has composed scores for feature films and documentaries; created sound-design for interstitials on The Sundance Channel, MTV and Bravo networks; and has presented numerous sound installations in art galleries and museums. He is the subject of a new documentary "Doing The Don't" by filmmaker Bert Shapiro."-Elliott Sharp

"Gunnar Geisse (born 11 July 1964, Giessen, Germany) is a musician, improviser, composer, and interpreter. He moves along the cutting edge between experimental/improvised music and new music. He has developed a complex instrumental concept combining guitar and electronics/computer which he calls laptop guitar. He also plays several other string instruments including banjo, mandolin, and a variety of instruments from Central Asia, among them the Uzbek and the Persian dotâr. Gunnar Geisse has been living in Munich, Germany since 1985.

Gunnar Geisse began his career in his early youth as a rock guitarist. With the end of his schooling he gravitated in the direction of jazz. Attending an Ornette Coleman concert at the Moers Jazz Festival in Germany, he saw Coleman carried onto the stage in a coffin, jump out dressed in a glittering disco outfit and play in the free jazz style that he helped create. After this key experience, Geisse bought toy plastic saxophones for the members of his band and threw away his original plan to play jazz standards. It was during this time that improvisation and an experimental approach became the foundation of his understanding of music. His first professional engagement was with the "New York Broadway Ensemble" with which he toured throughout Europe for the next two years. For Geisse, to be a part of an orchestra was an essential learning experience.

The avant-garde combo "Brother Virus" which along with Geisse included Werner Klausnitzer, Patrick Scales, and Maurice de Martin, achieved fame at the end of the 1980s. It would leave a major impression on Geisse. The band was invited to play at the Knitting Factory in New York, and was one of the first bands to play serious improvised music "live" on prime time German TV - Dagobert Lindlau's "Veranda". With "Brother Virus" Gunnar Geisse took the first steps on his own musical journey, a journey that was already apparent in his earlier development. In 1991 Enja Records released the "Brother Virus" album "Happy Hour".

Geisse lost the two middle fingers on his right hand in a mountain climbing accident in 1992. With the severity of the injury and subsequent operations, it was unclear as to whether Geisse would be able to continue his playing career. It was during his hospital stays that he was able to contemplate the implications of 20th century new music compositional techniques, and in so doing discovered his deep interest in structure. He wrote his first composition during one of his hospital stays. For him to have a good aural understanding of the piece, he proceeded to overdub the tracks - some 200 in total. Out of his interest in structure, Geisse worked together with the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Magdeburg in the area of complexity theory, non-linear phenomena and simulation, and inserted structural models of nature into his music. The recording was released under the title "AtEM".

While judging a music composition competition, Hans Zender - conductor of the SWR symphony orchestra und professor for composition at the College of Music and Arts in Frankfurt, Germany - took notice of Geisse's extraordinary music. Subsequently Gunnar Geisse received a stipend to compose at the prestigious Schloss Solitude Academy for one year. It was at Solitude that he composed "Das diskrete Jetzt" (The Discrete Now). He delved deeper into the phenomena of musical time. On a renewed search for natural structural references, he received important suggestions and impetus from the Institute for Medical Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich on the theme "time and its perception". The classic compositional parameters of tempo, meter, and rhythm are pushed into the background by this broadening of perspective through a psychological perception of time.

After his work with structure and time Gunnar Geisse again delved into questions concerning the fundamental functions of harmony. Searching for answers within nature since 2003, he has occupied himself with the non-linear phenomena of combination-tones - these are tones that are formed in the cochlea of the inner ear as an extension of the original acoustic signal. The combination-tones are the missing building blocks which, when added to his use of partial-tone rows and partial-tone matrixes, complete Geisse's set of harmonic compositional tools. The results of this work can be heard on the CD "MEtA" (Creative Sources Recordings). In 2006 Geisse wrote an exposition which lends insight into his specific harmonic concept.

Paradoxically, with these compositional tonal explorations, sound-based improvisation and its physical, expressive moments have taken on more and more importance; Geisse's improvisational models have changed under these influences. Since 2005 working with electronics and laptop computers have become an important means of expression for Geisse. In this context he has developed a unique hardware/software set-up (laptop guitar) that allows him to pursue his analogue playing (guitar) on a digital level, and even more importantly, to break away from the restrictions of "instrument" in order to work more directly with sound and its formulation.

Gunnar Geisse has received various awards and stipends, including the Musical Achievement Award of the City of Munich, and the Schloss Solitude Academy's Composition Stipend.

Gunnar Geisse has played with musicians from the three major areas of his musical life: experimental/improvised music, new music, and contemporary jazz. They include:

Richard Barrett, Marty Cook, Phil Durrant, Vinko Globokar, Barry Guy, Franz Hautzinger, Jason Kahn, Thomas Lehn, Michael Lentz, George Lewis, David Moss, Günter Müller, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Evan Parker, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Ignaz Schick, Ed Schuller, Mike Svoboda, Gary Thomas, Wu Wei, Xu Fengxia.

Gunnar Geisse has worked with or played works of Hans-Jürgen von Bose, John Cage, Peter Maxwell Davies, Fred Frith, Gérard Grisey, Hans Werner Henze, Tom Johnson, Helmut Lachenmann, Anestis Logothetis, Chico Mello, Josef Anton Riedl, Gioacchino Rossini, Dieter Schnebel, James Tenney, Kurt Weill, Jörg Widmann, Christian Wolff, and Udo Zimmermann.

He has also played as soloist under the direction of Stefan Asbury, Paul Daniel, Peter Eötvös, Franck Ollu, and Lothar Zagrosek with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BR), The Bavarian State Opera Orchestra, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR), the Stuttgart City Orchestra, and the Munich City Theatre Orchestra on Gärtnerplatz.

Gunnar Geisse was/is a member of the following ensembles: Brother Virus, le petit chien, ICI ensemble, Go Guitars, Berlin Jazz Composers Ensemble, Fractal Gumbo, NIE Quartett"

"Henry Kaiser (born September 19, 1952) is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "second generation" of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale.

In 1977, Kaiser founded Metalanguage Records with Larry Ochs (Rova Saxophone Quartet) and Greg Goodman. In 1979 he recorded With Friends Like These with Fred Frith, a collaboration that lasted for over 20 years. In 1983 they recorded Who Needs Enemies, and in 1987 the compilation album With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends? They joined with fellow experimental musicians John French, and English folk-rocker Richard Thompson to form French Frith Kaiser Thompson for two eclectic albums, Live, Love, Larf & Loaf (1987) and Invisible Means (1990). In 1999 Frith and Kaiser released Friends and Enemies, a compilation of their two Metalanguage albums along with additional material from 1984 and 1999.

In 1991, Kaiser went to Madagascar with guitarist David Lindley. They recorded roots music with Malagasy musicians and discovered music that, he says, "changed us radically and permanently". Three volumes of this music were released by Shanachie under the title A World Out of Time. In 1994 he made a similar trip to Norway, again with Lindley, recording music that was released as Sweet Sunny North (2 volumes, 1994 and 1996).

Since 1998, Kaiser has been collaborating with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith in the "Yo Miles!" project, releasing a series of tributes to Miles Davis's 1970s electric music. This shifting aggregation has included musicians from the worlds of rock (guitarists Nels Cline, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir, drummer Steve Smith), jazz (saxophonists Greg Osby and John Tchicai), avant-garde (keyboardist John Medeski, guitarist Elliott Sharp), and Indian classical music (tabla player Zakir Hussain).

Kaiser has appeared on more than 250 albums and scored dozens of TV shows and films, including Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (2007). He was given a Grammy Award for his work on the Beautiful Dreamer tribute to Stephen Foster.

In 2001, Kaiser spent two and a half months in Antarctica on a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program grant. He has subsequently returned for nine more visits to work as a research diver. His underwater camera work was featured in two Herzog films, The Wild Blue Yonder (2005) and Encounters at the End of the World (2007), which he also produced, and for which he and Lindley composed the score. Kaiser served as music producer for Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005). He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work as a producer on Encounters at the End of the World."

"Janet Feder is a Denver, Colorado�based composer and guitarist. She is a classically trained guitar player best known for her work in the prepared guitar genre. In addition, Janet Feder is: a lecturer at the University of Colorado; co-curator of MediaLive, an annual festival in Boulder, Colorado; and an Artistic Associate of Square Product Theatre.

Solo projects include T H I S C L O S E (2015), Songs with Words (2012), Ironic Universe, a CD & DVD featuring Fred Frith (AdHoc Records/USA 2006), and Speak Puppet (Recommended Records/UK 2001), as well as compilations for Zerx Records (Albuquerque, NM; 1999-07) and the compilation The $100 Guitar Project (Bridge Records, 2012). She also appears on Jane Rigler's Rarefactions (Neuma 2015) and Honey Barbara's Wave Grass (2015), in addition to 156 Strings produced by Henry Kaiser for Cuneiform Records (USA, 2002) and I Never Meta Guitar produced by Elliott Sharp for Clean Feed Records (Portugal, 2010), both featuring guitar players from around the globe.

In conjunction with Paul Fowler, Feder composed the film score Leavings (2014), plus the score and sound design for the Square Product Theatre adaptation of Selah Saterstrom's novel SLAB.

Feder was one of several contributors to Paul Riola's Bottesini Project, where her work was featured alongside Nels Cline, Keenan Wayne, CacheFlowe, Glenn Taylor, and Mark Harris on the 2009 album Naima's Grass Pajamas. The album began as "collective improvisations recorded live in the studio" which "were then later reconstructed."

T H I S C L O S E (2015) and Songs With Words (2012) were both recorded live at Immersive Studios in Boulder, Colorado in DSD Pure on Gus Skinas' 32 channel Sonoma System and are currently available on both vinyl and SACD. There are no digital effects on either Songs With Words or T H I S C L O S E. A reviewer noted that Songs With Words "explores the outer reaches of sonic possibility yet never loses the thread of melody and beauty." while T H I S C L O S E has been described as "Feder's most fully realised album...Unique and highly moving music"

Previously the Chair of the Music Department at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, Feder has performed or collaborated with Fred Frith, Nels Cline, Henry Kaiser, Bill Frisell, Elliott Sharp, Mike Keneally, Bryan Beller, Amy Denio, Chris Cutler, Mike Johnson/Thinking Plague, Susie Asado, Nikmat Hatraktor, Paolo Angeli, Wu Fei, Thomas Dimuzzio, Tatsuya Nakatani, Erin McKeown, Jane Rigler, Shoko Nagai, Satoshi Takeishi, James Sidlo, Pauline Oliveros and poet Anne Waldman.

Feder's solo work was featured in a June 2012 Tiny Desk Concert on NPR. Feder is also currently half of Denver-based duo Cowhause with Colin Bricker."

"Jeff Parker (born April 4, 1967) is an American jazz and rock guitarist based in Los Angeles. Parker is best known as an experimental musician, working with avant-garde electronic, rock, and improvisational groups.

Parker currently plays guitar in the post-rock group Tortoise and also was a founding member of the ensembles Isotope 217 and the Chicago Underground Trio in the 1990s and early 2000s. He is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, as well as working with musicians George Lewis, Ernest Dawkins, Brian Blade, Joshua Redman, Fred Anderson (musician) and Jason Moran. He has released three solo albums: Like-Coping, The Relatives and Bright Light in Winter."

"Kazuhisa Uchihashi (内橋和久, Uchihashi Kazuhisa) is a Japanese guitarist involved in free improvisation music. Born in 1959 in Osaka, Uchihashi began to play the guitar at age 12, playing in various rock bands, though he later studied jazz music. In 1988 he joined the band the First Edition, and in 1990 formed the band Altered States. He was also a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997. Uchihashi also plays daxophone, and in addition to his role as a free improviser, Uchihashi has been the musical director for Osaka theatre group Ishinha, has held improvisation workshops (a project known as New Music Action) in various cities in Japan, as well as London, Oslo, and currently in Vienna also. Uchihashi has set up his own record label, Innocent Records a.k.a. Zenbei Records, had held a music festival annually since 1996 Festival BEYOND INNOCENCE."

"One of improvised music's most in-demand guitarists, Mary Halvorson has been active in New York since 2002, following jazz studies at Wesleyan University and the New School. Critics have called her "a singular talent" (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), "NYC's least-predictable improviser" (Howard Mandel, City Arts), "one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz-or otherwise" (Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal), and "one of today's most formidable bandleaders" (Francis Davis, Village Voice). The Philadelphia City Paper's Shaun Brady adds, "Halvorson has been steadily reshaping the sound of jazz guitar in recent years with her elastic, sometimes-fluid, sometimes-shredding, wholly unique style."

After three years of study with visionary composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Ms. Halvorson became an active member of several of his bands, including his trio, septet and 12+1tet. To date, she appears on six of Mr. Braxton's recordings. Ms. Halvorson has also performed alongside iconic guitarist Marc Ribot, in his bands Sun Ship and The Young Philadelphians, and with the bassist Trevor Dunn in his Trio-Convulsant. Over the past decade she has worked with such diverse bandleaders as Tim Berne, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomas Fujiwara, Ingrid Laubrock, Myra Melford, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey and Mike Reed.

As a bandleader and composer, one of Ms. Halvorson's primary outlets is her longstanding trio, featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith. Since their 2008 debut album, Dragon's Head, the band has been recognized as a rising star jazz band by Downbeat Magazine for five consecutive years. Ms. Halvorson's quintet, which adds trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon to the trio, has released two critically acclaimed albums on the Firehouse 12 label: Saturn Sings and Bending Bridges. Most recently she has added two additional band members-tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trombonist Jacob Garchik-to form a septet, featured on her 2013 release Illusionary Sea. Ms. Halvorson also co-leads a longstanding chamber-jazz duo with violist Jessica Pavone, the avant-rock band People and the collective ensembles Thumbscrew and Secret Keeper."

"Michael Gregory Jackson (born August 28, 1953, New Haven, Connecticut) is an American jazz, blues, and rock guitarist and singer.[1] Early in his career, he was known as Michael Gregory to avoid being confused with pop singer Michael Jackson. In 2013, he returned to using his full name.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jackson worked with avant-garde jazz musicians such as Pheeroan akLaff, Oliver Lake, and Baikida Carroll. He worked with playwright Ntozake Shange, poet Jessica Hagedorn, and poet Thulani Davis at the Public Theatre, New York City. Following this he began working more in rock, jazz fusion, and R&B. He worked with Walter Becker of Steely Dan. In 1983 Nile Rodgers produced Situation-X for Island Records.

In 2013 he formed Michael Gregory Jackson's Clarity Quartet and Michael Gregory Jackson's Clarity TRiO. His groups have included Anthony Davis, Baikida Carroll, Bob Moses, David Murray, Jerome Harris, Julius Hemphill, Mark Helias, Mark Trayle, Marty Ehrlich, Oliver Lake, Pheeroan aKLaff, Wadada Leo Smith, and Will Calhoun."

"Mick Barr is an American avant-garde metal guitarist. Notable for his relentless speed and agility on his instrument, he is most well known for being one half of the band Orthrelm, currently signed to Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings label.

Some of Barr's other projects include progressive black metal band Krallice, Crom-tech, and a duo with drummer Zach Hill from Hella, as well as appearances with Quix*o*tic, and The Flying Luttenbachers. He has also released albums under the names Ocrilim and Octis, consisting of his own guitar over a drum machine. On the difference between the two, he says "Ocrilim is Mick Barr overthinking. Octis is Mick Barr underthinking. These names mean nothing when a live show is concerned. Come see Ocrilim and you may be forced to watch Octis."

Barr received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. Barr was chosen by Animal Collective to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that they curated in May 2011."

"For the past 40 years Mike Cooper has been an international musical explorer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres. Initially a folk-blues guitarist and singer songwriter his work has diversified to include improvised and electronic music, live music for silent films, radio art and sound installations. He is also a music journalist, writing features for magazines, particularly on Pacific music and musicians, a visual artist, film and video maker, collector of Hawaiian shirts and appears on more than 60 records to date."

"Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956 in Los Angeles) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been the guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004.

He first came to prominence in the 1980s playing jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex Cline, a drummer. Since then, he has worked with a wide range of musicians in punk and alternative rock, notably Mike Watt and Thurston Moore. He also leads the groups the Nels Cline Singers and Nels Cline Trio.

Cline was named the 82nd greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in November 2011."

"The French guitarist-improvisor Noël Akchoté is a frighteningly competent and active person. He has recorded a lot of music in various styles, he writes about music in the Austrian magazine Skug, he is the owner of a record label, he produces many different groups and participates in various projects. Born in Paris, the 7th december 1968, he started guitar at the age of 8. Soon meeting and studying with artists such as Tal Farlow, Barney Wilen, Chet Baker, Philip Catherine, John Abercrombie. During the early 90's, he started to explore beyond jazz, also playing more experimental and improvised musics. He played in the groups of Henri Texier, Louis Sclavis, Daniel Humair, Jacques Thollot, Sam Rivers as well as with Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Tim Berne or George Lewis. He collaborated since with David Grubbs, Luc Ferrari, David Sylvian, Jim G. Thirlwell (Steroïd Maximus), Max Nagl's Big Four (Steven Bernstein, Bradley Jones, Joey Baron), Jean-François Pauvros or Dylan Carlson's Earth. Other projects have seen him recording and playing with The Recyclers, Blixa Bargeld, Aki Onda, Phil Minton, Tony Hymas, Katerine, Tetuzi Akiyama, Otomo Yoshihide, Julie Tippets, Mike Cooper, Wolfgang Puschnig, Linda Sharrock, Tom Cora, Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Nobuyoshi Araki or Daido Moriyama. In 1996 he co founded with Quentin Rollet, the mostly Vinyl label Rectangle (all reissued as downloads​in 2011). During the same period, he produced for the Münich based label Winter & Winter a series of " Audio Films " revisiting a wide range of Chansons & Cabaret traditions (Au Bordel, Cabaret Modern, Toi-Même... featuring Red, Jean-Louis Costes, Han Bennink, Steve Beresford, Sasha Andrès, John Giorno or Kevin Blechdom), as well as unique re- readings of the music of Sonny Sharrock (Sonny II) and Kylie Minogue (So Lucky). He is also featured in various movies as an actor, soundtrack composer or musical director (with Thierry Jousse, Michael Lonsdale, Claire Denis, Lio ...). He also happens to be the older brother of the electro artist SebastiAn (Ed Banger, Daft Punk). In 2011, he signed an exclusive distribution contract with Believe Digital (Worldwide Downloads), issueing since over 100 rare live tracks and previously unreleased studio albums, from which a wide Renaissance and Baroque section raised (Carlo Gesualdo, Guillaume de Machaut, Claudio Monteverdi, Luys Milan,Robert de Visée)."

"Born in Los Angeles in 1956, Björkenheim has spent much of his life shuttling between New York and Helsinki, developing a bold approach to playing electric guitar and composing for big bands, symphony orchestras, films, modern dance companies and his own groups.

Having served an apprenticeship with Edward Vesala for several years, three recordings for ECM brought Björkenheim to the attention of the international community, leading to encounters with musicians such as Bill Laswell, Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Henry Kaiser, and Elliot Sharp.

Björkenheim has been a soloist with the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra, the Avanti Chamber Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra, the UMO big band and the Tampere philharmonic, and has composed for them all.

Today Björkenheim's main performing energies are brought into focus through his quartet Ecstasy, Triad, Blixt with Bill Laswell and Morgan Ågren, Scorch quartet, and solo guitar.

Björkenheim has been awarded the Georgie Prize for best jazz musician of the year, the Young Finland Award, the Emma prize for best jazz recording of the year, and been nominated three times for the Nordic Music Award."

"Scott Fields (born September 30, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois) is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his attempts to blend music that is composed and music that is written and for his modular pieces (see 48 Motives, 96 Gestures and "OZZO"). He works primarily in avant-garde jazz, experimental music, and contemporary classical music.

Fields was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He started as a self-taught rock musician but soon was influenced by the musicians of the Association for the Advancement for Creative Musicians (AACM), which was active in the Hyde Park neighborhood in which he grew up. Later he studied classical guitar, jazz guitar, music composition, and music theory. In 1973 Fields co-founded the avant-garde jazz trio Life Rhythms. When the group disbanded two years later, he played sporadically but soon was institutionalized for an extended period. He almost quit music until 1989.

Since then he has performed and composed actively. His ensembles and partnerships have included such musicians as Marilyn Crispell, Hamid Drake, John Hollenbeck, Joseph Jarman, Myra Melford, Jeff Parker, and Elliott Sharp."