"Cyro Baptista (born December 23, 1950) is a Brazilian musician, teacher, and recording artist specializing in percussion in the genres of jazz and world music.

Born in S‹o Paulo, Brazil, Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship to Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York. He has recorded and toured regularly with popular musicians and groups. Baptista creates many of the percussion instruments he plays.

Baptista recorded with pianist Herbie Hancock on his 2005 release, Possibilities. In 2002 Baptista toured with Yo-Yo MaÕs Brazil Project and also appeared on the Obrigado Brazil album Ð winner of two Grammy awards. He also toured with Trey Anastasio of Phish and John Zorn. He recorded and performed worldwide with Herbie HancockÕs Grammy award-winning GershwinÕs World. Baptista collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra for a Brazilian Carnival modern jazz concert. For over two years, he toured with Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints tour and appears on his Concert in Central Park release. He also toured worldwide with Sting in 2001.

Baptista has performed or recorded with many artists, including: Trey Anastasio, Laurie Anderson, Derek Bailey, Gato Barbieri, Daniel Barenboim, Kathleen Battle, David Byrne, Dr. John, Brian Eno, Melissa Etheridge, Stephen Kent, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Medeski Martin & Wood, Robert Palmer, Carlos Santana, Tim Sparks, Spyro Gyra, Sting, James Taylor, Michael Tilson Thomas, Yo-Yo Ma, and John Zorn. He has also played with many noted Brazilian artists such as Badi Assad, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, Milton Nascimento, Nana Vasconcelos and Caetano Veloso.

Baptista has performed on five Grammy award-winning albums: Yo-Yo MaÕs Obrigado Brazil, Cassandra WilsonÕs Blue Light 'Til Dawn, The ChieftainsÕ Santiago, Ivan LinsÕ A Love Affair, and Herbie HancockÕs GershwinÕs World. A documentary on BaptistaÕs project, Beat the Donkey, recorded for the WGBH-TV Boston program ÔLa PlazaÕ, won 3 New England EMMY Awards in 2002.

Baptista appeared in Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary film on Fred Frith, Step Across the Border. He has also composed music for programs on the children's television network Nickelodeon.

Baptista formed Beat the Donkey, a percussion and dance ensemble in 2002. The debut self-titled album Beat the Donkey (Tzadik) was picked by Jon Pareles of The New York Times as one of the ten best alternative albums of 2002. Readers of JAZZIZ magazine and DRUM magazine voted it "Best Brazilian CD of the Year" and named Baptista "Best Percussionist of 2002." Down Beat magazine's 51st annual critics' poll selected Baptista as 'Rising Star' in percussion. The group released its second album, Love the Donkey on John Zorn's independent Tzadik record label in 2005.

Baptista's first solo recording in 1997, Villa Lobos/Vira Loucos, is a mix of his own compositions with the work of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was called "the most courageous, bright, funny, dramatic, and imaginative work in recent memory."

Blue Note Records released Supergenerous, a duo CD recorded with guitarist Kevin Breit (KD Lang, Cassandra Wilson). Billboard called Supergenerous "pure aural pleasure" and the Washington Post noted it "a marvelous debut that manages to feel outside and intimate at the same time."

Baptista conducts educational "rhythm workshops" in a variety of formats. He has provided presentations for a range of audiences, from elementary school children to professional musicians.

He has conducted workshops and master classes at numerous institutions throughout the world. These include Berklee College of Music (Boston), The New School (New York City), Drummer's Collective (New York City), Mannes College of Music (New York City), New World Symphony Orchestra (Miami) and Rimon School of Music (Tel-Aviv, Israel).

In 2009 Baptista won a Fellow Award in Music from United States Artists.

Baptista plays congas, bongos, tambourine, maracas, caxixi, agogo bells, pandeiro, pandora, cuica, bells, gong, drums, ceramic drums, surdo, berimbau, shaker, triangle, temple blocks, bass drum, metal percussion, campana, caja, udu, arrelegos, bell tree, bottles, washboard, rubboard, hadgini, cowbell, timbales, shekere, wood block, repique, Rototoms, cabasa, apito, mark tree, whistles, shekere, tabla, talking drum, finger cymbals, Chinese bells, tamborim, snare drum, whistles, typewriter, Alfaia, bird calls, clay drums, cymbals, kalimba, wind chimes, tom-toms, water gong, vacuum cleaner, water phone, peneira cheia, alarm clock, and other percussion."

"Bernard Joseph Baron (born June 26, 1955 in Richmond, Virginia) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer who plays frequently with Bill Frisell and John Zorn.

Baron was born on June 26, 1955, in Richmond Virginia. When he was nine, he taught himself how to play the drums. As a teenager, he played in rock bands and dixieland jazz groups. After high school, he spent a year at the Berklee College of Music. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s and embarked on a professional career, playing with Carmen McRae and Al Jarreau. He worked as a freelance drummer and session musician with Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Hampton Hawes.

In 1982 he moved to New York City and joined guitarist Bill Frisell, with whom he would play often throughout his career. He also played in groups with Red Rodney, Fred Hersch, Enrico Pieranunzi, and Marc Johnson. Starting in the late 1980s, he became a bigger part of the avant-garde jazz scene when he played regularly at the Knitting Factory, recorded with singer Laurie Anderson, and began a long association with John Zorn. For several years he participated in Zorn's projects Naked City and Masada.

Baron contributed to David Bowie's Outside (1995). Bowie would later praise Baron, stating: "Metronomes shake in fear, he's so steady." "

"About Trevor Dunn

1968: born traversing a fine line between hippies and rednecks behind the redwood curtain. first musical affinities: the beach boys, blondie, cheap trick, kiss. first television: ultraman, speedracer, bugs bunny. first films: over the edge, the mouse and his child, snoopy come home, bedknobs & broomsticks. first books: zylpha keatly snyder's witches of worm, the velvet room and the headless cupid.

1977: began studies on clarinet

1981: began studies on electric bass and subsequently quit the clarinet as i realized that girls would now talk to me.

1986: the same year that Lynch's blue velvet and Slayer's reign in blood were released, graduated from EHS. the school's motto: "pigs live in litter, loggers live in pride". started a band called Mr. Bungle. then i got a job at shakey's pizza. began classical technique studies on the contrabass.

1990: graduated from humboldt state university after studying the likes of harry partch, iannis xenakis, alban berg, igor stravinksy, gustav mahler, js bach, you know, all the cats. Also performed Koussevitsky's Concerto for Double Bass with the HSO.

1992: first Mr. Bungle record released on Warner Bros. Moved to SF and two months later embarked on the first MB tour of the US. At the age of 24 I was one of the oldest people in the van. For the next eight years played lots of weddings and restaurants between tours with MB. Learned a lot about music playing with Connah, Goldberg, Schott, Kavee, Amendola, Greenlief, et al.

2000: relocated to Brooklyn, NYC.

Currently playing in various projects under the direction of John Zorn (Nova Quartet, Dreamers, Electric Masada, Aleph Trio). The Nels Cline Singers, Curtis Hasselbring's New Mellow Edwards, Melvins Lite, Endangered Blood, Tomahawk, The Darius Jones Quartet & Erik Friedlander's Bonebridge. I still have plans for my own bands: trio-convulsant, PROOF Readers and MadLove; and I continue to write music for independent films, practice long tones, pine over Daisy Lowe and drink shitty beer in heavy metal saloons."

"Originally from New York City, Jesse Harris is a Grammy Award winning songwriter, singer, guitarist and producer of artists from all over the world. He began making records in the mid 90s with Once Blue (EMI Records), his first group and first experience writing for another singer. Since then he has worked with dozens of artists and released 15 albums under his own name. His latest album, Songs Never Sung, was released in 2019. Recorded in the tradition of the classic vocal albums, with horn arrangements by CJ Camerieri, it features jazz guitar legend Bill Frisell, drummer Kenny Wollesen and bassist Tony Scherr.

In 2003 Harris received the Grammy Award for Song Of The Year for Norah Jones' breakout hit "Don't Know Why," from her debut album, Come Away With Me, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. It includes four other of his compositions: "Shoot The Moon," "One Flight Down," "I've Got To See You Again," and "The Long Day Is Over." He plays guitar throughout the recording.

Since then, Jones and Harris have collaborated numerous times. She has been a guest on many of his albums and he appears as guitarist on almost all of hers. He also contributed songwriting to her 2008 release The Fall and produced her version of his song "World Of Trouble" for the Ethan Hawke film The Hottest State. That soundtrack features not only Harris' score, but new versions of his songs by Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Cat Power, Feist, The Black Keys, M. Ward, Brad Mehldau, Bright Eyes (on whose album "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" Harris also appears as guitarist) and others. Harris and Jones appear together in the Amy Poehler/Paul Rudd comedy They Came Together, performing his song, which he also produced, "It Was The Last Thing On Your Mind."

Other artists who have recorded Harris' songs include Smokey Robinson, George Benson, Pat Metheny, Kandace Springs, and Solomon Burke, on whose album Like A Fire Harris plays guitar and sings backing vocals.

Songwriting collaborations have included Madeleine Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Lana Del Rey, Maria Gadu, and Vinicius Cantuaria.

In 2013, Harris joined John Zorn's The Song Project, along with Mike Patton, Sofia Rei, and Sean Lennon, writing lyrics for various Zorn compositions and singing them at festivals worldwide with a band featuring Marc Ribot on guitar, John Medeski on keyboards, and Zorn conducting. Two of the group's albums have been released by Tzadik Records. Recently, Zorn and Harris started a new project, Songs For Petra, which features Petra Haden and The Julian Lage Trio (for whom Harris has produced two albums, Arclight and Modern Lore).

Cosmo, Harris' instrumental project, features drummer Jeremy Gustin, guitarist Will Graefe, trumpeter CJ Camerieri, trombonist Mike Boschen and bassist Benjamin Lazar Davis. They perform in New York City often and are at work on their first album with producer Jason Lader.

Other production credits for Harris include albums for Forro In The Dark, Sasha Dobson, and Petra Haden, who recorded an entire album of his songs, entitled "Seemed Like A Good Idea - Petra Haden Sings Jesse Harris" (Sunnyside Records). Current projects include the debut album for singer/actor Maya Hawke, the new album for experimental duo Star Rover (whom Harris has used as his backing band on several recent albums), and the debut for Parisian singer Gabi Hartmann."

"Anthony John Medeski (born June 28, 1965) is an American jazz keyboards player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano and an eclectic array of keyboards, including the Hammond B3 organ, melodica, mellotron, clavinet, ARP String Ensemble, Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog Voyager Synthesizer, Wurlitzer 7300 Combo Organ, Vox Continental Baroque organ, and Yamaha CS-1 Synthesizer (a "kids' toy"), among others. When playing acoustic piano, Medeski usually plays the Steinway piano and is listed as a Steinway Artist.

Medeski was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in Florida. After studying piano as a child (starting when he was five years old), he began as a teenager to perform with musicians such as Mark Murphy and Jaco Pastorius. He attended Pine Crest School. In 1983, after graduating from high school, he began studying piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he performed as a sideman with Dewey Redman, Billy Higgins, Bob Mintzer, Alan Dawson and Mr. Jellybelly. Medeski attributes his early interest in playing improvised music and jazz to listening to Oscar Peterson."

"Mike Patton is many things to many people, but regardless of whether he's singing, scatting, acting, growling or swearing, he's a Renaissance man in the truest sense of the word. From his teens spent with genre-defying alternatives acts like Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, his various collaborations with avant-garde musicians, the deconstructed-pop music he created with Peeping Tom and currently cultivating a career as a film composer while simultaneously launching Crudo (an urban-skewed duo also featuring Dan The Automator) and Mondo Cane (an Italian language, orchestra driven pop standard project), there seems to be no limit to what Patton can do-and while his expansive career trajectory is difficult to express on paper, the brief biography which follows will probably turn obsessive Patton fans onto a few projects they never knew existed.

Born in 1968 in Eureka, California, Patton formed Mr. Bungle when he was 17 (a band he would work with on and off until 1999), which married experimental rock with, well, just about every other musical genre to create a unique brand of rock that's still been impossible to imitate (though many try). From there, Patton joined the aforementioned Faith No More, which despite being best known for crossover hits like "Epic" and "Falling To Pieces" (and their respective music videos), the group also flirted with orchestral pop (i.e., Angel Dust's "A Small Victory") and soul (see their brilliant cover of the Commodores "Easy" recorded around the same time). While with FNM he received worldwide commercial acclaim and recognition.

Mike Patton could stop here and still have a musical legacy that would live on for decades-however in reality those two acts, while highly influential, are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In 1998, Patton formed the experimental noise act Fantômas with former Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, Buzz Osborne of The Melvins and Dave Lombardo from Slayer; a few years later he joined Tomahawk, a very alternative rock band founded by Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, Kevin Rutmanis of The Melvins and John Stanier of Battles, ex-Helmet; and, collaborated with house music and trip hop trailblazers Dan The Automator and Kid Koala in Lovage, who released the still-groundbreaking "Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady" in 2001. In 2007 he supplied the musical score to the short film "A Perfect Place" and is in discussions to continue his interest in film and television scoring.

In addition to all these ongoing-and seemingly disparate projects-Patton has also worked with a diverse roster of some of the most groundbreaking musicians in the world, releasing full-length records via collaborations like Maldoror (with Merzbow), Kaada/Patton, General Patton vs. The X-ecutioners and Fantômas/Melvins Big Band and working with John Zorn, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Björk, Subtle, Rahzel, Amon Tobin, Team Sleep, Massive Attack, Fennesz, Zu, Norah Jones, Tanya Tagaq, the Qemists and Kool Keith, to cite a very small cross-section. He notoriously has maintained a continuous touring cycle playing in front of crowds of all sizes with his various acts and collaborations in all corners of the world. Oh, and instead of, say, catching up on his sleep, in 1999 he founded the record label Ipecac Recordings alongside manager Greg Werckman, which has gone on to release most of Patton's own recordings in addition to releases by The Melvins, Isis, Josh Homme and many others, and has developed a loyal following.

However, like all true Renaissance men, Patton hasn't limited himself to just music. From his first appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1990 to his feature role in the motion picture thriller Firecracker (which was nominated for best film in the Raindance Film Festival) to his voiceover work in the videogames The Darkness, Bionic Commando, Portal, Left 4 Dead, to giving voice to the creatures in the Will Smith film "I Am Legend". Patton has proved that the one constant in his career is that he's willing to try almost anything, constantly challenging himself and those trying to follow his eclectic career.

Whether Patton is shredding his vocal pipes in Fantômas or singing Italian arias at the head of the orchestra pit, Patton always sounds like himself. Sure, his musical trajectory can seem mystifying, nonsensical and even schizophrenic, but ultimately all of these projects add up to create the clearest vision there is of Patton's twisted genius.

Chances are, the best Patton project you've never heard of is lurking below, just waiting to be discovered."

"Marc Ribot (pronounced REE-bow) was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954. As a teen, he played guitar in various garage bands while studying with his mentor, Haitian classical guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus. After moving to New York City in 1978, Ribot was a member of the soul/punk Realtones, and from 1984 - 1989, of John Lurie's Lounge Lizards. Between 1979 and 1985, Ribot also worked as a side musician with Brother Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chuck Berry, and many others.

Rolling Stone points out that "Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985's "Rain Dogs", and since then he's become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp." Additional recording credits include Soloman Burke, Neko Case, Diana Krall, Beth Orton, Marianne Faithful, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Susana Baca, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Passengers, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Cibo Matto, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, James Carter, Vinicio Capposella (Italy), Auktyon (Russia), Vinicius Cantuaria, Sierra Maestra (Cuba), Alain Bashung (France), Marisa Monte, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Sam Phillips, and more recently Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Norah Jones, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, Jeff Bridges, Jolie Holland, Elton John/Leon Russell and many others. Ribot frequently collaborates with producer T Bone Burnett, most notably on Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's Grammy Award winning "Raising Sand" and regularly works with composer John Zorn.

Marc has released over 20 albums under his own name over a 35-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler with his group "Spiritual Unity" (Pi Recordings), to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez with two critically acclaimed releases on Atlantic Records under "Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos". His avant power trio/post-rock band, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog (Pi Recordings), continues the lineage of his earlier experimental no-wave/punk/noise groups Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island Antilles) and Shrek (Tzadik). Marc's solo recordings include "Marc Ribot Plays The Complete Works of Frantz Casseus" (Les Disques Du Crepuscule), "John Zorn's The Book of Heads" (Tzadik), "Don't Blame Me" (DIW), "Saints" (Atlantic), "Exercises in Futility" (Tzadik), and his latest "Silent Movies" released in 2010 on Pi Recordings was described as a "down-in-mouth-near master piece" by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board. 2013 saw the release of "Your Turn" (Northern Spy), the sophomore effort from Ribot's post-rock/noise trio Ceramic Dog, and 2014 saw the monumental release: "Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard" (Pi Recordings), documenting Marc's first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 already included on Best of 2014 lists including Downbeat Magazine and NPR's 50 Favorites.

Marc has performed on scores such as "The Kids Are All Right," "Where the Wild Things Are," "Walk The Line (Mangold)," "Everything is Illuminated," and "The Departed" (Scorcese)." Marc has also composed original scores including the French film Gare du Nord (Simon), the PBS documentary "Revolucion: Cinco Miradas," the film "Drunkboat," starring John Malkovich and John Goodman, a documentary film by Greg Feldman titled "Joe Schmoe," a feature film by director Joe Brewster titled "The Killing Zone", and dance pieces "In as Much as Life is Borrowed", by famed Belgian choreographer, Wim Vandekeybus, and Yoshiko Chuma's "Altogether Different". Marc is also currently touring his live solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid", which was commissioned by the NY Guitar Festival and premiered Jan 2010 at Merkin Hall, as well as a program of new arrangements of classic Film Noir scores commissioned by the New School Noir Arts Festival 2011.

In 2009, Marc was named curator and musical director for the year's Century of Song Festival, part of the Ruhr Triennale in Germany. The concert series sparked new collaborations with Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, master cajón player Juan Medrano Cotito, Carla Bozulich and Tine Kindermann.

Marc's talents have also been showcased with a full symphony orchestra. Composer Stewart Wallace wrote a guitar concerto with orchestra specifically for Marc. The piece was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC in July of 2004 and also appeared at The Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, CA in August of 2005.

Marc is currently touring with several projects including the Marc Ribot Trio, a free jazz group featuring legendary bassist Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor on drums, his power trio Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, the Philly soul meets the harmolodics of Ornette Coleman's The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston, and with Caged Funk, a project of funk arrangements of John Cage's music featuring Bernie Worrell of Parliament Funkadelic fame."

"Kenny Wollesen (born 1966) is an American drummer and percussionist.

Wollesen lives in New York City. He has recorded and toured with Tom Waits, Sean Lennon, Ron Sexsmith, Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, John Lurie, Myra Melford, Steven Bernstein, and John Zorn. He is a founding member of the New Klezmer Trio and a member of the Sex Mob and Himalayas groups. He also performs on the soundtrack to the popular children's show The Backyardigans.

Kenny grew up in Capitola, CA, studying at Aptos HS and spent many teenage years jamming with Donny McCaslin. He spent quality classroom time with flugelhornist and arranger Ray Brown at Cabrillo College. Kenny also arranges and studied vibraphone at Cabrillo."

"John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, arranger, producer, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist with hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, and producer across a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, surf, metal, klezmer, soundtrack, ambient, and improvised music. He incorporates diverse styles in his compositions which he identifies as avant-garde or experimental. Zorn was described by Down Beat as "one of our most important composers".

Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid-1970s performing with musicians across the sonic spectrum and developing experimental methods of composing new music. After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and received wide acclaim with the release of The Big Gundown, an album reworking the compositions of Ennio Morricone. He attracted further attention worldwide with the release of Spillane in 1987, and Naked City in 1989. After spending almost a decade travelling between Japan and the US he made New York his permanent base and established his own record label, Tzadik, in the mid-1990s.

Tzadik enabled Zorn to maintain independence from the mainstream music industry and ensured the continued availability of his growing catalog of recordings, allowing him to prolifically record and release new material, issuing several new albums each year, as well as promoting the work of many other musicians. Zorn has led the hardcore bands Naked City and Painkiller, the klezmer/free jazz-influenced quartet Masada, composed over 600 pieces as part of the Masada Songbooks that have been performed by an array of groups, composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with many other musicians and ensembles that perform his diverse output.

Zorn's compositions cross many genres and he has stated "All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person-the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." For Zorn "Composing is more than just imagining music-it's knowing how to communicate it to musicians. And you don't give an improviser music that's completely written out, or ask a classical musician to improvise. I'm interested in speaking to musicians in their own languages, on their own terms, and in bringing out the best in what they do. To challenge them and excite them." "

"Folklore and futurism, graceful elegance and raw passion, virtuosic precision and spontaneous exploration - all merge together in the music of award-winning vocalist, songwriter and producer Sofia Rei. Redefining authenticity from an intensely personal perspective, Rei has carried diverse Latin American traditions from her native Buenos Aires to the multi-cultural mecca of New York City, where she's fused those sounds with jazz, classical, pop, and electronic music influences to forge a singular and ever-evolving sound.

With a voice that's been hailed for its captivating beauty and versatility by such prestigious publications as the New York Times and DownBeat Magazine, Rei's talents fit comfortably into any number of genres. Her restless curiosity, however, makes her uncomfortable dwelling in any single category for very long. A self-described "frog from another pond," Rei's natural inclination is to leap, an instinct that has taken her on a circuitous route from early classical training and Argentinean folk music through the punk rock nightlife of Buenos Aires, into some of the most prestigious jazz venues in the U.S. and on to a wealth of festival stages around the world.

Along the way she's connected with like-minded innovators including John Zorn, Maria Schneider, Marc Ribot, Bobby McFerrin, Pedrito Martinez, John Medeski, Susana Baca, Guillermo Klein and countless others. Rei also continues to inspire a future generation of adventurous musicians through her educational efforts at such renowned institutions as New York University and Berklee College of Music. She's even shared a sip of mate, the traditional Argentinean tea, with a flirtatious Conan O'Brien from the window of her Greenwich Village apartment on an episode of his TBS talk show.

Rei's latest release, Keter (Tzadik), is a duo outing with frequent collaborator JC Maillard as part of John Zorn's Masada Book 3, the culmination of his 25-year Masada project. With Rei transforming her extraordinary voice through the use of electronics and Maillard playing the SazBass, a hybrid electroacoustic instrument combining elements of the Turkish saz, the Greek bouzouki and the electric guitar, the pairing finds echoes of the ancient in the urgency of the modern.

That tradition-spanning approach is central to Rei's artistic identity. In recent years she's increasingly incorporated looping and electronics into her performances, expanding the potential of the human voice into radical new territories. Her new project Umbral is a breathtakingly imaginative fusion of her broad spectrum of influences, devised during a soul-searching trek through Chile's stunning Elqui Valley. At the same time she continues to delve deeply into the folk musics of a number of South American countries, including Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and, naturally, Argentina. Discovering a profound connection between such musical traditions and the lifeblood of the cultures from which they spring, she's honed a fearless voice that remains deeply rooted while striving continually to stretch new branches into the unexplored.

Sofia started her professional career as a member of the Colon Theater Children's Choir at age 9. In high school she made her first leap, briefly rejecting the strictures of classical composition to bash out punk rock rhythms on a drumset in her parents' basement. She returned to formal training at Buenos Aires' National Conservatory of Music, intending to become an opera singer. While at the Conservatory, Rei found herself dividing her time between performing early music with Renaissance ensembles and premiering new works by contemporary composers - initiating a trend for straddling past and present that would mark her whole career. Her belated exposure to jazz led her to pursue the improvisatory music to Boston's New England Conservatory, where she formed relationships with many of the musicians who would become her closest collaborators, including bassist Jorge Roeder, pianist Leo Genovese, saxophonist Daniel Blake and percussionist Jorge Pérez-Albela. In 2005 Rei moved to New York City and embarked on enriching experiences with Bobby McFerrin and the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

Just as her music has sought inspiration from various corners of the globe, it has also allowed her to traverse the world to share it. Rei has toured Europe, North and South America singing at renowned international festivals and venues, from North America (Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center and the Village Vanguard in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., SFJAZZ in the Bay Area, the Chicago World Music Festival and the Montreal International Jazz Festival), to Central and South America (International Jazz en Lima Festival and International Cajón Festival in Peru, Teatro Sucre in Ecuador, Mexico City's Teatro de la Ciudad, Teatro Jorge Eliecer Gaitán in Colombia, Uruguay's Lapataia Jazz and World Music Festival, World Music Panama and Teatro Colón in Argentina), to Europe (Wien Konzerthaus and Glatt Und Verkehrt in Austria, Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Barbican in London, the Netherlands' North Sea Jazz, Festival Grec in Spain, Teatro Manzoni in Italy, Tom de Festa in Portugal) and beyond (Israel's Beit Avi Chai, the Festival Iberoamericano de las Artes in Puerto Rico).

Having carved a unique pathway through a wide range of styles and traditions, Rei is also dedicated to guiding others not to follow, but to find their own ways forward. After teaching at both NEC and Berklee, she is now a Professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, where she's helping students navigate the confluence of contemporary music, technology and business. She's also helped bring innovative voices to new audiences as producer and co-founder of two events, Berklee's Latin America Vive Music Festival and the NYC South American Music Festival, and as founder of El Colectivo Sur, an arts collective that aims to increase public awareness of South American music throughout the world and bring together diverse communities."