"Oren Bloedow (born July 3, 1965 in New York City) is an American singer, guitarist, and composer. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles.

His father, Jerry Bloedow, b. 1928, is a playwright, poet and film editor, whose theater, the Hardware Poet's Playhouse, was a fixture in the New York avante-garde scene in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Oren's first serious musical affiliations were with Phillip Johnston, Bobby Previte and Wayne Horvitz, all of whom worked with him in Bobby Radcliff's blues band in the 1980s. With Radcliff, Oren backed up Dr. John, Otis Rush and Johnny Copeland, also Paul Butterfield shortly before he died. Another close collaboration was with underground guitarist Ron Anderson, later of San Francisco's The Molecules. In 1985, a friend of Ron's introduced Oren to 101 Crustaceans, whose leader, Ed Pastorini, is Oren's oldest continuing musical associate, and was later a member of Elysian Fields. Oren consistently names Ed Pastorini as his favorite musical artist.

He attended New England Conservatory in 1987Ð88, and on returning, started gigging frequently at the Knitting Factory on Houston St. Previte, Horvitz and Johnston were all playing there, and so were many musicians Oren came to play with, like Samm Bennett, The Jazz Passengers, Marc Ribot, Bosho, Gary Lucas and innumerable others.

It was here in 1990 that Oren met Jennifer, and they began working together soon afterwards. During the nineties, Oren made a couple of solo records for the Knitting Factory label, one featuring Medeski, Martin and Wood, toured and recorded as a member of The Lounge Lizards for whom he played bass, as well as many other groups and projects.

From the nineties to the present, he continues to be a highly in demand player, having toured, recorded, and/or played with Chocolate Genius, Lizz Wright, Meshell Ndegeocello, Martha Wainwright, and Yerba Buena either on bass or guitar. Besides Oren's solo work, and work with Elysian Fields, he also continues his long-term association with Ed Pastorini and 101 Crustaceans.

Another outlet for Oren's music, and one that also features Jennifer Charles, is the 'Sephardic Diaspora' project La Mar Enfortuna, who have played in a variety of prestigious funded-arts environments, including the Jewish Culture Festival in Krak—w, where they performed for 20,000 people.

Career highlights for Oren include being named Artist of the Year by Greil Marcus in 2004, musical directing the Randy Newman tribute at UCLA's Royce Hall for impresario Hal Willner, performing with Lou Reed, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and once with Bruce Springsteen at Carnegie Hall."

"Petra Haden In a restlessly eclectic, wholly unique musical career that spans two and a half decades, Petra Haden has established a singular reputation for creativity and versatility, and a unique niche that's allowed her to apply her multiple talents to a dazzlingly diverse array of music.

As a singer, instrumentalist and composer, Haden has built an impressively varied and accomplished discography encompassing her work as part of the beloved alt-rock quartet That Dog, her collaborations with a broad array of acts, and a series of her own releases, which often showcase her unique talent for constructing complex, evocative a capella arrangements by inventively layering multiple tracks of her own voice.

What Haden's far-flung creative endeavors share in common is a consistent sense of adventure and expression, along with a playful sensibility that gives her projects a consistently uplifting, inventive spirit that marks them as uniquely hers.

As one of the triplet daughters of the late, legendary jazz bassist and composer Charlie Haden, Petra was literally born into a life in music. She first picked up the violin at the age of seven, after being inspired by watching older street musicians playing.

Petra's early fascination with the violin and other instruments led her to develop an uncanny ability to use her voice to recreate the sounds of the instruments she heard, and to develop elaborate pop, jazz, blues and classical arrangements based on those sounds. While she was in high school, her father bought her a four-track recording deck, on which she taught herself to overdub multiple vocal tracks.

Petra first gained widespread notoriety with the '90s quartet That Dog, which also included her sister Rachel, and whose three albums of hook-filled, harmony-laden punk-pop won the band an enthusiastic fan base and considerable press enthusiasm. Petra was still a member of That Dog in 1996, when she released her first solo album, Imaginaryland, which introduced her method of layering her vocals in unexpected and wonderful ways.

After That Dog disbanded, Petra took advantage of her new solo status to apply her talents to a wide variety of musical challenges. Her 2005 album Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out reimagined The Who's 1967 classic through her tour de force a cappella interpretation. The complexity of Petra's massed vocals belied the fact that she constructed the tracks at home while recovering from some serious injuries from an auto accident, recording on an eight track cassette recorder (a Tascam 488) given to her by friend Mike Watt, who's idea this was. He explains, " Why Petra Haden? First of all, I like the way she does music and I was interested in how'd she interpret a work w/such a personal connection between me and D. Boon (I know, that probably sounds insane). Second, I know when she has a real focus and she can really apply herself, especially in those times when she's had some intense things tugging at her. I know D. Boon would've loved the idea too, such a trip for us to see something reinvented that we knew so well but in a genuine way since Petra knew nothing of it before. That's what was in my mind - that Petra would bring an earthiness w/out any preconceptions and make it new for me. I don't know, it was a weird thing to ask of her, like a dare but I knew she was oh so capable."

Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out's admirers included The Who's Pete Townshend, who commented, "I heard the music as if for the first time. I listened all the way through in one sitting, and was struck by how beautiful a lot of the music was. Petra's approach is so tender and generous. I adore it."

Thanks to these and other projects, Petra's skill for vocal harmony and instrumental accompaniment led to her voice and/or violin appearing on albums by the likes of Foo Fighters, Green Day, Beck, The Twilight Singers, Cornelius, Sunn O))), Luscious Jackson, Paul Motian and Victoria Williams. She also spent most of 2005 touring and recording with the Decemberists, and the following year joined the Foo Fighter's on their Skin and Bones tour.

"I layer lots of vocal and violin tracks on practically all projects I do," she notes, Whenever I collaborate with people, I want to put a part of myself into it, and to make it sound unique and different. "I'll Petrafy it!"

While remaining in demand as a singer and musician for hire, Petra has still found time to maintain a prolific output of her own music. She won substantial acclaim for 2005 Petra Haden and Bill Frisell, which matched her vocal inventiveness with the vision of master guitarist Frisell on a set of pop standards ranging from Gershwin to Tom Waits. In 2014, she teamed with sisters Rachel and Tanya to record the widely celebrated The Haden Triplets, produced by Ry Cooder. The three sisters (along with their brother Josh, who leads the band Spain) had previously recorded together on their father's autobiographical 2008 album Rambling Boy.

Haden's 2013 album Petra Goes to the Movies, was a typically ambitious effort that reflects her lifelong fascination with film scoring. On it, she layered her vocals to create personalized reinventions of classic Hollywood film scores ranging from Rebel Without A Cause to Psycho. Petra also put her scoring skills to good use on assignments for various film, TV and commercial soundtracks. In 2010, for instance, she scored a trio of Toyota Prius commercials, composing and recording her own acapella originals for two and creating an inventive acapella version of the Bellamy Brothers' "Let Your Love Flow" for the third.

"I loved going to the movies, watching cartoons and getting lost in the music when I was a kid". Petra says, explaining how soundtrack music has been a touchstone through much of her life. "The music is what kept my attention more than anything. The feeling it gave me is what inspired me to do it on my own." "

"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."

"Eyvindur (Eyvind) Kang (born 23 June 1971 in Corvallis, Oregon, United States) is a composer and violist. He was raised in Canada and the United States, and has since lived and worked in countries ranging from Italy to Iceland.

A recurring theme in his solo work is the "NADE", the meaning of which Kang is not willing to disclose. Referring titles include "Theme from the first NADE", "5th NADE/Invisible Man", "Theme from the sixth NADE" (all three from the debut album 7 NADEs, 1996); "Jewel of the NADE", "Mystic NADE" (both from Theater of Mineral NADEs, 1998) and "Harbour of the NADE" (Virginal Co-ordinates, 2003). His preferred instrument is the viola.

In 2014 Kang visited Vossajazz in western Norway, for a gig with Bill Frisell's trio Beautiful Dreamers, including with drummer Rudy Royston, for the opening concert. During the concert Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen joined in for a tune."

"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."

"Jessica Pavone (composer, viola, violin, el.bass) has performed in countless improvisation, avant jazz, experimental, folk, soul, and chamber ensembles since moving to NYC in 2000. She currently plays with Normal Love, in a duo with guitarist Mary Halvorson, with Anthony Braxton's ensembles and as a solo violist. As a composer, The Wire magazine praised her "ability to transform a naked tonal gesture into something special," and The New York Times described her music as "distinct and beguiling...its core is steely, and its execution clear."

Pavone's recent works for solo viola and voice stem from years of concentrated long tone practice and an interest in repetition, song form, and sympathetic vibration. She combines her long tone rituals with delay, understated melodies and sparse lyrical content while continuously experimenting with new forms. She is interested in the physicality of performing her somewhat larger-than-comfortable instrument and believes that cultivating physical bodies as a strong container for her thoughts is part of the creative process.

As an instrumentalist, she has personally worked with and interpreted new music by; Aaron Seigel, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Elliott Sharp, Glenn Branca, Henry Threadgill, Leo Smith, Jason Ajemian, Jason Cady, Jeremiah Cymerman, John King, Matana Roberts, Matthew Welch, Tristan Perich, Tyondai Braxton and William Parker; and, has played strings in bands such as Christy and Emily, Pure Horsehair, White Blue Yellow and Clouds, Joy Mega, and The Artificials.

Pavone has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, performing in venues ranging from international music festivals, universities, and art galleries, to community centers and basements. Her music has premiered in venues in New York City such as, Roulette, Issue Project Room, and The Kitchen, and at the Klangbad Festival in Sheer, Germany. In 2011 she was featured in NPR's "The Mix: 100 Composers Under 40." She has received grants and commissions from the Aaron Copland Recording Fund, the American Music Center, New Music USA for her collaboration with choreographer, Anna Sperber, The Kitchen, MATA, The Jerome Foundation, The Tri-Centric Foundation, Experiments in Opera, and the chamber music collective, Till By Turning."

"Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, making particular use of language, technology, and visual imagery. She became widely more known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.

Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a talking stick, a six-foot (1.8 m) long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds.

Anderson started dating Lou Reed in 1992, and was married to him from 2008 until his death in 2013."

"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."

"Jessika Kenney is unwinding and nourishing a harbor of voices. As a filter for sphygmoresonances, be they in forms of language or indecipherable metonymics, this functioning as process frequently manifests as: the intersection of melodic science (radifs, cengkok, unstable svaras, pulses) with the aural and textual transmissions of translated concepts... the sphygmological space between breathing bodies, canyons, and the asymmetrical harmonics of tuned metal... the exposure of first intention ontic wounds and corresponding temporal suturing.. as well as collective atemporal eversion between eras, iconicities, and untethered evolutions of cyclic inscriptions. She currently lives on Tataviam land near Los Angeles."

"Julian Lage (born December 25, 1987) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.

A child prodigy, Lage was the subject of the 1997 documentary Jules at Eight. At 13, Lage performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards. At 15, Lage became a faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University. Classically trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Lage has studied at Sonoma State University and the Ali Akbar College of Music. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 2008.

On March 24, 2009 Lage released his debut album Sounding Point on EmArcy Records, to favorable reviews. It was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Lage's second album, titled Gladwell was released April 26, 2011, to positive reviews. On March 2, 2015, Lage released his first solo acoustic album entitled World's Fair. On March 11, 2016, Lage released his fourth album as a leader, entitled Arclight.

As of 2017, Lage's trio features bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Lage also has duo projects with guitarists Chris Eldridge and Nels Cline."

"Greg Saunier is a musician, producer, and composer best known as the drummer of Deerhoof. Rolling Stone included Saunier alongside Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) and Zach Hill (Hella) as together composing "a generation of trailblazing 21st-century avant-rock percussionists".

Saunier graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1991. The next year, he joined a four-piece band, Nitre Pit, in San Francisco as its drummer. When the band's two guitarists left, Saunier and Nitre Pit's bassist, Rob Fisk, reformed as an "elastic, hyper-expressive" band to fulfill Nitre Pit's extant scheduled shows, which later became Deerhoof when Slim Moon of Kill Rock Stars signed the group in 1995. Saunier moved to New York with two suitcases and has said that he does not own many possessions. As a drummer, he says, things he touches tend to break.

Saunier uses a minimal drum kit, with a kick drum, snare drum, and a cymbal, inspired in part by the kit and play style of Questlove (The Roots). In 2008, Saunier said that he rarely practices, mainly for lack of time. When he writes songs, he usually considers the drum part last and is more concerned about the components of rest of the song and its technical elements. His interest and judgement in the latter came from his experience starting Deerhoof without producers, a record label, or much outside help.

Outside of Deerhoof, Saunier's bands include Mystical Weapons (a duo with Sean Lennon) and a collaboration with Brian Chippendale, about which a documentary, Checking in at 20, was produced. He also formed Nervous Cop with drummer Zach Hill and harpist Joanna Newsom, and bands with members of Erase Errata and Rainer Maria, soundtracked a film by Martha Colburn, and collaborated with Xiu Xiu. Saunier has produced albums including Xiu Xiu's The Air Force and Always, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog's Your Turn, Sholi's self-titled album and People Get Ready's Physiques, remixed tracks for Shy Hunters and WOOM, and appeared on albums including Zach Hill's Face Tat. In 2016, Saunier collaborated with American Brazilian composer Marcos Balter, in which they wrote songs for Deerhoof and Ensemble Dal Niente."