"Evan Parker was born in Bristol in 1944 and began to play the saxophone at the age of 14. Initially he played alto and was an admirer of Paul Desmond; by 1960 he had switched to tenor and soprano, following the example of John Coltrane, a major influence who, he would later say, determined "my choice of everything". In 1962 he went to Birmingham University to study botany but a trip to New York, where he heard the Cecil Taylor trio (with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray), prompted a change of mind. What he heard was "music of a strength and intensity to mark me for life ... l came back with my academic ambitions in tatters and a desperate dream of a life playing that kind of music - 'free jazz' they called it then."

Parker stayed in Birmingham for a time, often playing with pianist Howard Riley. In 1966 he moved to London, became a frequent visitor to the Little Theatre Club, centre of the city's emerging free jazz scene, and was soon invited by drummer John Stevens to join the innovative Spontaneous Music Ensemble which was experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation. Parker's first issued recording was SME's 1968 Karyobin, with a line-up of Parker, Stevens, Derek Bailey, Dave Holland and Kenny Wheeler. Parker remained in SME through various fluctuating line-ups - at one point it comprised a duo of Stevens and himself - but the late 1960s also saw him involved in a number of other fruitful associations.

He began a long-standing partnership with guitarist Bailey, with whom he formed the Music Improvisation Company and, in 1970, co-founded Incus Records. (Tony Oxley, in whose sextet Parker was then playing, was a third co-founder; Parker left Incus in the mid-1980s.) Another important connection was with the bassist Peter Kowald who introduced Parker to the German free jazz scene. This led to him playing on Peter Brötzmann's 1968 Machine Gun, Manfred Schoof's 1969 European Echoes and, in 1970, joining pianist Alex von Schlippenbach and percussionist Paul Lovens in the former's trio, of which he is still a member: their recordings include Pakistani Pomade, Three Nails Left, Detto Fra Di Noi, Elf Bagatellen and Physics.

Parker pursued other European links, too, playing in the Pierre Favre Quartet (with Kowald and Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer) and in the Dutch Instant Composers Pool of Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink. The different approaches to free jazz he encountered proved both a challenging and a rewarding experience. He later recalled that the German musicians favoured a "robust, energy-based thing, not to do with delicacy or detailed listening but to do with a kind of spirit-raising, a shamanistic intensity. And l had to find a way of surviving in the heat of that atmosphere ... But after a while those contexts became more interchangeable and more people were involved in the interactions, so all kinds of hybrid musics came out, all kinds of combinations of styles."

A vital catalyst for these interactions were the large ensembles in which Parker participated in the 1970s: Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) and occasional big bands led by Kenny Wheeler. In the late 70s Parker also worked for a time in Wheeler's small group, recording Around Six and, in 1980, he formed his own trio with Guy and LJCO percussionist Paul Lytton (with whom he had already been working in a duo for nearly a decade). This group, together with the Schlippenbach trio, remains one of Parker's top musical priorities: their recordings include Tracks, Atlanta, Imaginary Values, Breaths and Heartbeats, The Redwood Sessions and At the Vortex. In 1980, Parker directed an Improvisers Symposium in Pisa and, in 1981, he organised a special project at London's Actual Festival. By the end of the 1980s he had played in most European countries and had made various tours to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. ln 1990, following the death of Chris McGregor, he was instrumental in organising various tributes to the pianist and his fellow Blue Notes; these included two discs by the Dedication Orchestra, Spirits Rejoice and lxesa.

Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker's use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as "the illusion of polyphony". Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time. Parker's first solo recordings, made in 1974, were reissued on the Saxophone Solos CD in 1995; more recent examples are Conic Sections and Process and Reality, on the latter of which he does, for the first time, experiment with multi-tracking. Heard alone on stage, few would disagree with writer Steve Lake that "There is, still, nothing else in music - jazz or otherwise - that remotely resembles an Evan Parker solo concert."

While free improvisation has been Parker's main area of activity over the last three decades, he has also found time for other musical pursuits: he has played in 'popular' contexts with Annette Peacock, Scott Walker and the Charlie Watts big band; he has performed notated pieces by Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Frederic Rzewski; he has written knowledgeably about various ethnic musics in Resonance magazine. A relatively new field of interest for Parker is improvising with live electronics, a dialogue he first documented on the 1990 Hall of Mirrors CD with Walter Prati. Later experiments with electronics in the context of larger ensembles have included the Synergetics - Phonomanie III project at Ullrichsberg in 1993 and concerts by the new EP2 (Evan Parker Electronic Project) in Berlin, Nancy and at the 1995 Stockholm Electronic Music Festival where Parker's regular trio improvised with real-time electronics processed by Prati, Marco Vecchi and Phillip Wachsmann. "Each of the acoustic instrumentalists has an electronic 'shadow' who tracks him and feeds a modified version of his output back to the real-time flow of the music."

The late 80s and 90s brought Parker the chance to play with some of his early heroes. He worked with Cecil Taylor in small and large groups, played with Coltrane percussionist Rashied Ali, recorded with Paul Bley: he also played a solo set as support to Ornette Coleman when Skies of America received its UK premiere in 1988. The same period found Parker renewing his acquaintance with American colleagues such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy and George Lewis, with all of whom he had played in the 1970s (often in the context of London's Company festivals). His 1993 duo concert with Braxton moved John Fordham in The Guardian to raptures over "saxophone improvisation of an intensity, virtuosity, drama and balance to tax the memory for comparison".

Parker's 50th birthday in 1994 brought celebratory concerts in several cities, including London, New York and Chicago. The London performance, featuring the Parker and Schlippenbach trios, was issued on a highly-acclaimed two-CD set, while participants at the American concerts included various old friends as well as more recent collaborators in Borah Bergman and Joe Lovano. The NYC radio station WKCR marked the occasion by playing five days of Parker recordings. 1994 also saw the publication of the Evan Parker Discography, compiled by ltalian writer Francesco Martinelli, plus chapters on Parker in books on contemporary musics by John Corbett and Graham Lock.

Parker's future plans involve exploring further possibilities in electronics and the development of his solo music. They also depend to a large degree on continuity of the trios, of the large ensembles, of his more occasional yet still long-standing associations with that pool of musicians to whose work he remains attracted. This attraction, he explained to Coda's Laurence Svirchev, is attributable to "the personal quality of an individual voice". The players to whom he is drawn "have a language which is coherent, that is, you know who the participants are. At the same time, their language is flexible enough that they can make sense of playing with each other ... l like people who can do that, who have an intensity of purpose." "

"Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. In 2014 she led a three-week music residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and in 2016 led a one-week residency at the Conservatory Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years."

"Gino Robair has created music for dance, theater, radio, television, silent film, and gamelan orchestra, and his works have been performed throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. He was composer in residence with the California Shakespeare Festival for five seasons and served as music director for the CBS animated series The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat. His commercial work includes themes for the MTV and Comedy Central cable networks.

Robair is also one of the "25 innovative percussionists" included in the book Percussion Profiles (SoundWorld, 2001). He has recorded with Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, John Butcher, Derek Bailey, Peter Kowald, Otomo Yoshihide, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, and Eugene Chadbourne, among many others. In addition, Robair has performed with John Zorn, Nina Hagen, Fred Frith, Eddie Prevost, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, and the Club Foot Orchestra.

Robair is a founding member of the Splatter Trio and the heavy-metal band, Pink Mountain. In addition, he runs Rastascan Records, a label devoted to creative music.

As a writer about music technology, Robair has contributed to Mix, Remix, Guitar Player, and Electronic Musician (EM) magazine, where he was an editor for 10 years. He is the author of two books, including The Ultimate Personal Recording Studio (Thompson; 2006)."

"Atzi Muramatsu is a Japanese composer and cellist living in Edinburgh. He studied contemporary composition with Professor Nigel Osborne at the University of Edinburgh, and attained MMus Composition in 2012. His works encompass music for concerts, contemporary dance, poetry, painting, and films. His music features in three BAFTA winning films, one of which won BAFTA Scotland Best Composer New Talent Award in 2016. He is a member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and leads contemporary string quartet Lipsync for a Lullaby.

His field of work extends to sound design, audio recording/post-production and community music with acute knowledge of the industry having worked as Events Manager at Tentracks Music Subscription Ltd., supporting widening access initiatives as Transitions 20/40 Administrator at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and coordinating innovative education programmes as SCO Connect Officer at the Scottish Chamber Orchestra."

Rick Bamford started being pro-active in music making for people with disabilities in 1990 and pioneered many creative UK projects while developing solutions for individual musicians. He is also a professional drummer and percussion player, with many years of performance and music education experience. Rick also has a wide range of studio based knowledge, from the scanning of eye movement to trigger MIDI messages to digital recording, mixing and production, and has designed Drake Music Scotland's new recording studio which launched in spring 2010."

Chris Barclay is a saxophonist, known as a member of The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

"Sarah Gail Brand: trombonist composer arranger tutor workshop leader. Born in London, 1971.

Described by The Wire magazine as the most exciting trombone player for years, Sarah Gail Brand has recorded and performed on the international Jazz and Improvised Music since the early 1990s with Mark Sanders, John Edwards, Martin Hathaway, Billy Jenkins, Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Phil Minton, Lol Coxhill, Alexander Hawkins, Maggie Nicols, Rachel Musson, Wadada Leo Smith, Jason Yarde, Steve Beresford and countless others. She appears in Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, series 1 & 2 (BBC TV) and with Stewart in the 2014 documentary film Taking the Dog for a Walk.

Current ongoing performing projects include:

Brand/Sanders duo with Mark Sanders (drums);

Deep Trouble Trio with Paul Rogers (7 string double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums);

Brand/Beresford/Edwards/Sanders (Steve Beresford- electronics, piano,John Edwards- double bass) This ensemble also works as a quartet with Mark Sanders (drums)

SGB Sextet: SGB (trombone), Nicholas Malcolm (trumpet), Martin Hathaway (reeds), Liam Noble (piano), Dave Whitford (double bass) Mark Sanders (drums)

Rosenblatt with Sam Eastmond: SGB (trombone), Hannah Marshall (cello), Mick Foster (bass clarinet), Moss Freed (guitar), Mark Lewandowski (double bass), Will Glaser (drums).

Sarah's composing credits include an original score for the Charlie Chaplin classic Easy Street, premiered at the Barbican Cinema, London in 2013; incidental music for the 2014 short Low Down Alley Blues; We Should Consider The Possibility- Piece for Improvising Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra, premiered by the Guildhall Improvised Music Ensemble and the Southbank Sinfonia in 2014.

Sarah was a guest presenter on Jazz on 3 (BBC Radio 3) 2009-2016, is a professor of Improvisation at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, and a qualified Music Therapist.

Sarah is currently studying for her PhD in Improvised Music at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent."

"Stuart Brown is a full time drummer, band leader, producer, composer and drum teacher based in Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. He endorses Roland Electronic Percussion products.

After studying Electronics with Music (BEng, 1st class honours) at Glasgow University Stuart went on to attend Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA on scholarship, where his private teachers included Kenwood Dennard (Sting, Miles Davis) and Ian Froman (Mike Stern). He has also taken lessons with Ralph Peterson, Ari Hoenig, Clarence Penn, Ed Uribe, Stanton Moore, Steve White, Mark Guiliana and more.

Since leaving Berklee Stuart has gone on to be one of the most in demand drummers in Scotland and has built a strong and diverse musical performance career that encompasses jazz, rock, latin, folk, electronic music, free improv and much more. He is also an established bandleader and composer, writing for his own groups and also creating music for film and advertising.

As a drummer he has toured internationally around Europe, USA, India, Brazil and New Zealand and has worked with many national and international artists including Craig Armstrong (film composer for Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, etc), Niki Haris (Maddona's backing singer), David Byrne of Talking Heads (for the Young Adam film sound track), Tom Jones, Horse, Barbara Morrison, Rab Noakes, Darius Campbell, Dave Gordon (SunRa Arkestra) Evan Parker, Fred Frith, George Lewis, John Hollenbeck and the unique Orquestra Scotland Brazil project (a British council funded project featuring 16 Scottish and Brazilian musicians).



His own critically acclaimed group, Stu Brown's Twisted Toons (which performs live cartoon scores by Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley and Raymond Scott) has released two albums, which were featured in Mojo Magazines Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2009 and 2016 and in The Times Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2016.

Other current groups and artists that he works with include: Electronic duo Herschel 36, Jill Jackson, Sugarwork, Simon Thacker's Ritmata, Mario Caribé's Boteco Trio, Niki King, Brian Molley Quartet, Glasgow Imrovisers Orchestra, Martin Kershaw's "Hero as a Riddle", Chick Lyall Quintet, Paul Harrison Trio, Carrie Fertig's Glass Percussion project and Drawn to Water. He also co-runs the Jazz at The 78 weekly jazz session with Euan Burton (bass) and Tom Gibbs (piano) which has helped revitalize the jazz community in Glasgow since 2007 by bringing together established and emerging players.

As a composer he has been commissioned to create several works, including a 2010 collaborative work with American drummer John Hollenbeck for Edinburgh Jazz Festival and a 2016 Hippfest commission to create a new live score for the 1926 German silent film, Wunder Der Schöpfung. This was performed by his electronic duo, Herschel 36 and went on to tour Scotland and England in 2016 to critical acclaim. Working as part of Toad's Caravan motion graphics studio, Stuart has also created music and sound for commercial clients include Citizen's Theatre, Starcatchers, Kuoni Travel, Mary's Meals, and more.

As a drum teacher and educator, Stuart works part time for Glasgow schools, is the resident drum tutor on both the Napier University and Glasgow Jazz Summer Schools does regular teaching sessions at DD Drums in Falkirk. He also has a number of private drum students and does additional freelance workshops in Samba drumming, electronic music, animation and more. In addition, he has also presented drum masterclasses in jazz and Brazilian drum kit including appearances at The Scottish Drum Fair 2013 and Sage Jazz Festival 2010."

"George Burt is a guitarist and composer based in Falkirk. Early experience includes playing in folk groups, ceilidh bands, pit bands, and mainstream and Trad jazz groups. He has devised a number of works for GIO including Improcherto (for HB) which GIO performed at the 2011 Gateshead Jazz Festival.

He ran a series of improvisation workshops in the 90s, and this eventually led to the formation of the George Burt/Raymond MacDonald Quartet (BMacD). The group was described by the Penguin Guide to Jazz as the leading partnership on the modern/free scene in Scotland, making impressive international associations. These included Harry Beckett, Keith Tippett and Lol Coxhill. The group's crowning achievement is a pair of concept albums celebrating the lives of the Victorian traveller Isabella Bird and her sister Henrietta. He has been lucky enough to perform with a number of his favourite musicians; Barry Guy, Julie Tippetts and Mat Maneri, as well as his two favourite guitarists, Susan Alcorn and Bill Wells."

"Cliona Cassidy is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music and has studied with Jennifer Hamilton in Dublin, Amelia Felle in Italy and Caroline Crawshaw in the UK.

Operatic roles performed include the title roles in Beatrice di Tenda (Opera South), Alcina (Opera in the Open) and Lucia di Lammermoor (Wilmslow Opera), Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore (Laboratorio Lirico Internazionale, Belvedere Langhe), Pamina in The Magic Flute (Opera by Definition), Irene in Tamerlano (RNCM), Dorabella (Teatro Mancinelli) and Despina in Cosi' fan Tutte (Opera in the Open), Serafina in il Campanello di Notte (Anna Livia International Opera Festival), Rosina in The Barber of Seville (Laboratorio Lirico Internazionale, Belvedere Langhe), Gretel in Hansel and Gretel (Opera in the Open), Sesto in Giulio Cesare (Opera in the Open) and Daphne in Apollo and Daphne (5 Lamps Festival Opera).

For Scottish Opera she has covered the roles of Jano (Jenufa), Aunt (Madama Butterfly) and First Bridesmaid (Le nozze di Figaro).

Oratorio work includes Orff's Carmina Burana, Mozart Mass in C minor, Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Haydn's Nelson Mass and Creation,and Brahms' Requiem. She has worked as a chorister for Opera Ireland and currently sings regularly in the chorus of Scottish Opera.

Cliona has performed Judith Wier's orchestral song-cycle Natural History with the RNCMSO, introduced by the composer, and again with Derby Concert Orchestra, and performed the role of Anna/Speaker in James MacMillan's Parthenogenesis, which was recorded live for BBC Radio 3 and the South Bank Show.

Cliona was a finalist in the City of Bologna Baroque Opera competition 2009, the Ritorna Vincitor international opera competition 2010 in italy and was a member of the Artist's Panel for Dublin City Council from 2011-2014."

Ernesto Coro is a saxophonist known for his work with Pedro Menchaca and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

Neil Davidson is a UK guitarist and improviser, known for the groups Age Of Wire And String, Aporias Trio, Dvell, Muris, Muris With Lumps, The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and With Lumps. He has performed with other improvisers including Arild Vange, Frode Eggen, Fritz Welch, Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues, Hernani Faustino, George Lewis, Nick Fells, Aileen Campbell, Una MacGlone, Tatsuya Nakatani, Raymond MacDonald, Peter Nicholson, Rhodri Davies, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Jane Dickson, Patrick Farmer, Nicole McNeilly, and Michael Shearer.

Robert Henderson: Trumpeter, Glasgow:

"I am an experienced musician, a fluent improviser, up for a challenge. I have some experience in acting. I have played in many different musical situations, recording sessions and gigs through my career. While my background is jazz, in recent years I have been involved in more pop and commercial sessions and gigs with the likes of Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, Belle and Sebastian. I have also been involved in acting and playing with a fantastic Scottish artpop group A Band Called Quinn- Whose Company Tromolo Productions , are the most innovative and creative thing going on in Theater/Music anywhere."

"Adam Linson (born 1975 in Los Angeles) is active internationally as a double bassist, improvisor, and composer, who performs acoustically and with live electronics, solo and in a wide variety of ensembles. He can be heard on several critically acclaimed albums, which also feature the real-time interactive computer music systems that he designs and develops. He is also a scholar whose interdisciplinary research on improvisation uniquely combines the arts, humanities, sciences, and technology. His publications focus on perception, cognition, and interaction, and span a range of topics in philosophy, cognitive science, music psychology, and artificial intelligence/robotics.

He recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, conducting interdisciplinary research on the common cognitive basis of improvisation across domains. In 2014-15, he was a Research Associate at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Music, where he was formerly a CMPCP Visiting Fellow. He completed his PhD (Open University, UK) using artificial intelligence and robotics to investigate cognition in collaborative improvisation, funded by the Centre for Research in Computing. He has a Master of Fine Arts in Music/Sound (Bard College), and a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego, where he also studied composed and improvised music under George Lewis and classical double bass under Bertram Turetzky. His extensive experience as a software engineer and GNU/Linux specialist ranges from large-scale distributed architectures to embedded systems.

Linson's sustained involvement with interactive computer music is documented on albums with the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble in 2004 (ECM); solo double bass and electronics in 2006 (psi); a 2007 duet with Lawrence Casserley, released in 2009 (psi); the John Butcher Group in 2008 (WoW); and a January 2008 recording, released in 2011 (psi), with Axel Dörner, Paul Lytton, and Rudi Mahall, collectively known as Systems Quartet. In February 2012, the premier performance of his piece Looms (for improvisors and 16-channel spherical diffusion) was given with Evan Parker on soprano saxophone and Linson on double bass, at the Electric Spring festival in Huddersfield (UK).

Notable acoustic guest performances include concerts in Paris and Brussels as part of the Evan Parker Trio with Paul Lytton, and in Berlin with the Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio featuring Parker and Paul Lovens. In addition to collaborations with numerous improvisors in groups of various sizes, he has performed in duets with Richard Barrett, Tom Blancarte, Lawrence Casserley, Peter Evans, Owen Green, Aleks Kolkowski, Okkyung Lee, Rudi Mahall, Jon Rose, John Russell, Joel Ryan, and Nate Wooley.

From 1999-2009 he was based in Berlin, Germany, where he began many continuing musical collaborations with distinguished improvisors. In 2004 and 2008, he was an artist-in-residence at the Studio voor Elektro-Instrumentale Muziek (STEIM), Amsterdam. His compositions for chamber ensembles and contemporary dance productions have been performed in Europe and North America, and his performances and recordings have been broadcast on US and international radio, including BBC Radio 3 (UK) and SWR (Germany).

Selected past festival performances include the Glasgow Jazz Festival (2015), with Evan Parker & the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra; GIOfest VII, Glasgow (2014), with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, the London Jazz Festival (2013) with John Russell's Quaqua Ensemble; Banlieues Bleues, Paris (2012) in a sextet with Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Mark Nauseef, Matt Wright, and Toma Gouband; Freedom of the City, London (2011) in a duet with Lawrence Casserley, an octet with Evan Parker, and with the London Improvisors Orchestra; the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) with the LFO Orchestra (2010), the John Butcher Group (2008), and solo double bass and electronics (2006); the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada, 2010) on solo double bass and electronics; the London Jazz Festival (2009) with Lawrence Casserley; the Total Music Meeting in Berlin (2008) in a quartet with Evan Parker, Peter Evans, and Richard Barrett, and a quintet with Fred van Hove, John Edwards, Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Tomek Choloniewski; and the MusikTriennale in Cologne (2007), with the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.

Linson is currently based in the UK."

"Raymond MacDonald co-leads The Burt/MacDonald Quartet and is a founder member and key player in The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. He also performs with The Scottish Jazz Composers Ensemble and the saxophone quartet Rich in Knuckles. He has recently collaborated Lol Coxhill, Keith Tippett, Harry Beckett, Evan Parker, Gunter Baby Sommer, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe, George Lewis, Maggie Nicols, Satoko Fujii, Ken Hyder, Natsuki Tamura, Steve Beresford, Mike Zerang, and Fred Longberg-holm.

Other work includes composing and performing for film, television, theatre and collaborations with visual artists, including commissioned work for Martin Boyce, Simon Starling and Christine Borland. He collaborated with David Byrne on David McKenzie's film Young Adam.

In December 2005 he made a solo tour of Japan and in July 2006 performed with Josh Abrams and Miguel Carvalhais at The Glasgow International Jazz festival."

Jim McEwan is a pianist and keyboardist, known for his work with London Improvisers Orchestra, The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and Bonnie Gene.

"Catriona McKay is Scottish harpist and composer. She is a contemporary explorer on the Scottish harp (Clàrsach), having collaborated with folk and experimental musicians, as well as co-designing the Starfish McKay harp.

She is a member of the band Fiddlers' Bid and the Chris Stout Quintet."

As an improviser she has worked with The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Ferlie Leed, and Stu Brown / Jer Reid / Catriona McKay

"Sue McKenzie is a D'Addario Woodwinds Artist and a Claude Lakey Endorsee. She was the Assistant Director of the 16th World Saxophone Congress, 2012 and as one of Scotland's leading contemporary saxophonists she has given UK and Scottish premieres of many new works. She is one half of the McKenzie Sawers Duo who recently released their first CD, "The Coral Sea", with Delphian Records.

Sue is also the leader and founder of the Scottish Saxophone Ensemble who were part of the Made in Scotland Music Showcase, 2013 and the Director of the Scottish Saxophone Academy. She regularly performs with Salsa Celtica and the Glasgow Improvisor's Orchestra and recently performed with her own band, "Dark Grooves" at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival 2013. She was chosen as part of Serious Music's talent development programme, Air Time, in 2014. Sue also plays in Syntonic with bass player Emma Smith and runs Bitches Brew which promotes female improvising talent."

Trombonist Nicole McNeilly is originally from Northern Ireland, she studied music in Glasgow and completed an MA in Cultural Policy in London. The trombone is her love, playing jazz, contemporary classical and free improvisation. She is a member of Glasgow Improviser's Orchestra.

Dr Nikki Moran: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Open University. Measuring Musical Meaning: analysing communication in embodied musical behaviour Master of Music, University of Cambridge. Interaction in and as North Indian classical music. Bachelor of Music, City University London.

"I joined Music at Edinburgh in September 2007 after postgraduate research at Open University and University of Cambridge, and a teaching post at the University of East London. During my BMus degree at City University, London, I studied classical viola performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and took weekly classes in North Indian classical music performance with Prof. Gerry Farrell. I subsequently studied as a sitar student of Pandit Arvind Parikh in Mumbai, India. From 2002 to 2007, I busked regularly and led workshops in North Indian music for schools and community music projects. I enjoy everyday music making with local ensembles and friends. I play viola regularly with ensembles in Edinburgh and Glasgow including Edimpro, Grey Area and GIO (Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra), and occasional concerts with ensembles including Orchestra of the Canongait.

My teaching and research reflect my fascination with the relationship between musical performance and everyday social interaction. I specialise in the study of musiciansÕ communicative behaviour and have published theoretical and original empirical research in this area. My work combines fieldwork and ethnography, with controlled experimental design.

I led the development of Music's new 4-year undergraduate programme, Music - MA (Hons), and teach on various core and elective undergraduate courses. I supervise a number of PhD students. I am is currently Music's Postgraduate Research director. I am a scientific committee member of the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development (IMHSD), and a Visiting Researcher at Durham University for the AHRC-funded Interpersonal Entrainment In Musical Performance Project (2016-18)."

"Born and based in Derby, Corey Mwamba's commitment to jazz and improvised music in Britain and Ireland drives all aspects of his work, whether through composition, playing, or promoting new music. Corey predominantly plays vibraphone; he also plays dulcimer and uses audio processing software. He is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music. Mwamba's distinctive approach and tone is instantly recognisable in any context: a potent blend of pure sound, highly melodic phrases and ethereal textures; barely whispered chords and ear-piercing robotic screams. Corey won a PRSF/Jerwood Foundation Take Five artist development award in 2007; was short-listed for the Innovation category in the BBC Jazz Awards in 2008; and was nominated for "Rising Star on Vibraphone" in the 62nd, 63rd, and 64th DownBeat Annual Critics' Polls.

Mwamba's main group is the critically acclaimed Yana with Dave Kane (bass) and Joshua Blackmore (drums). This group exemplifies a core ideal of creating an "open, living music"; listening and responding spontaneously as a unit to make music that has love, language and a groove. Their first studio release don't overthink it was hailed as "engaging and evocative" (All About Jazz) and described as "the sound of three minds working together in a utopian zone, way beyond the individual ego - and producing something quite beautiful in the process" (Jazzwise). Dave and Corey are also in an improvising sextet called The Spirit Farm, formed out of research by pianist Adam Fairhall. Mwamba and Fairhall also form a trio with drummer Johnny Hunter called Backyard Chassis.

He is a member of the Anglo-French quartet Sonsale with bassist Andy Champion, drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq and cellist Valentin Ceccaldi. Corey also works with Andy in an improvising trio with saxophonist Ntshuks Bonga. He plays in duos with saxophonist Rachel Musson; pianist Robert Mitchell; percussionists Martin Pyne and Walt Shaw; and the multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson. [...]

Mwamba was granted an AHRC studentship for a Master of Research degree in Music at Keele University, for which he was awarded a distinction in 2014. Through this research, he developed new dark art, which is a notational and theoretical music system that takes early European medieval music practice as a starting point to create modern music. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in Jazz Studies at Birmingham City University on a Midlands3Cities/AHRC studentship."

"Peter Nicholson is a UK cellist, known for the groups Age Of Wire And String, London Improvisers Orchestra, The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, The One Ensemble, The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden, and The One Ensemble Orchestra. He is Senior Musician and Director of Music at Scotland's Sistema Scotland team since 2009. Nicholson is a graduate of the University of York and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). He has extensive experience as a teacher and workshop leader in local authority, higher education and third sector contexts. As a freelance cellist, he has worked with a range of professional symphony orchestras and ensembles alongside establishing a reputation for working across genres and styles as a composer and performer. Peter is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and The One Ensemble."

"Maggie Nicols (or Nichols, as she originally spelled her name as a performer) (born 24 February 1948), is a Scottish free-jazz and improvising vocalist, dancer, and performer.

Nicols was born in Edinburgh as Margaret Nicholson. Her father was from the Isle of Lewis, and her mother is half-French, half-Berber from North Africa. At the age of fifteen she left school and started to work as a dancer at the Windmill Theatre. Her first singing engagement was in a strip club in Manchester at the age of sixteen. At about that time she became obsessed with jazz, and sang with bebop pianist Dennis Rose. From then on she sang in pubs, clubs, hotels, and in dance bands with some of the finest jazz musicians around. In the midst of all this she worked abroad for a year as a dancer (including a six-month stint at the Moulin Rouge in Paris).[citation needed]

In 1968, she went to London and joined (as Maggie Nichols) an early improvisational group, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, with John Stevens, Trevor Watts, and Johnny Dyani, and the group performed that year at Berlin's then new avant-garde festival, Total Music Meeting. In the early 1970s she began running voice workshops at the Oval House Theatre (one of the most important centres for pioneer fringe theatre groups). She both acted in some of the productions and rehearsed regularly with a local rock band. Shortly afterwards she became part of Keith Tippett's fifty-piece British jazz/progressive rock big band Centipede, which included Julie Tippetts, Phil Minton, Robert Wyatt, Dudu Pukwana, and Alan Skidmore. Tippetts, Minton, and Nicols also joined Brian Eley to form the vocal group Voice. Around the same time Nicols began collaborating with the Scottish percussionist Ken Hyder (who had recently moved to London) and his band Talisker.[citation needed]

Maggie Nicols recorded an album with the vocalist Julie Tippetts called Sweet and S'Ours which was an FMP]] import.

By the late 1970s, Nicols had become an active feminist, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group, which performed across Europe, with Lindsay Cooper. She also organised Contradictions, a women's workshop performance group that began in 1980 and dealt with improvisation and other modes of performance in a variety of media including music and dance. Over the years, Nicols has collaborated with other women's groups, such as the Changing Women Theatre Group, and even wrote music for a prime-time television series, Women in Sport.

Nicols has also collaborated regularly over the years with Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer and French bassist Joelle Leandre, including tours and three recordings as the trio "Les Diaboliques". Her collaboration with Ken Hyder also continues; the duo incorporate elements of the traditional tunes of their shared Scottish background into jazz improvisations in their most recent project, Hoots and Roots Duo. She has worked with pianists Pete Nu and Steve Lodder, with her own daughter, Aura Marina, with avant-gardists Caroline Kraabel and Charlotte Hug, and with lighting designer Sue Neal in Light and Shade. She performed internationally for several decades, including the Zürich and the Frankfurt "Canaille" festivals, the Victoriaville Festival. She gave solo performances at the Moers Music Festival, the Cologne Triennale, and a number of other creative and improvised music festivals."

"Emma Roche began studying flute at the Cork School of Music. She moved to Glasgow to study with David Nicholson at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she was the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the John McGregor Flute Prize, the Governors' Woodwind Recital Prize and the Mary D. Adams Chamber Prize. Emma has had solo recitals broadcast on RTE Lyric FM and BBC Radio 3. She performs regularly around Scotland and in Ireland with the Gliouder Ensemble and is also a member of the Glasgow Improvisers' Orchestra. She also teaches flute at Stewarton Academy, St George's School for Girls and Fettes College."

"After graduating from the University of Glasgow, Gerry worked extensively throughout Europe andNorth Americain both music/creative arts practical and commercial environments and has written and arranged music for film, television and radio.

A founding member of the Scottish Artists in Residence Project and a strong supporter of Community Music, he is Chairperson of the music charity Limelight and holds the Musical Director posts for the Strathclyde University Big Band, The Strathclyde Improvisation Ensemble and the Scottish Composers Jazz Ensemble. He is also General Manager of the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra Trust.

A Committee Member with the Parliamentary Cross Party Music Group, Gerry is also Universities' Representative, Scottish Music Policy Forum."

"Liene Rozite is a closet choir enthusiast who mostly performs collaboratively with Ash Reid, Asparagus Piss Raindrop, The Lucy Julia Liene trio, Yoke of Blood, Muris and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. Previous performances have included conversations about women, labour, performativity and subjecthood with Ash Reid as part of the Space-time: The Multiverse at the Annual Music Festival at Wysing Arts Centre, an Infestation of Transmission Art Gallery with Asparagus Piss Raindrop and an on-stage skill-swap session with the trio formerly known as LL Cool J. Favourite improv locations include Penmarch, St Boswells, La Crosse Terrace and the Old Hairdressers. Special skills include some composition, anti-flute, roller skating, and in depth analysis of reality tv. Current frustrations range from cis men in improvised music to structural inequalities."

Armin Sturm is a bassist and composer, a member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

"Graeme Wilson is a saxophonist & composer based in Newcastle in the north of England. His previous years on the jazz scene in Glasgow included work with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Bill Wells Octet and The Delgados. As a composer he has produced scores for large and small ensembles, particularly written work for saxophone quartet. He has been a leading member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra in their recordings, international performances and collaborations with, among others, Fred Frith, Evan Parker and Barry Guy, and has contributed improvised interactions and soundtracks for artists' video work including Gair Dunlop and Dan Norton's interactive archive film site The Tomorrows Project at the Commonwealth Film Festival, and Cath Keay's Silkmoths. Recent work includes a textual score performed by GIO and Gunther Sommer's Dresden ensemble, a commission for saxophone ensemble for An Tobar Arts Centre on Mull, and improvisations responding to oral history from archives in the North-East at Culture Lab in Newcastle."

Jer Reid - guitar:

"I'm not sure what the function of biographies are but I read them myself so here is some information ...

Jer Reid (is doing that weird thing of writing in the third person). A list of musical things is not the most important but: Jer Reid has been doing music things for quite a while. Recently he's been playing quite a bit with dance - both written and improvised. Including: 'From Home' with Annie Lok, 'Found' with Christine Devaney, Michael Sherin and Luke Sutherland, 'Instance: Improvised Music and Dance' at the CCA, and improvising with dancers Rosalind Masson, Raquel Gualtero Soriano, Malgorzata Haduch and Kenzo Kusuda.He's also been improvising with various music people including Luke Sutherland, Eight Thumbs (Fritz Welch, Shane Connolly and Dougal Marwick), Andy Moor, Wounded Knee, Lucy Duncombe, Iain Campbell.

He plays guitar with Issho Taiko Drummers too."

Kyalo Searle-Mbullu is a guitarist known for the groups Civil Elegies and The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

Oboist and professor Anne MacLeod (formerly Anne Rankin) has worked with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet, and is a member of The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.