"Shirley Smart is recognised as one of the UK's most versatile and creative cellists - being equally at home and well versed in jazz and Middle Eastern music, as well as classical music.

Originally trained under Raphael Wallfisch at the Guilldhall School of Music, and Janos Starker in Paris, she subsequently moved to Jerusalem, where she remained for 10 years, studying and performing a wide variety of musical traditions from the North Africa, Turkey and Middle East. She was also highly active on the jazz scene, working with artists including Avishai Cohen, Omer Avital and Yasmin Levy. Since returning to the UK, she has quickly become known as one of the most creative cellists on the music scene and has worked with many leading jazz and world music groups, including Antonio Forcione, Mulato Astatke, Gilad Atzmon, Neil Cowley, Julian Ferraretto, Robert Mitchell, and Alice Zawadski.

She leads her own trio, with John Crawford on piano, and Demi Garcia Sabat on drums, and band Melange.

Shirley is Head of Performance and a Lecturer in Music at City University, and also teaches Improvisation and Jazz at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. She is a visiting tutor for the National Youth Jazz Collective, and an in demand workshop leader."

"Born in central London, James was taught at school by the late great Don Rendell for 12 years. James then went to Oxford University to study music and continued to have lessons with jazz messenger Jean Toussaint. After this, there was a brief diversion into the world of transport planning for a couple of years; however, his love of music was burning and he decided to make his fortune playing jazz saxophone. So, he then attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for his masters in performance, composition and arranging, and studied with Pete Churchill and Tim Garland. James also won an Archer's Scholarship for two years running at Trinity College of Music in London to study with Bobby Lamb and play with the Bobby Lamb Big Band. In addition, he has studied in New York with Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Bob Mintzer.

A few key saxophone influences are Evan Parker, Getatchew Mekurya, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Hank Mobley.

James is a multi-instrumentalist. He plays all saxophones, flute, oboe, bass clarinet, clarinet, vocals and piano, and is a versatile creative musician who is comfortable in vast array of musical situations. He can do a psychedelic oboe solo; but, to be fair, he is not very good at yoga or tap dancing."