"Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway.

His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on "Guitar two, for four" which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. And this isn't choral work. "A Y U (as yet untitled)" is sampled from just one voice, the baritone Thomas Buckner. The results are pitch shifted and processed intense drones, one live and one studio edited. Unlike Ligeti, this isn't just for voice or hurdy gurdy. Like Stockhausen's electronic pieces, Musique Concrete, or even Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, the role of the producer/composer in "Hurdy Hurry" and "A Y U" is just as important as the role of the performer. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labour, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Since 1968 Phill has also put on over 1000 concerts in his loft space, including Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jim O'Rourke."

"Arne Deforce is renowned for his passionate and unparalleled performances of contemporary and experimental music. His inventive programmes explore new musical forms of expression in which the discovery of the 'Other' of the cello and the act of an uninhibited creative listening is foremost.

As a musician and researcher, he is fascinated by how, at the intersection between music, art, science and technology, new concepts and relationships in music can be developed between the instrument, musical gesture and electronics. As such, his collaboration on life-form (2012), a one-hour cycle by Richard Barrett for cello and electronics, or on the piece Foris (2012) by Raphaël Cendo, reflects the fact that a sound-world of untapped potential between the physicality of playing, technology and extended notations can further be developed in a collaborative project between composer and performer. As such he recently premiered (Ruhrtriennale 2017) together with the Catalan composer Hèctor Parra, a great admirer of new cosmological models of quantum physics, and sound designer Thomas Goepfer, a new one hour grand cycle for cello and electronics called 'Limite les rêves au-delà' inspired by the theory of 'superstrings', gravity waves and black holes as described by the French physicist Jean-Pierre Luminet.

His repertoire is focused mainly on solo and chamber music, with a special interest in works by composers such as Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His fascinating, energetic and imaginative approach to music has inspired many composers including Richard Barrett, Luc Brewaeys, Kee-Yong Chong, Raphaël Cendo, Hèctor Parra, Alvin Curran and Phill Niblock, to collaborate or to write original works especially for him. In 2004, after one such collaboration, Jonathan Harvey described Arne Deforce as "one of the most exciting new cellists I have come across. Everything he plays is approached with a powerful intensity born from an engagement with the music on a deep spiritual and psychic level. He is highly imaginative and brings an originality and, above all, creativity to his interpretations which is both fiery and structured."

His collaborative partners include musicians such as Daan Vandewalle, Mika Vaino, Richard Barrett, Peter Jacquemyn and Yutaka Oya, in addition to Champ d'Action, Ictus, MusikFabrik, the Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), Centre Henri Pousseur Liège, Ircam Paris, and Grame Lyon. Arne Deforce is featured regularly at leading international new music festivals (Ars Musica, Holland Festival, ManiFesta-Agora Paris, Archipel Genève, Musica Strasbourg, Mito, Fondation Royaumont, Musica Sacra Maastricht, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Amsterdam Cello Biennale).

His remarkable discography - Giacinto Scelsi, Morton Feldman, Iannis Xenakis, Richard Barrett, Pascal Dusapin (Aeon-Outhere); Jonathan Harvey (Megadisc); Phill Niblock (Touch); Mika Vaino (Mego) - has received international acclaim (five Diapasons d'Or, Coup de coeur de l'Académie Charles Cros, and in 2012 the Prix Caecilia).

In 2012 Arne Deforce received his PhD in the arts from the University of Leiden (in collaboration with the Orpheus Institute Ghent) on the performance practice of late twentieth-century complex music, with a thesis entitled 'LABORINTH Π - Thinking as experiment: 472 Meditations on the need for creative thought and experimentation in performing complex music from 1962 to the present'."

"Deborah Walker is a new music performer and improviser based in Paris. She was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 1981 and studied cello in her hometown. After graduating she moved to Paris to continue her cello studies with Agnès Vesterman and Anssi Karttunen. Since 2007 she is a member of Dedalus, a variable ensemble which plays experimental and contemporary music, who has collaborations, among others, with Tom Johnson, Pascale Criton, Christian Wolff, Antoine Beuger and Jurg Frey.

Deborah Walker has collaborated with artists like Joëlle Leandre, Markus Stockhausen, Garrett List and Teri Weikel. She's currently working with composers Pascale Criton and Eliane Radigue in pieces for solo cello or small ensembles. She has played in many festivals such as I Suoni delle Dolomiti, Italia Wave, ZKN in Karlsruhe, Festival d'Avignon, Festival Nomad in M'Hamid (Morocco), Ze Couch (New York) and tours regularly around Europe. She also takes part in theater, dance and circus performances, both as composer and performer. Deborah is doing a Master in Sound and Music Composition at the University of Paris 8 (St. Denis). Her recordings include works by Tom Johnson played by the Dedalus Ensemble (New World), a live recording of the intuitive music quintet Flowers of Now(21st Records) as well as Frammenti di Scrittura Prematura (Imprint Records) and Imagine Book (ILDE)."

"Erik Drescher is a freelance flutist, performer and curator for contemporary music based in Berlin.

In addition to a very active international career as a solo performer, he has performed in many ensembles for contemporary music. He has premiered an enormous number of new pieces, the majority of which were also commissioned by him and dedicated to him.

He has been working with composers like Peter Ablinger, Maryanne Amacher, Antoine Beuger, J.-P. Caron, Axel Dörner, Sabine Ercklentz, Julio Estrada, Dror Feiler, Friedrich Goldmann, Hauke Harder, Hanna Hartman, Michael Hirsch, Adriana Hölszky, Nicolaus A. Huber, Henrique Iwao, Jamilja Jazylbekova, Sven-Åke Johansson, Christian Kesten, Artur Kroschel, Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, Juseub Lim, Alvin Lucier, Michael Maierhof, Maximilian Marcoll, Chico Mello, André O. Möller, Andrea Neumann, Chris Newman, Phill Niblock, Ivo Nilsson, Helmut Oehring, Christoph Ogiermann, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, Gérard Pape, Karen Power, Éliane Radigue, Uwe Rasch, Jaime Reis, Manuel Rocha Iturbide, Marc Sabat, Friedrich Schenker, Marcus Schmickler, Cornelius Schwehr, Martin Schüttler, Salvatore Sciarrino, Simon Steen-Andersen, Stefan Streich, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Mauricio Valdes, Jennifer Walshe, Jeremy Woodruff, Arash Yazdani, Lidia Zielińska.

A special focus in recent years has been his work around the glissando flute, a normal C-flute with a variable-lenght headjoint replacing the standard mouthpiece. He is the editor of "The Glissando Flute Collection Erik Drescher" (Verlag Neue Musik), a collection of solo works composed for the new instrument.

Since 2012 Drescher is curator for music at the theatre Acker Stadt Palast in Berlin."

is a contemporary music bassoonist, known for her work with Klaus Filip, Pascal Battus, and Phill Niblock.