"Philip Thomas (b.1972, North Devon) specialises in performing new and experimental music, including both notated and improvised music. He places much emphasis on each concert being a unique event, designing imaginative programmes that provoke and suggest connections.

He is particularly drawn to the experimental music of John Cage, Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff, and composers who broadly work within a post-Cageian aesthetic. In recent years he has been particularly associated with the music of Christian Wolff, giving the world premiere of his Sailing By in 2014 and Small Preludes in 2009, the UK premiere of Long Piano (Peace March 11), having co-edited and contributed to the first major study of Wolff's music, Changing the System: the Music of Christian Wolff, published by Ashgate Publications in 2010, and currently recording all of Wolff's solo piano music for sub rosa. He is an experienced performer of John Cage's music, having performed the Concert for piano and orchestra with both Apartment House and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as well as most of the solo piano and prepared piano music, including a unique 12-hour performance of Electronic Music for piano

He has commissioned new works from a number of British composers whose ideas, language and aesthetic have been informed in some ways by the aforementioned American composers, such as Stephen Chase, Laurence Crane, Richard Emsley, Christopher Fox, Bryn Harrison, John Lely, Tim Parkinson, Michael Parsons, and James Saunders.

In recent years Philip has pursued a passion for freely improvised music, after significant encounters with the music of AMM and Sheffield-based musicians Martin Archer, Mick Beck and John Jasnoch. He has worked with improvisers in a variety of contexts and recently devised a programme of composed music by musicians more normally known as improvisers as well as others who have been influenced by improvisation in some form. This led to a CD release, Comprovisation, which featured newly commissioned works by Mick Beck, Chris Burn and Simon H Fell. Other CD releases include music by Martin Arnold, Laurence Crane, Christopher Fox, Jürg Frey, Bryn Harrison, Tim Parkinson, Michael Pisaro, James Saunders, Christian Wolff, as well as with improvisers Chris Burn and Simon H Fell.

Philip is a regular pianist with leading experimental music group Apartment House, with whom he has performed in festivals across the UK and Europe. He has also performed with the Quatuor Bozzini, and in duos with Mark Knoop, Ian Pace and John Tilbury (piano duet and two pianos) and James Saunders (electronics).

In 1998 Philip was awarded a PhD from Sheffield University in the performance practice of contemporary piano music. Between 2000 and 2005, he was Head of the Sheffield Music School whilst pursuing an active performing and teaching career. He joined the staff team at the University of Huddersfield in 2005, and became Professor of Performance in 2015. Philip is one of the Directors of CeReNeM, the University's Centre for Research in New Music. He continues to live in Sheffield, where he premieres the majority of his programmes, with his wife Tiffany and children Naomi and Jack."

"Tim Parkinson (b.1973) has consistently pursued an independent path, seeking to engage with whatever it means today to be a functioning composer in the world. His music has been labelled as experimental, "reconstructing music from the ground up", and "sounding like nothing else", the work invariably returning to fundamental enquiries around the meaning of sound. He has been associated with other British independent voices of the same generation, such as Bailie, Harrison, Newland, Saunders, Whitty.

His music is mostly performed by a dedicated community of friends and musicians, but he has also written for various groups and ensembles including Plus Minus, Apartment House, [rout], Incidental Music, Dedalus, Edges, Basel Sinfonietta, London Sinfonietta; and for various instrumentalists including Stephen Altoft, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, Julia Eckhardt, Tanja Masanti, Andrew Sparling, Craig Shepard, Silvia Tarozzi, Philip Thomas, Stefan Thut, Deborah Walker. His music has been performed in UK, Europe, USA, Armenia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Broadcasts of music have been on BBC Radio 3, Resonance FM, WDR Köln, and Schweizer Radio SRF2. Two albums of music have been released on Edition Wandelweiser (2006, 2010); in 2019 Piano Music 2015-16 was released on all that dust, and the electro-opera Pleasure Island was released on Slip as vinyl and download, followed in 2020 by Here Comes A Monster released on Takuroku. In 2021 songs 2011 were included on a split release Time Is Over with work by Travis Just on awavepress. In 2022 Another Timbre released an album of a selection of chamber works from 1998-2017.

Time With People, an opera, (2012-13) has received performances in London and Huddersfield (2014-15 by Edges), Los Angeles (2015 by Southland Ensemble); Chicago, Oberlin, Ohio and Beloit (2017 by a.pe.ri.od.ic, with set design by Parsons & Charlesworth); Cardiff (2016 by Good News From The Future); New York (2017 by Object Collection); Ghent (2018 by G.A.M.E.); La Chaux-de-Fonds (2018 French language version, translated by Louis d'Heudieres, performed by Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain); Helsinki (2019 multilingual version, at Tulkinnanvaraista); Basel (2020 in French as above, performed again by NEC).

In 2018 he was appointed a Creative Fellowship at the Samuel Beckett Research Centre, which led to string quartet 2019 in which during the performance the musicians are enclosed within a large box.

He is also active as pianist and performer, both independently and also by invitation, having been an occasional performer with Apartment House, and Plus-Minus, and having performed in venues such as Tate Modern, Barbican, Cafe Oto, Union Chapel, and in festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tectonics, Borealis, Frontiers, Roadburn, Donaufestival, All Tomorrows Parties, Audiograft, Edinburgh Fringe, Musica Nova, Cut & Splice, Sonorités, RDV de l'Erdre. As a soloist he has performed with Object Collection, Skögen, Apartment House, Set Ensemble, Incidental Music, Q-02, J.G. Thirlwell, Phill Niblock, Matteo Fargion, Lee Patterson, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, Jürg Frey, Michael Pisaro, Michael Parsons, Gavin Bryars, Joshua Rifkin, Tom Johnson, and Christian Wolff, amongst others. Since 2003 has been regularly performing with composer James Saunders in the lo-fi electronics, auxiliary instrument and any-sound-producing-means duo Parkinson Saunders.

He has organised many public concerts to promote the presence, wealth and variety of present day music exploration, one thread of which is the concert series, Music We'd Like to Hear, co-curated with John Lely and Markus Trunk annually in London since 2005.

In 2011 he was visiting Professor of Composition at Brno Academy. He has also given lectures at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Oxford Brookes, Ostrava New Music Days, Huddersfield University, Bath Spa University and Snape Maltings, as well as teaching at Ashmole Academy and Primary School.

He studied at Worcester College, Oxford, followed by study with Kevin Volans in Dublin, and participated in the Ostrava New Music Days 2001, attending seminars with Petr Kotik, Alvin Lucier, Zsolt Nagy and Christian Wolff."

"Angharad Davies is a violinist, one at ease in both improvising and composition, with a wide discography as part of varied range of ensembles and groups. She's a specialist in the art of 'preparing' her violin, adding objects or materials to it to extend its sound making properties. Her sensitivity to the sonic possibilities of musical situations and attentiveness to their shape and direction make her one of contemporary music's most fascinating figures. 2015 has seen her being commissioned for a new work at the Counterflows Festival, Glasgow and premiering Eliane Radigue's new solo for violin, Occam XXI at the El Nicho Festival, Mexico.

She's performed at, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Proms, Music We'd Like to Hear's concert series, is an associate artist at Cafe Oto, is a member of Apartment House, Cranc and Common Objects, been artist in residence at Q-02, and played live with Tony Conrad in the Turbine Room at the Tate Modern. Other collaborations have featured the likes of John Butcher, Daniela Cascella, Rhodri Davies, Julia Eckhardt , Kazuko Hohki, Roberta Jean, Lina Lapelyte, Dominic Lash, Tisha Mukarji, Andrea Neumann, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, J.G.Thirlwell, Stefan Thut, Paul Whitty, Manfred Werder, Birgit Ulher, Taku Unami and she's released records on Absinth Records, Another Timbre, Potlatch and Confrontrecords."

"Stephen Chase composes, improvises, and walks quite a lot.

His work veers erratically between conceptual strategies and following-his-nose, and is drawn to such things as the relationship between physical action and sound production, group interaction, and the acoustic characteristics of indoor and outdoor spaces.

He has collaborated variously with Ross Parfitt, Philip Thomas, Exaudi, Quatuor Bozzini, Brevis Choir, Apartment House, Ensemble Zwischentöne, Music We'd Like to Hear, Sound Intermedia, BBC Singers, Mick Beck, edges, THF Drenching, Gwilly Edmondez, Coastguard All Stars, Husk, Gated Community, Damo Suzuki, omoplate sarangi, murmuration, and Freaking Glamorous Teapot.

He has co-edited a book of essays with Philip Thomas on the music of Christian Wolff for Ashgate.

He recently returned to playing other people's music for solo guitar, specialising in premiering music by composers whose first initial is J: so far, James Saunders, James Weeks, Jennie Gottschalk and Jürg Frey."