"Cellist, improviser, composer Peggy Lee was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She studied classical cello, completing a bachelors degree in performance at the University of Toronto as a student of Vladimir Orloff and Denis Brott. She furthered her studies on the cello with lessons with Martha Gerschefski in Atlanta Georgia. In the fall of 1988 Peggy began a year residency with a string quartet at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. It was here that she first became interested in collaborating with artists from different mediums and in veering away from the classical path. This led to a decision to move away from the known and thus to her relocating to Vancouver, B.C. where she now makes her home.

Peggy's first forays into improvisation in Vancouver happened with dancers at the EDAM (experimental dance and music) studio at the Western Front and eventually led to her meeting and joining guitarists Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson in their respective bands; as well as becoming a member of the New Orchestra Workshop, which went on to have interesting and fruitful collaborations with Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, René Lussier, Barry Guy and George Lewis.

Peggy continues to collaborate frequently with Ron and Tony and with her husband, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, as well as with many other longtime musical associates including Dave Douglas, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Veda Hille and Lisa Miller. She also leads or co-leads a number of musical projects: The Peggy Lee Band, Film in Music, Waxwing (with Tony Wilson and Jon Bentley) and Beautiful Tool (with Mary Margaret O'Hara).

She has also collaborated extensively in theatre and dance with companies and artists such as Ruby Slippers, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House, David Hudgins, Peter Bingham and Delia Brett.

In 2005, Peggy received the Freddie Stone Award for integrity and innovation in music and in 2010 she was awarded a Jesse Richardson Theatre Award for outstanding composition."

"JP Carter is a multiple Juno award-winning musician from Vancouver, Canada. Carter's singular approach to the trumpet and versatility as an improvisor and composer make him a vital contributor to the Vancouver music community. JP incorporates a variety of techniques into his trumpet playing, utilizing and experimenting with acoustic (traditional, extended) and electronic (effected, amplified) methods to create a wide spectrum of sound. Currently a member of several Vancouver-based groups, including Destroyer, Dan Mangan, Fond of Tigers, the Tony Wilson 6tet, Handmade Blade (with Peggy Lee & Aram Bajakian), Gordon Grdina's Haram, Michael Blake's Variety Hour, and the various New Orchestra Workshop ensembles. JP's main projects as a composer/performer continue to be Inhabitants, Aeroplane Trio, and Carsick. These three long-standing original projects have all released albums on Vancouver's Drip Audio label [dripaudio.com]. Most recently, JP has been working on a solo amplified trumpet project. He will be releasing a self-produced document of this solo work in 2017 entitled "Toy & Tool".

Awards & Achievements: Juno Award Winner (2012, Dan Mangan, Alternative Album of the Year); Juno Award Winner (2011, Fond of Tigers, Instrumental Album of the Year); Juno Award Nominee (2016, Destroyer, Alternative Album of the Year); Juno Award Nominee (2012, Destroyer, Alternative Album of the Year); Juno Award Nominee (2009, Inhabitants, Instrumental Album of the Year); Polaris Prize Short List (2011, Destroyer, "Kaputt"); Galaxie Rising Star Award (2005, Inhabitants, Vancouver Int'l Jazz Festival)

Education:

JP studied Jazz Performance with Kevin Dean and Andre White at McGill University in Montreal from 1993-96, and Jazz Trumpet with Alan Matheson at Vancouver Community College in 1992/93. As a teenager, JP studied privately for a brief time in 1990/91 with Vancouver-based trumpeter Bill Clark, while studying under David Proznick in the award-winning jazz program at Semiahmoo Secondary in Surrey, BC."

"Cole Schmidt, is an active participant in Vancouver's creative music scene. As a composer, Cole spends the majority of his time writing and recording with 2013 Juno Award winners Pugs and Crows and the newly formed group Sick Boss. He can also be heard alongside other local artists such as Debra-Jean Creelman, Copilots, Karen Foster and John Paton's Soft Morning City. In 2013, he received the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award for Emerging Artist in Music. Cole has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, including a 5 week tour with Drip Audio's DarkBlueWorld in Eastern Europe and Russia and participating in the Vilnius Jazz Festival."

"Jeremy Berkman has held the position of Principal Trombonist for the Vancouver Opera Orchestra since 1993. He is also currently the Artistic Co-Director of the Turning Point Ensemble of Vancouver. He is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Oberlin College, where he received degrees in both music and economics. In addition, Mr Berkman earned a Masters Degree at the Juilliard School, and moved permanently to Canada after a post-graduate residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts. He was the Principal trombonist for the Juilliard Orchestra's inaugural tour of mainland China and has recorded with many famous ensembles, including the Turning Point Ensemble, and with numerous film and television session orchestras. A strong advocate for today's composers, Mr Berkman has commissioned chamber music featuring the trombone from noted British Columbia composers such as Owen Underhill, has presented contemporary chamber works with outstanding ensembles such as Continuum (New York) and the St Lawrence String Quartet. Through these and other ensembles, Mr Berkman has collaborated with internationally acclaimed late twentieth and twenty-first century composers John Cage, John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina, Jacob Druckman, and Vinko Globokar."

"Jesse Zubot is one of those unique musicians/producers whose praxis spans multiple genres and transcends contextualization into an idiom. Between moments of impassioned, visceral outburst and quite emotive sensitivies, Zubot exposes the full range of affects through a pristine sonic architecture. Zubot a 3-time Juno Award winning musician/producer with avant-rock band Fond of Tigers (2011), chamber folk-jazz ensemble The Great Uncles of the Revolution (2004) and roots instrumentalists Zubot & Dawson (2003). Zubot produced the Polaris Music Prize winning album 'ANIMISM' by Tanya Tagaq which was released in 2014. This album also garnered Zubot a nomination for 'Producer of the Year' at the 2015's Juno Awards. In the fall of 2010 Jesse won the 'Multimedia' award for his work on the score for Tungijuq (w/ Tanya Tagaq) at the 2010 Western Canadian Music Awards. Tungijuq was produced by Isuma (Atanarjuat) and was selected for Sundance, The Toronto Film Festival and the ImagineNATIVE film festival where it won for Best Short. Zubot has also composed extensively for modern dance. A recent highlight was the presentation of Body Scan (Choreographed by Benoit Lachambre & Su-Feh Lee : Score by Jesse Zubot) at the prestigious Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. In the past decade Jesse has delved heavily into the world of improvised and creative music having worked with the likes of Francois Houle, Tanya Tagaq, Peggy Lee, Evan Parker, Eugene Chadbourne, Mats Gustafsson, Matthew Bourne, Dylan van der Schyff, Joe Fonda, Fred Frith, Eyvind Kang and Nels Cline and many others. In 2005 Zubot started Drip Audio ("...one of the most original musical operations in the country." - CBC Arts Online), a record label dedicated to creative music. Drip Audio now has 35 albums under it's umbrella by musicians from Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, New York and the UK. Zubot is also sought after in the contemporary/commercial music world and has been a guest musician working with artists such as Dan Mangan, Destroyer, Mira Calix, Hawksley Workman, Kelly Joe Phelps, Veda Hille, Amy Millan, Alpha Yaya Diallo, Mother Mother and Stars. J Zubot was named 'Violinist of the Year' at Canada's National Jazz Awards in '03, '08 and '09 and has also been commissioned by the CBC to write symphonies & arrangements for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Nova Scotia.

In 2014 Jesse premiered his first full string quartet at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in conjuction with Vancouver's Western Front for the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award. 2014 also saw the release of 'Hector and the Search for Happiness', a feature film starring Simon Pegg, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard and Rosamund Pike in which Jesse did the score for with Vancouver's Dan Mangan. Jesse composed and arranged music for the film that was performed by the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg (Potsdam, Germany). This score was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award in January 2015.

Some of Jesse's performance highlights in the past few years include ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark), Time-Based Arts Festival (Portand, OR), Luminato Festival (Toronto, ON), Festival International du Film Insulaire de Groix (Iles de Groix, France), End of the Road Festival (Wiltshire, UK), Expo (Shanghai, China), WOMAD (Australia / New Zealand), Druga Godba (Ljubljana, Slovenia), WOMAD (Wiltshire, UK), Festival of World Cultures (Dublin, Ireland), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Kronos in Glasgow (Glasgow, UK), London International Festival of Exporatory Music (London, UK), The Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey, CA), The Winnipeg New Music Festival, Festival International de Musique Actuelle (Victoriavillle, Quebec), The Mulhouse Music Festival (Mulhouse, France), Era Jazzu (Poland), The Montreal International Jazz Festival, the New York Guitar Festival, The Guelph Jazz Festival, Traz & Folk Fest (Rudolstadt, Germany), The Vancouver International Jazz Festival, The Calgary Folk Festival, Spilimbergo Folkfest (Italy) and The Atlantic Jazz Festival (Halifax, NS)."