"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."

"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)."

"Vancouver trumpet player and composer Kevin Elaschuk has different musical groups he leads including the group ESQ, the Elaschuk/Ryga Quartet and the Kevin Elaschuk Quartet with Ross Taggart and also the Kevin Elaschuk Trio. Kevin also plays in the Tony Wilson Sextet, Peggy Lee's Film and Music and the group Soft Morning City. Kevin Elaschuk has some great recordings out and some of my favorites include Breakfast in Kamloops and Casual Coordinates with Kevin's group ESQ and Any Answers with the Elaschuk /Ryga Quartet. He also plays on Tony Wilson's Sextet albums The Lowest Note and The People Look Like Flowers at Last. Kevin has been an important part of the Vancouver music scene for many years and has also teaches jazz trumpet at Capilano University."

"Dylan van der Schyff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1970. He now makes his home in Vancouver, Canada, where he lives with his wife, cellist Peggy Lee, and their two children. Van der Schyff attended the schools of music at the University of Victoria and, briefly, McGill University; and he studied military drumming while with the Band of the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa. He received his MA from Simon Fraser University and is currently engaged in graduate research in music psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

As a performer and producer, van der Schyff has appeared on close to 100 recordings spanning the genres of jazz, electro-acoustic, improvised, experimental and new music; he has performed in almost every major centre in Europe and North America including international festivals in Berlin, Lisbon, Stockholm, New York, Chicago, Montreal, Trento (Italy) and Molde (Norway); and he has collaborated in numerous interdisciplinary projects involving theatre, dance and film. A partial list of notable performance and recording collaborators includes: George Lewis, Joelle Léandre, Dave Douglas, Mark Helias, Peggy Lee, Eyvind Kang, Nicole Mitchell, Brad Turner, Tony Wilson, Wayne Horvitz, Marilyn Crispell, Torsten Muller, Robin Holcolmb, Michael Moore, Ellery Eskelin, Sylvie Courvoisier, Rob Mazurek, Talking Pictures, Ken Vandermark, Paul Rutherford, John Butcher, Tobias Delius, Louis Sclavis, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Fred Frith, and Gary Peacock. Van der Schyff has also performed as a sideman with Roswell Rudd, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Misha Mengelberg, Georg Graewe, Oliver Lake, Wadada Leo Smith and the Kenny Werner Sextet with Randy Brecker.

Van der Schyff has served on the music faculty at Capilano University in Vancouver, Canada, since 2009. He also served on faculty at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music between 2002-2005, and at the Vancouver Institute for Creative Music in 2006. Additionally, he has given seminars and workshops at the University of Indiana and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Van der Schyff has appeared on Austrian television and Swedish radio as well as NPR, the CBC and Radio Canada. Articles about his work as an improviser have appeared in publications such as Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Chicago Reader, The Wire, Coda, and MUZIK."

"Since graduating with a Film Scoring degree from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in 1995, Vancouver native Chris Gestrin has become an integral part of the Canadian music scene. As a versatile pianist and multi-keyboardist, composer, engineer and producer he has worked on over 250 albums covering a wide range of musical styles. From avant garde electronic improvisations to greasy soul organ music, introspective piano jazz to top of the charts rock and hip-hop, Gestrin is in high demand for his eclectic talents and ability to bring a high level of musical inspiration to any situation. 9 Juno awards, 3 West Coast Music awards, 2 East Coast Music awards, Aboriginal music awards and a Canadian Folk Music award are just some of the accolades from the numerous projects he has been involved with.

As a jazz artist, Gestrin has performed on and off the stage not only with his great Canadian colleagues, but with a who's who of the Jazz world. Gary Peacock, David 'Fat Head' Newman, Kenny Wheeler, Mino Cinelu, Jerry Granelli (Vince Gauraldi Trio), Petra Haden, Duke Robillard, Dave Douglas, Ben Monder, Michael Blake, Peter Bernstein, Jimmy Green, Ralph Bowen, PJ Perry, Red Holloway, and producer Lee Townsend to name a few. In the more mainstream music world, Chris has had the pleasure of working with a large number of prominent artists including Randy Bachman, D.O.A., Colin James, K-OS, Swollen Members, Jim Byrnes, Steve Dawson, Nickelback, Kelly Joe Phelps, Loudon Wainwright III, Long John Baldry, Coco Love Alcorn and Jeff Healey.

Chris's original music has been featured in numerous television shows including The Dead Zone, Dark Angel, The L-Word, The Outer Limits, Crash Test Mommy, and Rob Feenie's New Classics. His score for the film 'Songs She Wrote About People She Knows' was nominated for 'best original score' in the 2016 Canadian Screen AwardIn. In 2007 Chris collaborated with Ocular tip media and film makers Jeff Carter and Diarmuid Conway to create a beautiful pairing of images and music in the 24 minute film 'Inside Passage', which was featured in film festivals throughout Canada and the United Sates. His recording, 'Stillpoint', on the Songlines label was listed as one of the best albums of 2003 in Downbeat magazine.

Currently Chris performs regularly with fellow Canadians such as The Hard Rubber Orchestra, N.O.W. Orchestra, Kate Hammett-Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Brad Turner, Denzal Sinclaire, Cory Weeds, The Night Crawlers, Jim Byrnes, and Steve Dawson and is hard at work in the studio producing recordings for various artists across different genres including the 2013 Juno awards Instrumental Album of the Year 'Fantastic Pictures' by Pugs and Crows. He has also started his own independent record label 'phonometrograph'."

"Originally from Québec City, André Lachance has been based in Vancouver since 1990. He has been a member of the Brad Turner Quartet, the Peggy Lee Band, the Guillaume Bouchard group, the Bruno Hubert Trio, the Ian McDougall Quartet/Sextet, the Chris Gestrin Trio, the Hard Rubber Orchestra, the Kate Hammett-Vaughan Quintet, Stillpoint, the Kevin Elaschuk Quartet and many more ensembles, as well as leading his own group as a guitarist, Quatuor André Lachance, with Chris Gestrin, Brad Turner and Joe Poole.

As a acoustic bassist, electric bassist and guitarist, André has toured extensively both nationally and internationally as well as recording for various labels such as Songlines, Cellar Live, Maximum Jazz, Justin Time, Spool and for the CBC and Radio-Canada. André is involved in projects in jazz, musique actuelle, funk (notably with Soulstream), pop music and has also collaborated with various dance and theatre companies. Teaching both basses and guitar at Capilano University's Bachelor of Jazz program since 1996, as well as being on faculty at the Banff International Jazz Workshop in 2004, he has also been an educator in many workshops in various high school band festivals and music camps across the country. He has also worked as a sound engineer for Radio-Canada FM in Vancouver.

Aside from being a multi-talented musician and educator, André has often had the honour of accompanying visiting international musicians, such as Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Benny Golson, Kenny Wheeler, Frank Morgan, Clark Terry, Harold Mabern, Dave Douglas, Julian Arguelles, Roy McCurdy, Jon Mayer, Kenny Werner, Jason Moran, Gary Bartz, Claude Ranger, PJ Perry, Phil Dwyer, Seamus Blake, Michael Blake, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the NOW Orchestra with George Lewis."

"Torsten Müller (born November 25, 1957 in Hamburg, Germany) is a free improvising bassist in Vancouver, Canada. He plays a 5 string double bass. He lived in Bremen and Hamburg from 1976 to 2001, where he started his musical career and worked as a radio host and producer at Radio Bremen, a public radio and television broadcaster.

He came into the free improvised music scene in the mid 70s, first playing with Free Music Communion (an ensemble with guitarist Herbert Janssen and pianist Udo Bergner) recording three LPs on their own Fremuco Records label. He was a member of the large improvising ensemble King Ubu Orchestra for 10 years.

Torsten Müller has performed concerts all over the world with a diverse array of improvisers, including Evan Parker, John Russell, Jon Rose, Joelle Léandre, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Lol Coxhill, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, Charles Gayle, Melvin Poore, Paul Rutherford, Peter van Bergen and Alfred Harth.

He moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2001 where he has been performing at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and acts as co-curator of the annual Time Flies Improvised Music Festival. He plays in various ensembles, including Vancouver based drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff's Bande X and his own ensemble, Hoxha, with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Dylan Van Der Schyff."

"Vancouver-based guitarist/composer Ron Samworth is a high profile presence on the Canadian scene, equally at home playing in the jazz tradition or the extended sound worlds of new and improvised music. Nominated for the 2002 National Jazz Writers Award "Best Jazz Guitarist", he leads the acclaimed quartet Talking Pictures and co-leads the 15-piece NOW Orchestra. He has appeared at all of the major jazz festivals across Canada, the Jazzfest Berlin, Chicago Jazzfest, New York's Knitting Factory, Vienna's Let's Cool One Chamber Jazz Festival, and at prestigious venues in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He has performed and recorded with many leading international artists including John Zorn, John Medeski, Han Bennink, Marc Ribot, Wayne Horvitz, Butch Morris, Bobby Previte, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, and Canadian jazz legend Claude Ranger. His inter-disciplinary work includes composition, performance and sound design for theatre, spoken word, film, and dance."