"Toshi Ichiyanagi. Composer, Pianist, Born 1933, Kobe, Japan. Lives in Tokyo, Japan

Toshi Ichiyanagi is one of the most prominent Japanese composers and pianists today, and is credited with introducing many avant-garde musical concepts to Japan. He studied composition under John Cage, Kishio Hirao, and Tomojiro Ikenouchi, and piano under Chieko Hara and Beveridge Webster.

After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Ichiyanagi fervently created new work. His Symphony No.9 premiered in 2015, Concerto for marimba and orchestra in 2013, and Symphony No.8 and Piano Concerto No.5 in 2012. His works were featured at the 18th COMPOSIUM Festival in Tokyo (2016), including the premiere of Piano Concerto No.6, in which Ichiyanagi himself was a soloist.

Ichiyanagi has toured and presented his work extensively throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States. He has received commissions from the Pro Musica Nova Festival, Bremen, Germany (1976); Metamusik Festival, Berlin, Germany (1978); Cologne Festival of Contemporary Music, Cologne, Germany (1978, 1981); Holland Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1979); and the Berliner Festspiele, Berlin, Germany (1981). He has presented and premiered his work at Carnegie Hall, New York; Seibu Theatre, Tokyo, Japan; and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France.In the 1980s and 1990s Ichiyanagi presented several large-scale works commissioned by the National Theatre of Japan, including Ôgenraku, Clouds Shore, Wind Roots, and Reigaku Symphony "The Shadows Appearing through Darkness." In 1989, he premiered Reigaku Symphony No.2 "Jitsugetsu Byobu Isso ― Kokai," using two halls of the National Theatre simultaneously.

In 1989 Ichiyanagi formed the Tokyo International Music Ensemble―The New Tradition (TIME), an orchestral group focused on traditional instruments and shomyo, a style of Japanese Buddhist chant. TIME has toured across the United States and Europe. Ichiyanagi served on the jury for the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award in 2016; as the artistic director of Ensemble Origin―A Millennium of Resonance; as the artistic director of the Kanagawa Arts Foundation; on the board of the Saison Foundation; as an adviser of the Japan Music Competition; and as a councilor of Suntory Foundation for Arts. He was a Composer-in-Residence at DAAD Berlin (1976), and at the Pacific Music Festival (2004).

Ichiyanagi is the recipient of countless awards and honors, including the Elizabeth A. Coolidge Prize (1955), Serge Koussevitzky Prize (1956), and Alexander Gretchaninov Prize (1957) from the Juilliard School; first place in the Mainichi Music Competition (1949, 1951); Grand Prix of the Nakajima Prize (1984); L'ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic (1985); Mainichi Newspaper Art Prize (1989); Kyoto Music Grand Prize (1989); Suntory Music Prize (2002); and the Japan Art Academy Prize and Imperial Prize from the Japan Art Academy (2017). He was awarded a Medal with Purple Ribbon (1999) and Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette (2005) from the Japanese Government, and has been recognized as a Person of Cultural Merit since 2008. He has received five Otaka Prizes for Symphony No.10 (2016), Symphony "Berlin Renshi" (1990), Piano Concerto No.2 "Winter Portrait" (1989), Violin Concerto "Circulating Scenery" (1984), and Piano Concerto No. 1 "Reminiscence of Spaces." (1981).

Drummer/percussionist Dean Moore lives in Seattle, Wa. He is noted for performing on drums, percussion, and gongs. He is a member of Eye Music.

Jay Hamilton" "I studied music composition at Fairhaven College on the campus of Western Washington University with Americole Biasini and Dr. E. LaBounty. I have attended the workshops of Kenneth Gaburo, David Mahler, Meredith Monk, and Pauline Oliveros. I studied piano for 6 years, Doublebass for 9 years, voice with Roger Nelson and Tomasa Eckert for 4+ years, and composition with Janice Giteck for 7+ years.

I began composing at the age of 9 and have written over 200 works, most of which have had public performances. They include, operas, dance/ballet pieces, and incidental music for the theatre.

Since 1973 I have been active as a composer/performer. I have worked primarily with instruments of my own design and construction, using just intonation for the basic tuning. In 1982 I formed the Quixotic String Ensemble with adults who had little musical experience, I trained them to read music and perform on my instruments. They performed regularly throughout the Northwest until 1989. From 1983-87 I was a member of, and a composer for, Gamelan Pacifica a group using instruments based on the instruments of an Indonesian orchestra. I played with Eye Music from August 2012- January '13, and have done a series of guerrilla music actions under the rubric "Silence Project" these have taken place at locations in Seattle like Union Station, Leschi Marina, and the I-90 pedestrian tunnel.

In 1984 I was recipient of an and/or 'Support to Individual Artists' grant to build a keyed hammered dulcimer the onaip. In 1987 I received a Soundwork commission for Performa '87 Zahhak for piano, clarinet, and cello, performed by members of Cornish's New Performance Group. In 1994 I received a Jack Straw Artist Support Grant for a piece using urban sounds and acoustic instruments/voices, which resulted in The 12th*.

In the last 40 years I have given workshops in; instrument discovery/ construction/instruction, vocal work for actors, taught music to the deaf

I have been teaching preschoolers to adults in my studio in the Leschi/Mt. Baker area since 1989."

"Carl Lierman is a Seattle based visual artist and sound composer currently obsessed by analog electronics and organic instruments. His work has been heard in Iancu Dumitrescu's 1st Annual Computer Music Festival in Bucharest, the Center on Contemporary Art's "People Doing Strange Things With Electricity Too", and in performance with the Animist Ochestra and Keith Rowe."

"Dave Knott (aka Vague Johnson) is a performer of Solo and group electro and/or acoustic improvisation & composition using natural & artificial materials, original instruments (including but not limited to stringboards) and guitar with such groups as Animist Orchestra, Greasy, No Clocks No Clues, Anomalous Records Thursday Nights above the Artificial Limb Company, Messenger Girls Trio, Ready Made Ensemble, Metaphonic Orchestra, and inscrutable-d.

Dave has particular interests in timbre, listening practice, the tension between utility and aesthetics of music & forms yielded from explorations of instability.Dave provides music therapy services to infants, children and teens at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center and to adults with life threatening illnesses and injuries at the Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle. He has been a member of groups Animist Orchestra, Eye Music, Greasy, Messenger Girls Trio, Omake & Johnson, Warsaw (1921) "

Jonathan Way performs on zither and autoharp, and is a member of Seattle Phonographers Union fame and EyeMusic.

"Robert J Kirkpatrick is an improvisor and experimental musician based in Kirkland, Washington.

"Stuart Dempster, born in Berkeley, California in 1936, studied performance and composition at San Francisco State College. From 1962-66 he was principal trombone in the Oakland Symphony under Gerhard Samuel and, since 1968, he has been on the faculty of University of Washington. Grants include: Creative Associate at SUNYAB (1967-68); Fellow in the Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois (1971-72); Fulbright Scholar in Australia (1973) where he studied aboriginal didjeridu; a NEA Composer Grant (1978); US/UK Fellowship (1979); Guggenheim Fellowship (1981). His book The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms was first published in 1979 and he has recorded on several labels including Columbia, Deep Listening, Nonesuch, and New Albion, the latter having produced his "Abbey" recording (NA 013) which has become, in the words of one reviewer: "...a cult classic."

Dempster tours regularly as a solo recitalist performing his own works as well as his commissioned works by Berio, Erb, Erickson, and others, and also with the Deep Listening Band. His work exemplified by Sound Massage Parlor, and environmental/site specific works such as SWAMI (State of Washington As a Musical Instrument) have earned him a reputation as a composer/performer whose work is at once deep, meditative, and amusing. Deep Listening Band recordings include: award winning Deep Listening, with Pauline Oliveros and Panaiotis, recorded in the old Fort Worden (Port Townsend, WA) cistern with a 45" reverberation, released in May 1989 on New Albion Records (NA 022); Troglodyte's Delight, recorded in an old limestone quary in upstate New York, released in September 1990 on ¿What Next? Records (WN 0003); and The Ready Made Boomerang, recorded in the above mentioned "Cistern Chapel" and released in January 1992 by New Albion Records (NA 044).

Dempster was the producer for all three of these CD's. In 1993-94 he was composer-in-residence in Minneapolis with Seattle's New Performance Group as part of the Music in Motion* project. Also in 1993 Dempster was commissioned by Meet The Composer's Composer/Choreographer Projectª for a collaboration with Merce Cunningham for what has turned out to be highly acclaimed performances in the US and Europe. The music for that project was recently released entitled Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel on New Albion Records (NA 076)."

"Eric Ronald Lanzillotta. Founder of Anomalous Records, Ri Be Xibalba and Bixobal magazine. Eric Lanzillotta has been involved in sound in various aspects since the late 1980's. As a live performer, he has appeared in United States, Canada and Japan, both solo and in duets with Bernhard Günter, Aube, Withdrawal Method, and Richard Lerman. He is the father of Tanith Lanzillotta with whom he co-owned the Dissonant Plane record store."

Esther Sugai plays flute, among other instruments, and currently lives in Seattle. She was formerly assistant to Vladimir Ussachevsky. She is a member of groups Aono Jikken Ensemble, Eye Music.