"Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music making for the past 20 years, but in no situation more than his solo trumpet performances.

Nate moved to New York in 2001, and has since become one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz, improv, noise, and new music scenes. He has performed regularly with such icons as John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Eliane Radigue, Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, and Yoshi Wada, as well as being a collaborator with some of the brightest lights of his generation like Chris Corsano, C. Spencer Yeh, Peter Evans, and Mary Halvorson.

Wooley's solo playing has often been cited as being a part of an international revolution in improvised trumpet. Along with Peter Evans and Greg Kelley, Wooley is considered one of the leading lights of the American movement to redefine the physical boundaries of the horn, as well as demolishing the way trumpet is perceived in a historical context still overshadowed by Louis Armstrong. A combination of vocalization, extreme extended technique, noise and drone aesthetics, amplification and feedback, and compositional rigor has led one reviewer to call his solo recordings "exquisitely hostile".

In the past three years, Wooley has been gathering international acclaim for his idiosyncratic trumpet language. Time Out New York has called him "an iconoclastic trumpeter", and Downbeat's Jazz Musician of the Year, Dave Douglas has said, "Nate Wooley is one of the most interesting and unusual trumpet players living today, and that is without hyperbole". His work has been featured at the SWR JazzNow stage at Donaueschingen, the WRO Media Arts Biennial in Poland, Kongsberg, North Sea, Music Unlimited, and Copenhagen Jazz Festivals, and the New York New Darmstadt Festivals. In 2011 he was an artist in residence at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY and Cafe Oto in London, England. In 2013 he performed at the Walker Art Center as a featured solo artist.

Nate is the curator of the Database of Recorded American Music (www.dramonline.org) and the editor-in-chief of their online quarterly journal Sound American (www.soundamerican.org) both of which are dedicated to broadening the definition of American music through their online presence and the physical distribution of music through Sound American Records. He also runs Pleasure of the Text which releases music by composers of experimental music at the beginnings of their careers in rough and ready mediums."

"Samara Lubelski is an American singer, violinist, guitarist and bassist. She has been a member of numerous bands, including Of a Mesh, Metabolismus, Salmon Skin, the Sonora Pine, Hall of Fame, the Tower Recordings, MV & EE and the Bummer Road, and Chelsea Light Moving. Since 2003, she has released eight solo studio albums.

Lubelski is a prolific guest musician, performing (predominantly on violin and occasionally on bass) on dozens of recordings by artists such as the Fiery Furnaces, White Magic, Thurston Moore, God Is My Co-Pilot, Jackie-O Motherfucker and Sightings.

As a recording engineer, she has also worked with Double Leopards on Halve Maen (2003, Eclipse Records) and Out of One, Through One and to One (2005, Eclipse); Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on Hearts of Oak (2003, Lookout! Records); Magik Markers on Untitled (2003, self-released), Blues for Randy Sutherland (2004, Arbitrary Signs) and I Trust My Guitar, Etc. (2004, Ecstatic Peace!); the Fiery Furnaces on Blueberry Boat (2004, Rough Trade Records); Sightings on Arrived in Gold (2004, Load Records); Black Dice on Creature Comforts and Miles of Smiles (both 2004, DFA Records); Oneida on Secret Wars (2004, Jagjaguwar) and The Wedding (2005, Jagjaguwar); Mouthus on Saw a Halo (2007, Load Records); and Religious Knives on It's After Dark (2008, Troubleman Unlimited Records)."

"C. Spencer Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan 1975, moved to the US in 1980; studied radio/television/film at Northwestern University, and is now based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeh is active both as a solo and collaborative artist, as well as with his primary project, Burning Star Core. As an improviser, Yeh is focused on developing a personal vocabulary using violin, voice, and electronics. As a sound artist/composer, Yeh works with all aspects available surrounding a work, aurally and physically, as elements key to the cumulative experience. He is concerned not only with the sensual aspects of 'sound organization,' but the gestural qualities as well. Yeh has collaborated with a deep and ever-growing list of artists and groups, including Tony Conrad, New Humans with Vito Acconci, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Amy Granat with Jutta Koether, Justin Lieberman, Don Dietrich and Ben Hall (as The New Monuments), Prurient, and Jandek. He has performed at festivals and venues such as Sonar, FIMAV at Victoriaville, Frieze Arts Fair, No Fun Fest, High Zero, the 24 Hour Drone People at Fylkingen, The Kitchen, ZKM Karlsruhe, and has also exhibited visual art, sound, and video works internationally."

"First spellbound by freely improvised music in the mid-1990s after witnessing performances by TEST, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, and others, Chris Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy partnership with Paul Flaherty in 1998. A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop an expanded solo music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings and bows, pot lids, and other everyday household items into his drum kit. In February 2006 he released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured extensively throughout Europe, USA, and Japan. He spent 2007 and '08 as the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Virginia Genta, and C. Spencer Yeh. Moving back to the U.S. in 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, most notably a duo with Michael Flower, Rangda (with Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and solo work, now revamped to include synthesizers and contact microphones in addition to his drum set and home-made acoustic instruments.

In addition to the those mentioned above, he's also worked with, among others: John Edwards (released by: Clean Feed/Dancing Wayang), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City/Family Vineyard), Paul Dunmall (ESP-Disk), Nels Cline (Strange Attractors), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), Jandek (Corwood), Sunburned Hand Of Man (Manhand), MV&EE (Eclipse/Time-Lag), Vampire Belt (Open Mouth), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), and Wally Shoup (Leo/Columbia Japan)."

Detroit-based percussionist Ben Hall is a member of groups Burning Graveyard Lights, Cass Chamber, Death Knell, Graveyards, Hell And Bunny, Jack Wright Nonet, KillDevilHills, Machine Yardz, Mêlée, Psalm Alarm, The New Monuments, Traum, and Trauma, and leads his own Ben Hall's Racehorse Names.

"Ryan Sawyer is a drummer and percussionist from the USA. He has played with several artists and bands like, Tv On The Radio, At The Drive-In, Scarlet Johanson, Massive Attack, Boredoms (77 & 88 Boadrum), The Mekons, Thurston Moore, among others.He currently is playing with, Stars Like Fleas, Tall Firs, and Eye Contact."

"Susan Alcorn (born 1953) is an American composer, improvisor, and pedal steel guitarist. Having started out playing guitar at the age of twelve, she quickly immersed herself in folk music, blues, and the pop music of the 1960s. A chance encounter with blues musician Muddy Waters steered her towards playing slide guitar. By the time she was twenty-one, she had immersed herself in the pedal steel guitar, playing in country and western swing bands in Texas.

Soon, she began to combine the techniques of country-western pedal steel with her own extended techniques to form a personal style influenced by free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian ragas, Indigenous traditions, and various folk musics of the world. By the early 1990s her music began to show an influence of the holistic and feminist "deep listening" philosophies of Pauline Oliveros.

Though mostly a solo performer, Alcorn has collaborated with numerous artists including Pauline Oliveros, Eugene Chadbourne, Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, Joe Giardullo, Caroline Kraabel, Earl Howard, Le Quan Ninh, Sean Meehan, Joe McPhee, LaDonna Smith, Mike Cooper, Walter Daniels, Ellen Fullman, Jandek, George Burt, Janel Leppin, Michael Formanek, Ellery Eskelin, Fred Frith, Maggie Nicols, Evan Parker, Johanna Varner, Zane Campbell and Mary Halvorson."

"Julien Desprez is a musician and performer based in Paris. Jazz and rock were his early musical loves, but they evolved rapidly to free forms where body and space find their places through sound. As his practice progressed as well as his conception and approach to his instrument, the music and space changed. He is now considering the guitar more like a battery, an organ, a modifiable instrument deployable at will. Through a mix of actions on the instrument and a play of foot on effect pedals, taking inspiration from the technique of Tap Dance, it completely opened the possibilities, sound and physical environment of the instrument. This results in a practice where body is engaged to its fullest.

Now evolving between sound art, performance and contemporary improvisational music, his work today is centred around all the questions that exist within a stage space, through body, space, sight and light, but where the sound remains the central pillar. Julien is also a co-founder of the Collectif Coax, a music cooperative based in Paris and created in 2008, which was recently labelled "Compagnie Nationale" by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. He's also played with Charlie Haden, Mats Gustafson, Jeanne Added, Edward Perraud, Thomas Depourquery, François Jeanneau, Louis Sclavis, Stephane Payen, Guillaume Orti, Benoit Delbecq, Tortoise, Han Bennink, Hubert Dupont, Rob Mazurek, Jef Parker, Frank Vaillant, Gilles Coronado, Beniat Achary, Noël Ackchoté, David Grubbs, Doug Wamble, Marc Ducret, Sylvain Darrifourcq, Eve Risser, Mederic Collignon, Magic Malik, Emmanuel Bex et Hasse Poulsen."

"My name is Ava Mendoza. I play guitars and stompboxes and write music. Currently I'm based out of Brooklyn, NY. I have played guitar for most of my life and been active for the last decade playing my own music and in many different groups. In any context I try to bring expressivity, energy and a wide sonic range to the music I play. I've toured throughout the U.S. and Europe and recorded or performed with a broad spectrum of musicians including singer Carla Bozulich (The Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista), Fred Frith (Massacre, Henry Cow, Art Bears), Nels Cline, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Weasel Walter, Tune-Yards, and more. I've played on recordings released by labels Weird Forest, Tzadik, Clean Feed, NotTwo, ugEXPLODE, Resipiscent, New Atlantis, and others.

Friendly critics have called me "Oakland's avant-jazz virtuoso" (Brad Cohan, Village Voice), "a versatile and virtuosic guitarist" (The San Francisco Film Society), "a wizard on a semi-circle of effects pedals, butÉ equally adept with FX-less technique," (Lars Gotrich, A Blog Supreme/NPR Jazz). I was recently named one of Guitar WorldÔs Ò10 Female Guitarists You Should KnowÓ.

My main project these days is UNNATURAL WAYS .

PERFORMED/RECORDED WITH:

Scott Amendola (Nels Cline Singers, Charlie Hunter Quartet), Liz Allbee, Vijay Anderson, Bran(...)pos, Carla Bozulich (The Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista), Sheldon Brown, Tony Buck (The Necks), members of Caroliner, Nels Cline (Wilco), George Cremaschi, Tim Dahl (Child Abuse, Lydia Lunch), J.A. Deane, Marco Di Gasbarro (Squartet), John Dikeman (Cactus Truck), Thomas Dimuzio, Shayna Dunkleman, Marco Eneidi, Luc Ex, Ben Goldberg, Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Massacre), Vinny Golia, Phillip Greenlief, Franz Hautzinger, Jacob Felix Heule, Devin Hoff (Good for Cows), Gerri Jager (Knaalpot), Darren Johnston, Henry Kaiser (Crazy Backwards Alphabet), Annette Krebs, Thollem McDonas, Lisa Mezzacappa, Butch Morris, Matt Nelson, Hexlove aka Zac Nelson, Kanoko Nishi, Nick Podgurski (Extra Life), Porest aka Mark Gergis, Gino Robair, Aram Shelton, John Shiurba, SF Sound, Damon Smith, Moe! Staiano, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Raphael Vanoli (Knaalpot), Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers), Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE), Wobbly (Negativland), Tune-yards, William Winant (Mr. Bungle), Kenny Wollesen (Sex Mob), Theater of Yugen, dancers Leyya Mona Tawil, Yuko Kaseki, and Manuela Tessi."

"Since her New York debut recital at Carnegie's Weill Hall in 2002, Dublin-born pianist Isabelle O'Connell has developed an international career that has taken her across four continents. As soloist and chamber musician she has performed around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, U.K. and Ireland, to venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of art, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Belfast Festival, St David's Hall, Cardiff and the National Concert Hall, Ireland.

Now based in New York, Isabelle is co-founder of GrandBand, New York's new music piano sextet, described by the New York Times as: "six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene". Making their debut at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York in 2012, they have since performed around the United States and U.K. at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Gilmore Piano Festival, Le Poisson Rouge, New York, the Rite of Summer Music Festival, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, Sheffield University and Cornerstone Festival, Liverpool.

Receiving a standing ovation at her New York Debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in January 2002, the New York Concert Review wrote: "She has the technical prowess... and a spirit and intelligence to bring it all together." Isabelle has a reputation for being a dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of music by 20th and 21st century composers, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. She has worked with John Adams, John Luther Adams, Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, Morton Subotnick, Kevin Volans, Bunita Marcus, Donnacha Dennehy, Dan Trueman, amongst many others. In 2007, Isabelle was co-Artistic Director of "New Music, New Ireland, New York", a concert that showcased contemporary Irish composers at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. Her debut solo album RESERVOIR featuring solo piano music by contemporary Irish composers was released to critical acclaim in 2010 and the New Yorker called her "the young Irish piano phenom".

As concerto soloist Isabelle has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under conductors William Eddins, Gerhard Markson and Gavin Maloney. Her recording of Kevin Volans' Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Winds with the NSO was released on the Lyric FM label in 2014.

As chamber musician, Isabelle has performed with John Adams at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, with Meredith Monk at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival and with the New Zealand String Quartet at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Isabelle often performs with CRASH ensemble, joining them on tours of Australia and the United States, performing at the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival, Sydney Conservatoire, Kennedy Center, Princeton University, Peak Performances Montclair, Virginia Tech, Le Poisson Rouge in New York and the Galway International Arts Festival, Reich Effect Festival and Sounds of a Safe Harbor Festival, Ireland. She is also a member of the Friends of MATA ensemble and the Curiosity Cabinet in New York. In addition, she has performed with Alarm Will Sound, the Da Capo Chamber Players, American Symphony Orchestra, Ergodos ensemble, the New Zealand and ConTempo String Quartets.

Isabelle has also worked with Grammy award-winning vocalist Susan McKeown, featuring on her album Singing in the Dark and composer Jenny Olivia Johnson's album Don't Look Back on Innova Records.

In addition to winning an award from Artists International in 2001, Isabelle was the recipient of the Tibor Paul Medal, the 1998 Mabel Swainson Pianoforte Award at the Feis Ceoil (which led to her debut recital at the John Field Room in Dublin) and the Ulster Bank Music Foundation Piano Award (making a television appearance on the "Late Late Show"). Some of her other awards have included a Fulbright scholarship, Bank of Ireland Millennium Scholarship, John F. Kennedy scholarship, Music Network Touring awards and multiple awards from the Irish Arts Council and Culture Ireland.

Isabelle has recorded for the Diatribe, Innova and Lyric fm labels. She has appeared on television and radio on both sides of the Atlantic, with performances broadcast on WNYC, WQXR, WFMT Chicago, BBC3, RTE, TV3 and Lyric FM radio.

Isabelle is currently on the piano faculties at Bard College and the Diller-Quaile School of Music, New York. She is a former faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music and the Kaufman Center's Lucy Moses School, NY. Isabelle has a particular interest in music involving extended piano techniques and is often invited to give workshops on the topic, in addition to giving masterclasses for pianists and composers. Isabelle received her Masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She subsequently studied with Zitta Zohar in New York. Her earlier studies took place at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin (Réamonn Keary, Therese Fahy) where she received her B.A. in Music Performance."

"Emily Manzo is a pianist, songwriter and vocalist that Time Out New York considers "a uniquely protean artist who makes several scenes move." The New York Times has described her "attention to detail exceptional." Emily has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe in concerts and festivals of chamber music, experimental music and rock music. As a vocalist and pianist she has premiered the works of many American composers. Her degrees were earned at the New England Conservatory, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Columbia University where her teachers included Stephen Drury and Lydia Frumkin. Emily currently resides in New York where she performs regularly as a classical solo and chamber musician, as well as with her pop group, Christy & Emily. She can be heard as vocalist and pianist on Tzadik, SHSK'H, The Social Registry, Big Print (UK), Klangbad (DE), Merge, and Jagjaguar. With funding from the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Foundation, Emily completed her recording of the complete Chopin Preludes at Merkin Concert Hall in November 2012."

"Yoon Sun Choi has spent more than two decades capturing listeners with her uncompromising, freewheeling and beautiful style and the breadth of her musical vision.

A Korean-Canadian improvising vocalist and pianist, Choi has been based in New York City since 2000. Her main musical projects are with her longtime collaborative duo with pianist Jacob Sacks, her solo voice/piano work.

Choi has performed and collaborated with renown artists such as Jane Ira Bloom, Samir Chatterjee, Steve Coleman, Mark Dresser, Mark Elias, Gerry Hemmingway, Darius Jones, D.D. Jackson, Oliver Lake, Mat Maneri, Ben Monder, the Tri-Centric Orchestra, Sarah Weaver, Kenny Werner and Kenny Wheeler. She has performed in some of the finest concert houses and music venues including The Blue Note, Birdland, The Stone, Roulette, The River Theater, Roy Thompson Hall and Carnegie Hall.Choi received a BMus in classical piano and composition at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and a BMus in voice and jazz performance at the University of Toronto. She studied voice with Thomas Schilling and piano with the late Sofia Rosoff."

"Mellissa Hughes enjoys a busy career in both contemporary and early music. a versatile, charismatic soprano endowed with brilliant technique and superlative stage instincts...indispensable to New York's new-music ecosystem" A dedicated interpreter of living composers, Hughes has worked closely with Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Steve Reich, Neil Rolnick, and has premiered works by David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Ted Hearne, Caleb Burhans, Christopher Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, and Frederick Rzewski, among others. In the classical concert hall she has performed Mozart's Vespers and Requiem under the baton of Sir Neville Marriner, Handel's Dixit Dominus with Sir David Willcocks, and the role of Dido under the direction of Andrew Lawrence King. Equally at home in front of a rock band, Hughes has received widespread acclaim in her role as lead vocalist of Newspeak, an amplified alt-classical band, and for her work with Missy Mazzoli's Victoire. In the 2013/14 season, Hughes continues touring with John Zorn for Zorn@60 celebrations, singing his "Madrigals" and "Earthspirit" in Jerusalem, Paris and at Alice Tully Hall in New York (having sung the works last season in Montreal, Ghent, Warsaw, at the Barbican in London, and at the Guggenheim New York.) She also stars in Jonathan Berger's double bill opera, Visitations, in a Beth Morrison Production/HERE production for Protoype 2014 at Roulette, led by Christopher Rountree. Other highlights include a recital with pianist Lisa Moore for Kettle Corn New Music, and Bach cantatas with Julian Wachner and Trinity Wall Street."

"Megan Schubert, vocalist and composer, has performed music by Stockhausen for an audience under umbrellas in a torrential downpour for Make Music New York; world premieres at Carnegie Hall; with robots while locked inside a Van de Graaff Generator at Boston's Museum of Science; on a bike flying by the audience in an installation piece at McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn; with Cambodian master of classical dance, Proeung Chhieng; in a giant potato sack while video was projected onto her frontside at Webster Hall; for inmates at a maximum security prison in Ossining, NY; with puppets at E 4th Street Fab! Fest; for Elliot Carter at a celebration of his 100th birthday; shared the stage on multiple occasions with such luminaries as Meredith Monk, Bang On a Can, and with many ensembles championing art music and experimental jazz of today.

In recent years, Schubert sang in the premieres of large works by Robert Ashley, Luigi Nono (with Ekmeles), Georges Aperghis, Bernard Rands, James Ilgenfritz, Sonia Megías, Jenny O. Johnson, Annea Lockwood, Nick Hallett, Kitty Brazelton, Sasha Zamler-Carhart, Inhyn Kim, Nate Wooley (Psalms from Hell, and for Anna Sperber's The Superseded Third, Seven Storey Mountain V--later version, Seven Storey Mountain VI--Belgium and New York versions), Jonathan Bepler (with Matthew Barney for opera film River of Fundament and newest film REDOUBT (2019), for John Jasperse's Within Between, for Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey's The Set Up, and Cardona's GIVEN IN THE BLACKBOX), Cally Spooner, Kristen Volness, Guy Barash, David Friend, Christian Frederickson, Tino Sehgal (Public Art Fund production of "This You"), Charlie Looker, Matt Fagen, Allen Shawn, Tina Davidson, Alison Nowak, Eve Beglarian, and in new productions of operas by Denman Maroney and Jason Cady. Schubert gave the Canadian premiere of David Lang's "death speaks" as part of the Honens Festival in Calgary, AB.

;Judd Greenstein, Tracy K. Smith, and Joshua Frankel's A Marvelous Order (as Jane Jacobs) received a pre-premiere/preview at Williams College, and the full premiere TBD 2021. QUARTET, a composer's lab was produced by Schubert, presented world premieres by and with Schubert, Gelsey Bell, Anaïs Maviel and joined by Yoon Sun Choi at Roulette and as part of Lady Fest at The Tank.

Schubert, longtime assistant to opera director Rhoda Levine, and the late Moog synthesizer pioneer, composer, conductor and pianist Gershon Kingsley, holds degrees from Bennington College and Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Lucy Shelton. She co-founded the Avant Music Festival and co-curated years 2010-2015. She studied opera with tenor/actor Anthony Laciura (Boardwalk Empire, MET opera). She is also a professional chorister and member of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church chamber choir."