Biography "Max Alduca is an Australian bassist, known for the bands Microfiche, The Splinter Orchestra, and Pocketeers.

"Nick Calligeros is an improvising trumpeter, sound artist and educator from Sydney, Australia working at the intersection of jazz, exploratory music and electronic music.

Nick leads his (new) subversive electro-acoustic quintet Soft Spot and co-leads well-respected improvising collective Microfiche, who toured Europe in 2019, including a performance at Copenhagen Jazz Festival. He has collaborated with some of Australia's most acclaimed jazz and improvising artists including Chris Abrahams (The Necks), Phil Slater (Band of Five Names), Adrian Lim-Klumpes (Triosk), Sia Ahmad, Jonathan Zwartz and Freyja Garbett and groups such Tangents, Funk Engine and new-music group Alaska Orchestra with whom he performed a reimagining of Brian Eno's 'Music for Airport' for Vivid Festival 2018, at the Sydney Opera House. Nick has also played and recorded for an eclectic range of popular music acts including indie rockers Middle Kids, singer-songwriter Kim Churchill, producer Billy Fox, rappers Kid Mac and Horrow Show, vocal group The Maes, pop-brass group Hot Potato Band and Aussie reggae outfit Black Bird Hum.

Outside of the trumpet, Nick composes experimental ambient electronic music. In 2019 he released an E.P entitled 'In Bloom, In Blend' - a collection of distinctive mood-driven sound collages built from everyday sounds. He has also contributed his unique textures to live improvised performances including with Adrian Lim-Klumpes (Triosk/Tangents) as well as a forthcoming album under the name 'We Will Intersect' due 2021.

Nick completed a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance in 2015 from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where during his study he was mentored by Australian improvising legends Phil Slater, Simon Barker and Mike Nock. In 2015 Nick toured and recorded the U.S with Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra and featured artist James Muller. He spent the ensuing three months on a musical pilgrimage through the U.S.

Since graduating, Nick has continued his study of the trumpet with Australia's greatest brass practitioners including Scott Tinkler, David Elton (SSO/LSO) and Yoram Levy (TSO). He was also a participant at the 2016 Australia Art Orchestra Creative Music Intense in Tasmania where he worked with a number of national and international guests.

In 2020 undertook an Australian Art Orchestra mentorship with prolific composer and pianist Andrea Keller. Other recent accolades include being recipient of APRAAMCOS's Creative Fund and CreateNSW Quick Response Grant.

As a composer, Nick has written for a variety of styles ranging from art music to brass band music. In 2015, under the guidance of the inimitable Sandy Evans, Nick composed an hour suite of music re-imagining the soundtrack from Studio Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke" for a hybrid classical chamber and jazz octet. Excerpts from this suite can be heard on Soundcloud.

Nick is also a passionate music educator, working as an in-house peripatetic trumpet tutor at a number of high schools where he passes on his love for brass playing. He also directs a number jazz bands, aiming to inspire a new generation of young improvisers.

Nick's creative output extends to the written word, running a blog at nickcalligeros.com where he publishes art, essays on music, resources and more."

"Holly Conner is a Sydney-based drummer and percussionist - extremely versatile, she works across the electronic music, pop & indie-rock, experimental, and free jazz music scenes.

Coming from a diverse musical background, she first studied rock drumming and classical percussion, before completing a BA in Jazz Drum kit from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She has also completed summer courses at the School of Improvised Music Brooklyn, and two Australian Art Orchestra Creative Music Intensives.

As a free-lance drummer, Holly has toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Holly Throsby, Microfiche, Lupa J, Marcus Whale and Human Noise.

Festival appearances include performances at VIVID Sydney, Sydney Festival, Liveworks, Underbelly Arts, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Jazz Festival, Aberdeen International Youth Festival, Sydney International Women's Jazz Festival and Manly Jazz Festival.

She has also played at venues such as N1Reaktorhallen in Stockholm, Km28 in Berlin, The Sydney Opera House Forecourt, MONA in Tasmania and The Art Gallery of NSW.

Her drumming is featured on several indie film and television soundtracks including the BBC/HBO TV series Top of The Lake: China Girl, and the award-winning surf film Beyond the Noise.

Alongside free-lance work, Conner produces and performs her own hybrid electronic-live drum music under the monkier ilex. ilex live sets combine industrial, experimental and texturally rich tracks with heavy drums & percussion - influenced by dark film soundtracks, techno, noise, strange creatures and the natural environment.

Current groups include Minus Marcus (pop/electronic), Microfiche (free jazz and contemporary improvisation), Boysnlove (rock), and Skinny Legions (folk and pop).

In 2019 Holly was a finalist for the Jaan Rutherford Memorial Award, recognizing excellence in Australian female jazz instrumentalists."

"Sam Gill is a saxophonist, improviser & composer based in Sydney, Australia. He leads the groups Coursed Waters & Scattered, is a member of the composer-performer collectives Mind on Fire & Microfiche, and has duo projects with electric bassist Joseph Franklin and drummer Simon Barker. In 2020, Sam was nominated for the Freedman Jazz Fellowship.

Sam has performed with a number of Australia's most acclaimed improvisers including Chris Hale, Marc Hannaford, Andrea Keller, Steve Magnusson, Matt McMahon, Gian Slater, Clayton Thomas and Scott Tinkler. He has also worked with the Australian Art Orchestra and world-music ensemble Mara!

Performance highlights have included appearances at Copenhagen Jazz Festival, the Australian Art Orchestra's Meeting Points Series, SIMA's International Women's Jazz Festival, the NOW now Festival, the Jazzgroove Association Featured Artist series, Converge Festival, and Wollongong's Speak Satellite Festival.

Sam has appeared on numerous records as a leader/co-leader, with releases on the labels Creative Sources, Earshift Music and his own label Radial Sounds. As a band-member, he can be heard on Okay (2017) by the Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra, and From The Depths (2020) by Sideband."

"Sydney-based pianist, Novak Manojlovic first began playing piano at age eight. He went on to study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 2012-2016 where he honed his craft as an improviser and composer, studying under pianists Mike Nock and Matt McMahon (Freedman Jazz Fellow 2005). Novak has led his own diverse projects and collaborated extensively in the pop music scene, acting as a musical director, arranger and touring musician for Ngaiire, Sampa the Great, Wallace and Martha Marlow. Novak has been quickly gaining recognition for his expressive approach, and since finishing his studies has been composing and performing with his subversive piano trio 'HEKKA', electro-acoustic outfit Colourfields and his large ensemble Grown Ocean throughout Australia."

Phillippa Murphy-Haste: "I am a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator based between Malmö, Sweden, and Sydney, Australia. I specialise in clarinets and saxophones.

My artistic practice reflects a broad range of styles and contexts including jazz, contemporary classical, experimental, improvised music, theatre, inter-arts and cross-cultural collaborations, and music-related social justice projects. I have trained extensively in classical and jazz styles with a background in performance, education and research, completing a Bachelor's degree with a double major in performance and education with honours from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music before commencing a Bachelor of Jazz Performance program at the same institution. I was selected to present my research at the Cultural Diversity in Music Education Conference at the Sydney Conservatorium in 2010. In 2016 I travelled to Sweden on scholarship at the Malmö Academy of Music (Malmö Musikhögskolan) where I studied with Karl-Martin Almqvist (Danish Radio Big Band) and Swedish Grammy-winning artist Per "Texas" Johansson.

Some of my performance highlights have included a tour to Europe with Microfiche, including performances in a decomissioned nuclear reactor hall in Stockholm (R1), and at Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2019; playing clarinet at the Sydney Opera House with the 13-piece Sydney Chamber Orchestra and BAFTA-winning multi-instrumentalist and Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds (Broadchurch); performing and recording as a featured soloist in Bridge of Dreams with Shubha Mudgal and Sirens Big Band at City Recital Hall, performing at Malmö Live (Sweden) with multi Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian musician Joyce Moreno (formerly 'Joyce'); collaborating with writer-director Shakthi Shatkhidharan (CuriousWorks, National Theatre of Parramatta) and fellow musicians in the composition and creation of a live soundtrack to the creative development theatre work 'A Counting and Cracking of Heads' at Carriageworks; performing at the Sydney International Women's Jazz Festival with Divergence Big Band under the directorship of Jenna Cave; performing with my own band, the Phillippa Murphy-Haste ensemble with highly-respected multi-instrumentalist Paul Cutlan at Venue 505 for the Converge Festival; premiering a new work by Bree van Reyk with Ensemble Offspring; and playing regularly as a member of Sirens Big Band, to name a few.

I have released three albums with experimental improvisation collective Microfiche."