"Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, scholar, and poet, whose work spans a range of genres and disciplines. His creative work often reflects his scholarship, which follows performers' historical writings on music, phenomenology, and pedagogies of improvisation. He is at home in collaborative, often interdisciplinary work, in which creative labor is shared and recognized.

As a violinist he has been described as a "formidable performer" (New York Times) noted for his "evocative sound" (London Jazz News) and "finger-busting virtuosity" (San Diego Union Tribune). He has soloed with groups including the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Chinese National Symphony, the Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, the Bowdoin International Music Festival Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia, and the La Jolla Symphony. He is a core member of the American Modern Opera Company, a collective of dancers, instrumentalists, composers, writers, and singers, committed to the long-term creation and performance of an original music- and dance-theater repertory.

His duet with dancer Bobbi Jene Smith, "A Study on Effort," has been featured at the Luminato Festival, PS 122's COIL Festival, the ODC Theater, UCSD Dance&Theater, the American Repertory Theater, and Carolina Performing Arts. Their quartet with dancer Or Schraiber and violinist Miranda Cuckson, "With Care," investigates the politics of empathy and apathy on the level of individual relationships. He is part of the cast and creative team for Bobbi Jene's acclaimed show, "Lost Mountain," premiered at La Mama in May 2019.

Long-time collaborators include composers Matthew Aucoin, Celeste Oram, and Carolyn Chen. Aucoin has written numerous pieces for him, including "Poem" and "Its Own Accord." They perform together frequently, and have appeared at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Rockport Chamber Music, Music Academy of the West, the LA Opera, Dumbarton Oaks, the San Diego Symphony's "Hearing the Future" festival, among others.

GoGwilt's debut solo CD, re: d, includes music by Johann Paul von Westhoff and Carolyn Chen. The CD and its live performance-installation features artwork by Audrey Hope and poetry by Christopher and Keir GoGwilt.

He has worked with Celeste Oram in her explorative broadcasts on technological media, "Televisionmann," and "Vera Wyse Munro: A Radio Séance." He is also part of the creative team for Oram's 3-hour show, "Tautitotito: An Alternative Genealogy of Aotearoa New Zealand Music" (commissioned by and premiered at the Darmstadt Summer Courses 2018).

GoGwilt regularly performs with other San Diego musicians including Steven Schick, Mark Dresser (as part of the Dresser quintet/septet), and bassist/improviser Kyle Motl (as part of their duo, Treesearch). He can be heard on records released by Tzadik, Clean Feed, and BMOP (upcoming). He has additionally performed with musicians including Tan Dun, Chance the Rapper, Robert Levin, and singer-songwriter Asaf Avidan."

Nicolee Kuester: "New York-based horn player Nicolee Kuester divides her time between experimental music and works from the Western musical canon. Nicolee is currently the horn fellow for Ensemble Connect, a two-year chamber music and community advocacy program of Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School. Before moving to New York from the west coast, she was principal horn of the La Jolla Symphony, where she appeared as a concerto soloist, principal horn of the Orquesta de Baja California, and also performed with the San Diego Symphony and San Diego Opera. In 2011, Nicolee appeared with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in a concert tour of Boulez's Pli Selon Pli conducted by the composer. Her own work as a collaborative experimental musician and performance artist has been featured at festivals in Norway, Switzerland, and on both coasts of the United States. As an avid chamber musician, Nicolee has spent summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy and performed throughout San Diego with Palimpsest, San Diego New Music, Renga, and other ensembles. She holds undergraduate degrees in Music Performance and Creative Writing from Oberlin Conservatory, and is completing her DMA in Contemporary Horn Performance at UC San Diego."

"Kyle Motl is a bassist, composer, and improviser. Active in a variety of ensembles and settings, Kyle's work crosses the boundaries between idioms as wide as free jazz, contemporary concert music, and extreme metal. Current interests include extended harmonic techniques for solo bass improvisation, electroacoustic performance with live electronics and improvising software, modular compositional schemes, recursive and generative structuring, and exploration of complex sonic spectra.

Kyle is a member of the Peter Kuhn Trio, and has been performing in quartet and trio with Abbey Rader since 2011. He maintains regular duo projects with T.J. Borden, Adam Tinkle, and Drew Ceccato. The Kyle Motl Trio, featuring Kjell Nordeson and Tobin Chodos is a collaborative platform for new compositions weaving complex structures together with free improvisation. Kyle has performed alongside artists including Anthony Davis, Kidd Jordan, Mary Halvorson, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Dresser, and Wadada Leo Smith, among others.

Kyle holds a BM from Florida Atlantic University and an MM from Florida International University. He is a DMA candidate at UC San Diego, where he studies bass with Mark Dresser."

"Celeste Oram (b. 1990) is a New Zealand composer who was born in Manhattan, learned to walk and talk in London, grew up in Auckland, and is presently based in Southern California.

Celeste's scored works investigate new media and strategies for musical notation: namely, video and audio scores. These works have been performed and recorded by ensembles including the Callithumpian Consort (Boston), wasteLAnd (Los Angeles), the Karlheinz Company (Auckland), the Intrepid Music Project (Auckland), and Three Shades Black (Melbourne), and presented at festivals including SICPP at the New England Conservatory, the soundSCAPE festival in Maccagno, Italy, and the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Older works for standard forces and notation have been performed and recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Song Company (Sydney). Celeste was the Auckland Philharmonia's 'Rising Star' young composer-in-residence for 2013-14; her commissioned orchestral work macropsia was selected as a finalist in the 2014 SOUNZ Contemporary Award for excellence in New Zealand contemporary composition.

Another avenue of work is non-instrumental performance with audio and visual media; Celeste performed her solo piece O I at the 2016 Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in Germany and was awarded the Kranichstein Prize for composition.

A third ongoing project is the renovation of histories of New Zealand music and sonic cultures. At present, this revolves around research into early 20th-century ham radio activity, and the figure of Vera Wyse Munro (1897-1966). This project is rapidly snowballing into an obsession with building re-creations of early radio circuits.

Celeste is currently pursuing a PhD in music composition at the University of California San Diego, where she completed an MA in 2016. She completed a BMusBA with first-class Honours at the University of Auckland in 2012, studying with Eve de Castro-Robinson, John Elmsly, and Leonie Holmes."