"Though the point of reference for many remains the iconic band Henry Cow, which he co-founded in 1968 and which broke up more than 30 years ago, Fred Frith has never really stood still for an instant.

In bands such as Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog, Tense Serenity, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Eye to Ear, and most recently Cosa Brava, he has always held true to his roots in rock and folk music, while exploring influences that range from the literary works of Eduardo Galeano to the art installations of Cornelia Parker.

The release of the seminal Guitar Solos in 1974 enabled him to simultaneously carve out a place for himself in the international improvised music scene, not only as an acclaimed solo performer but in the company of artists as diverse as Han Bennink, Chris Cutler, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Evelyn Glennie, Ikue Mori, Louis Sclavis, Stevie Wishart, Wu Fei, Camel Zekri, John Zorn, and scores of others.

He has also developed a personal compositional language in works written for Arditti Quartet, Asko Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Modern, Concerto Köln, and ROVA Sax Quartet, for example. Fred has been active as a composer for dance since the early 1980s, working with choreographers Bebe Miller, François Verret, and especially long-time collaborator and friend Amanda Miller, with whom he has created a compelling body of work over the last twenty years.

His film soundtracks (for award-winning films like Thomas Riedelsheimer's Rivers and Tides and Touch the Sound, Peter Mettler's Gambling, Gods, and LSD, and Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow's Thirst, to name a few) won him a lifetime achievement award from Prague's "Music on Film, Film on Music" Festival (MOFFOM) in 2007. The following year he received Italy's Demetrio Stratos Prize (previously given to Diamanda Galas and Meredith Monk) for his life's work in experimental music, and in 2010 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in his home county of Yorkshire.

Fred currently teaches in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California (renowned for over fifty years as the epicenter of the American experimental tradition), and in the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland."

"Berten D'Hollander is a Concert Flutist and Professor of Flute from Belgium who is known for his popular masterclasses and performing internationally. Berten holds a Master of Music in performance with First Prize awards in solfege, flute and chamber music with a pedagogical degree from the Conservatory of Antwerp as well as a Diplome Superieur in flute and is presently working on his PhD in music. His career spans 30 years of performing in orchestras, chamber groups and as a soloist as well as professor of the flute. He presently has eight cds to his credit.

Berten has performed in the Flemish Opera, the Flander's Royal Ballet, the National Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Muntschouwburg and Arts Musica in Belgium. He has been the principal flutist of the Musique Nouvelles since 2003. In addition to performing the classical flute repertoire, he also enjoys performing contemporary music at Warsaw Autumn, Clef du Soleil in Lille and Acanthes in Metz.

Currently Professor D'Hollander teaches flute privately and is visiting professor of flute at the University of Arkdeniz in Antalya, Turkey. He gives master classes all over the world as well as performing as a concert flutist and with the D'Hollander/Lestoquoy Flute and Guitar Duo."

"Born in 1972, Charles Michiels studied art at the Conservatories of Tournai, Mons and Brussels. He holds higher degrees in music theory, clarinet and chamber music, all with great distinction and a first prize in choral direction.

He has distinguished himself in national and international competitions and is notably the first winner of the International Clarinet Association competition in Lubbock (1997, Texas, USA) and winner of the Dos Hermanas International Competition (1996, Seville, Spain).

In addition to numerous concerts around the world as a clarinetist and choirmaster (France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Cyprus, USA and China), Charles Michiels is a solo clarinetist with the Musiques Nouvelles ensemble (Mons); he is also called upon to play in various ensembles such as La Chapelle Musicale de Tournai, the Orchester Philharmonique de Liège, the CEPHEUS ensemble, the Kölner Akademie, and participates in many other chamber music projects.

After more than 15 years spent directing instrumental and vocal ensembles, he became involved in the Jeunesses Musicales de Wallonie Picarde center, of which he was director from 2006 to 2011. He teaches choral direction and directs various vocal ensembles at the Brussels Conservatories since 1998 and Lille since 2011, and the clarinet at the Tournai Conservatory since 1995.

A great defender of the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, he promotes contemporary composers, Belgian in particular, both in the repertoire of the clarinet and in that of the choirs, his two great passions."

"Adrien Lambinet was born on April 20, 1979. After a classical course in Academy of Music, he is the winner of the Axion Classics contest. He pursued higher musical studies at the Royal Conservatories of Mons, then of Liège and obtained his advanced degrees of chamber music, trombone in the class of Alain Pire and methodology of the trombone.

Following encounters with strong personalities of the music such as Jean-Pierre Peuvion, Garrett List, Michel Massot..., it shows a strong interest for the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He participates in many projects of Chamber Music in the class of J- P Peuvion , including Correspondances of V. Globokar , works of Scelsi , Rzewsky , Pousseur ,... He also practices improvised music, and has followed the teaching of Garrett List at the Royal Conservatory of Liège.

His affinities for the current music are exploited during collaborations with Musiques Nouvelles , Ictus , the Garrett List Ensemble.

Alongside this passion for contemporary music, he plays in several productions of Belgian orchestras (Liège Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Opera of Wallonia).

He participated in several shows mixing music and theater, including The jump of the angel, children's show created in 2006 by the Theater Mâât (tours in Belgium, France, Portugal, Wales, Poland, Canada), The Master of the World ( Coy the Dream Runners ), Armageddon ( Art Zoyd-New Music ), Kasimir and Karoline ( National Theater ), The Opera-Firefighter ( Cultural Center of Walloon Brabant ), Crac Boum Street , mini street fanfare for which he composes.

It exploits gender diversity within the Klezmic Zirkus quintet , mixing traditional klezmer music with jazz, rock, reggae. This group is supported by RTBF's show Le monde est un village and in 2007 released the album Vitamine K at homerecords.be. A second album is planned for the end of 2009.

Adrien Lambinet continues his exploration of sound with the D uo Abysses for which he composes together with clarinetist Aurélie Charneux."

"Hughes Kolp studied at the Royal Conservatory of Liege (1st Prizes for guitar and flute, graduate degree in chamber music), then at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, with Odair Assad (graduate degree in guitar). He was a laureate of several international competitions (in Poland, the Netherlands, Italy).

Deeply interested as he is in the music of our time, Hughes Kolp devotes a significant part of his work to it. He has been a member of the Belgian contemporary Ensemble Musiques nouvelles since 1996. Several works he created are dedicated to him (Michel Fourgon, Claude Ledoux, Jean-Marie Rens, Jacques Leduc).

Hughes Kolp regularly performs as a soloist with the State Orchester of Romania, the Orchestre de Chambre de Wallonie, the Brabants Orkest of Eindhoven, and collaborates with various musical formations such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liege, the Ictus and the Bl!ndman Ensembles.

In 2003, he was the first Belgian guitarist to record a solo record for the well-known guitar label G.H.A. He also contributes to an album for the lgloo label with the jazz band Danza Quartet.

In 2011 he did a first recording as a member of the Alki Guitar Trio (with Magali Rischette and Adrien Brogna) for the label G.H.A Records. It combines transcriptions and original compositions for the trio. The Alki Guitar Trio has been a regular guest at various Belgian and international festivals (Festival de VVallonie, Festival de guitare de Paris, Silesian Guitar Festival in Poland) and recorded another album entitled " Corpus " and devoted to Spanish music in 2015.

After a post as lecturer for Odair Assad at the Royal Conservatory of Mons for close to ten years combined with a lectureship at IMEP (Namur), Hughes Kolp has been a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Liege since 2005."

"Pierre Quiriny was born in Brussels on May 3, 1983.

At the age of 7, he entered the Anderlecht Academy to take percussion and piano lessons with Jean-Claude Wets and Osvaldo Salas. Winner of the Dexia competition in 2001, he joined the percussion class of Louison Renault at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels where he obtained, in June 2007, a license in percussion with great distinction.

That same year, he joined the group Oxymore, which won first prize at the Biennale de la Chanson Française the following year.

His taste for contemporary music led him to become, in 2008, percussionist of the Musiques Nouvelles ensemble. In March 2011, he joined the ECO (European Contemporary Orchestra), a European ensemble with an atypical and innovative workforce.

Pierre plays regularly with the National Orchestra of Belgium and the Orchester Symphonique de La Monnaie, as well as in chamber music groups, and performs regularly abroad (France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Romania).

In September 2011, Pierre joined Philippe Gérard's orchestral conducting class at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Six months later, he was entrusted with the artistic direction of the Royal Society of Harmony of Braine-l'Alleud.

Pierre also leads a career as a pedagogue as a percussion teacher at the Jette Music Academy and an instrumental ensemble teacher at the Anderlecht Music Academy.

At the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, he is orchestra coordinator and assistant in Louison Renault's percussion class."

"Karel Coninx took his first violin lessons at the age of five with Valentijn Ten Haaf in Hasselt, and soon played his first solo concerts under his direction. At the Municipal Conservatory of Hasselt, he obtained the Golden City Medal with Greatest Distinction, before continuing his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, first on violin with Urszula Gorniak, later on viola with Paul Declerck. After obtaining his Master's degree, Karel went to the United States for two years, where he obtained a Performance Diploma at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, in the class of Roger Chase.

Throughout his education, Karel gained orchestral experience as a member of the youth orchestras of Limburg, Flanders, Belgium, Ireland & the Netherlands, the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and the Flemish Radio Orchestra. During his stay in the US he became a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (official training orchestra of the prestigious Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductors including Bernard Haitink and Esa Pekka-Salonen) and played concerts with the Greenbay Symphony Orchestra.

Gradually he discovered a love for chamber music, in which he specialized thanks to the teachings of Shmuel Ashkenazy & Richard Young (Vermeer Quartet), Guy Danel (Quatuor Danel), Vaclav Remes & Josef Kluson (Prazak Quartet), Jerzy Kaplanek, Christine Vlajk, Jeremy Bell & Simon Fryer (Penderecki Quartet).

He played concerts in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Latvia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Lebanon, Mexico, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Russia and China, as principal violas of Brussels Chamber Orchestra, Magogo Chamber Orchestra, CCPA Symphony Orchestra, Ataneres Ensemble, European Contemporary Orchestra, Timur und Seine Mannschaft, or in chamber ensembles Musiques Nouvelles, Champ d'Action, Cordis Quartet, Quatuor MP4, The Colorist Orchestra, Casco Phil, I Palpiti Soloists, ...

Karel was a guest at the Faulkner Chamber Music Festival (USA) in duo with violinist Claire Bourdet and as a soloist duo with the National Orchestra of Lebanon in Beirut. Their program "Dialogen" received support as a Young Talent in the Aanbod Podium of the Flemish Community. In 2013, Claire and Karel launched TW Classics 1190 together - a free chamber music series in the Ten Weyngaert community center in Vorst, where they live.

Karel participated in recording sessions and live concerts in various genres. He played alongside Adamo, Björk, Stef Bos, John Cale, Clouseau, Hooverphonic, Einstürzende Neubauten, Tamino, Zita Swoon Group, Cinematic Orchestra, ... He is one of the founders of the Sun*Sun*Sun String Orkestra - a string quintet that builds bridges between contemporary classical and adventurous pop music, and is a member of The Colorist Orchestra.

Karel won prizes in the Kiwanis competition and in the Scolarta Music Competition."

Jean-Paul Zanutel is a Belgian musician and composer who studied piano, cello, chamber music, improvisation at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège. He is known for the ensemble Musiques Nouvelles.

"Jean-Paul Dessy was born in Huy in Belgium in 1963. He was attracted very early on to the cello, though since there was no cello class in his local conservatory, he began by studying the piano for four years before at last starting the cello. The piano would henceforward serve him for his improvisations.

As a teenager he had a passion for rock and contemporary music. He discovered notably Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Palais des Congrès in Liège and met, at the age of 16, Olivier Messiaen, who encouraged him to continue in his path as a musician. He then entered the Conservatoire Royal in Liège and took advanced classes with Elias Arizcuren, Daniil Chafran, Yvan Monighetti as well as Irvine Arditti.

Jean-Paul Dessy also studied letters and philosophy at Liège University. He was then composing, as an autodidact, music for productions at the university theatre. The composer of much incidental music, he subsequently wrote for Jacques Lasalle, Denis Marleau, Anne-Laure Liégeois, David Géry, Lorent Wanson and Frédéric Dussenne, for choreographers such as Carolyn Carlson (Dialogue avec Rothko), Frédéric Flamand and Nicole Mossoux, for the films and fashion shows of the designer Hussein Chalayan and for Les Levers du soleil by Bartabas.

A cellist, exponent of unconventional chamber music works, he was part of the group Maximalist! (1986-1992) and founded the string quartet Quadro that, from 1988 to 1994, gave first performances of some 30 new works. With the pianist Boyan Vodenitcharov, he formed a duet in a repertory ranging over three centuries. He has given, solo or with orchestra, Belgian or international premieres of many works, several of which have been dedicated to him (Ledoux, Messiaen, Radulescu, Rzewski, Schnittke, Tanguy, Zhang, etc.). He also experiments with dynamic electroacoustic 'comprovisations' with Scanner, DJ Olive, David Shea, Fennesz and Murcof.

In 1995 he tackled the composition of non-illustrative music with Incipit for solo cello, premiered by himself during the Brussels 'rencontres'. In 1997 his piece L'Ombre du son, for two cellos, received the Grand Prix Paul Gilson of the Communauté des Radios Publiques de Langue Française, together with the Prix Fuga of Belgian composers in 1999.

The composer of symphonic works (Serene Sirens, Into the C), of chamber music (Orée-Oraison-Hors-Raison for string quintet and two cellos, 2000; Tuor Qua Tuor for string quartet, 2008) and electronics (C Creed Secret, 1998; Kaleidoscore, 2003), he wrote the music of the opera Kilda, l'île des hommes-oiseaux (2005), that he conducted for the opening of the Edinburgh Festival in 2009.

The titles of the works by this graduate in Romance philology rarely avoid assonance or alliteration. It is sound as much as sense. For Tuor Qua Tuor, meaning in Latin 'The gaze whereby I gaze', he composed by observing silence, by contemplating inner space. This music invites incantation, murmuring, psalmody, enthusiasm, invocation, meditation and silence. Dessy has been particularly influenced by Giacinto Scelsi in his work on the interiority of sound, as also by Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt for his path through life and his sacred music.

His works have been performed in France (Ircam, Présences, Manca, Musica, etc.) in Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, the USA, Russia, China, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Finland, Uzbekistan and Japan.

Conductor and artistic director of the ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, he has widened the breach the ensemble had already opened in the coded world of contemporary music, passionately seeking to erect a musical Tower of Babel, open to all creative styles of the present day.

Jean-Paul Dessy has conducted more than 100 world premieres and nearly 200 contemporary music works, exploring the diversity of sound at the fringes of the secular and sacred. His discography has received many awards: The 'Choc' of Le Monde de la Musique for the complete works for string orchestra of Giacinto Scelsi in 2000, the 'Distinction' of Classica for the complete works for string orchestra of Jean Rogister (2000) and the five stars of BBC Magazine for that of Witold Lutoslawski (2001). In 2010 he a conducted the Parisian premiere of the opera Julie by Philippe Boesmans, directed by Matthew Jocelyn."