"Frank Gratkowski, saxophone. Born in Hamburg, 1963.

Started playing the saxophone at 16 and, following a period at the Hamburg Conservatory (Hamburger Musikhochschule), moved in 1985 to study at the Cologne Conservatory of Music with Heiner Wiberny, graduating in 1990.

Further studies with Charlie Mariano, Sal Nistico and Steve Lacy.

Frank Gratkowski has been working as a soloist in various international formations (Grubenklang Orchester, Klaus Koenig Orchester, Musikfabrik NRW, Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, Bentje Braam, BikBentBraam, All Ears, Zeitkratzer, WDR Big band, etc.). Since 1990 he has been giving solo performances throughout Europe, Canada and USA. With his first solo program, he was a 1991 prizewinner in the Musik Kreativ contest. The release of the solo CD "Artikulationen" followed the same year and a new one "Artikulationen II" in 2002.

Since 1992 he has been working in a duo with the pianist Georg Graewe (CD "VicissEtudes"). The duo is often extended through the participation of different additional musicians, such as drummer Paul Lovens (CD "Quicksand") and bassist John Lindberg (CD "Arrears").

In 1995 he founded the "Frank Gratkowski Trio" with Dieter Manderscheid (Germany), bass, and Gerry Hemingway (USA), drums, (CDs "Gestalten" and "The Flume Factor" ). In 2000 the trio has been extended to a quartet by Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos (CDs "Kollaps", "Spectral Reflections", "Facio" and "Le Vent et la Gorge"). Since 2003 also appearing as a Double Quartet plus Tobias Delius, Herb Robertson, Wilbert DeJoode and Michael Vatcher. In 2005 he got the SWR Jazzprize.

In 1999 the duo with the Italian trombonist Sebastiano Tramontana has been formed and since 2001 Frank Gratkowski has been performing with a trio including Wilbert De Jode (NL) on bass and Achim Kaufmann (D) on piano (CDs "Kwast" and "Unearth"). Since 2006 he's working with the Trio Gratkowski / Brown / Winant (CDs "Wake" and "Vermilion Traces/Donaueschingen 2009"). He is also a co-leader / composer of the Multiple Joy[ce] Orchestra and got a commission to compose for the ensemble Apartment House by "November Music " (Den Bosch NL) and the "Huddersfield Comtemporary Music Fesitival" (England) in 2009. Further actual projects are Fo[u]r Alto, a saxophone ensemble dedicated to microtonal music and "Artikulationen E" a solo program for saxophone with 8 channel live electronic.

Frank Gratkowski played on nearly every German and on numerous international Jazz and contemporary music Festivals including Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Quebec, Les Mans, Muelhuus, Groeningen, Nickelsdorf, Barcelona, Lithuania, Warsaw, Zagreb, Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa and Roma, Huddersfield, London.

He has been teaching saxophone and ensembles at the Cologne, Berlin and Arnhem Conservatory of Music and is giving workshops all around the world.

Furthermore he has performed with Robert Dick, Phil Wachsmann, Radu Malfatti, Herb Robertson, Marcio Mattos, Eugenio Colombo, Peter Kowald, Ray Anderson, Michael Moore, Ken Vandermark, Greg Osby, Kenny Wheeler, Louis Sclavis, John Betsch, Jane Ira Bloom, Connie and Hannes Bauer, Xu Fengxia, James Newton, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Lindberg, Michael Formaneck, Ernst Reijseger, Fred van Hove, Theo Jörgensmann, Phil Minton, Peter Brötzmann, Mark Dresser, Mark Feldman, Hamid Drake, Michiel Braam, Han Bennink, Mal Waldron, Misha Mengelberg a.m.o."

"Matt Davis (born in London in 1970) is an artist working in sound, music and performance living in Bristol.

In studying visual art an interest in strategic photography and process based work led Matt to the world of improvised and experimental music and sound art. Attending Community Music in 1995 and completing John Steven's Search and Reflect course, amongst others, he made several connections in the improvised music scene such as with Mark Wastell, Angharad Davies and Rhodri Davies.

In 1999 he relocated to Barcelona, joined the IBA collective and 'L'Orquestra IBA' as well as working with the dance company La Sospechosa - a collaboration which lasted many years.

On returning to London in 2002 he curated a series of events entitled FIELD designed to unite improvised music and dance. These events, with the support of the Chisenhale Dance Space Artist's Program, eventually became a live-art project investigating notions of space and performance, and were particularly influenced by the work of geographer Doreen Massey who collaborated on the project.

He has performed extensively throughout the UK and Europe, as well as touring Japan with Broken Consort in 2003.

From 2008-2012 he joined the ensemble Zeitkratzer, and in 2009 moved to Cornwall, where he was a member of the SoN collective and the trio Emlow.

He now lives in Bristol."

"Reinhold Friedl, born 1964, lives in Berlin since 1987. He studied piano with Renate Werner, Alan Marks and Alexander von Schlippenbach, mathematics and musicology in Stuttgart and Berlin. As a performer, interpreter and composer, he has received various fellowships - Eurocréation Paris, the Rome Fellowship (Villa Serpentara) of the Berlin Academy of Arts, STEIM Amsterdam-, as well as various composition commissions. Reinhold Friedl has published articles in newpapers and professional journals and conducted a seminar on "Music and Mathematics" in the department of Mathematics at the Berlin Free University together with Prof. Behrends. He founded and directs the ensembles Piano-Inside-Out and ZEITKRATZER. Friedl has worked as a curator for the Podewil center for contemporary arts Berlin and directed the Off-ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) Berlin 2000. He has been invited to take part in the Jury of the Ars Electronica and Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisboa. As pianist and composer, he has worked with musicians and composers such as Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Phill Niblock, Helmut Oehring, Nicolas Collins, Lou Reed, MERZBOW a.k.a., Masami Akita, Radu Malfatti, Bernhard Guenter, Mario Bertoncini (nuova consonanza), Keiji Haino, and has made countless radio and CD recordings. Lately he realized the "spazialisation piano-project" at ZKM Karlsruhe and Asphodel Studios in San Francisco. The main focus of Reinhold Friedl's work is the inside-piano. He played all respective literature using inside-piano techniques and released several articles in this field."

"Marc Weiser, born 23.1.67 in düsseldorf / germany - studied philosophy and outer european music in düsseldorf and berlin- plays git , vox, electronic- 3 years head of programm for the club ?maria am ostbahnhof? in berlin- working 3 years for different record labels as product manager (eye q / harthouse / königshaus / wea ...) - part of the organizer - team of the international festival for electronic music and related visual art - ?club transmediale? since 1999- part of the audio - visual project ?rechenzentrum? / steady live performances wordwide (asia, southamerica, russia, usa, canada, europe...)- working with international dance companys at ?theater am turm / frankfurt ballett? and ?unterwegs theater? / forum neue aktuelle kunst, heidelberg- part of the ensemble for contemporary music ?zeitkratzer? since january 2003- solo guitar performances as ?marc marcovic? (instant fake traditionals). countless recordings."

"Maurice de Martin (*1969), percussionist & composer. He started playing experimental Noise-Rock with the Munich based band Brother Virus. From 1990 to 1995 he lived in New York City, studying drums and improvisation with Dennis Charles, Gene Jackson and Joey Baron and surviving as a street musician - performing in subway stations with Art Blakey's youngest daughter Evelyn. Later he studied composition with the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, Jazz at the Berlin Universtity of the Arts (UdK) and the south-east european folklore as a scholarship holder of the DAAD in Romania.

During this period he played with some of the genuine representatives of eastern European folklore, like the Romanian wedding band Musica de la Marsa and the Bulgarian clarinet-virtuoso Ivo Papsov. Maurice de Martin tours all over Europe and the US and released more than 25 albums. Besides being member of zeitkratzer, he has his own trio 3D with German vibraphonist Christopher Dell and bassist Chris Dahlgren (NY) and realizes projects between Romanian folklore and improvisation. He also composes and performs music for stage productions, recently with Thomas Ostermaier at the Schaubühne Berlin."

"Born in 1957 Burkhard Schlothauer is German composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator and producer who lives in Gera in Eastern Germany. With Antoine Beuger he was the founder of Editions Wandelweiser in 1992. He performs with Zeitkratzer and the Wandwelweiser Composers Ensemble."

"Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze (born 1965 in the UK) is one of the most diverse performers of his generation and is notable for his performances of avant-garde, experimental and improvised music. Anton has given many performances at numerous international festivals throughout Europe and the USA (Maerzmusik, Donaueschingen, Wien Modern, GAS, Transart, Ultima, etc.etc.). He has also made frequent programmes and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, Danish Radio, SR2, Sweden, Deutschland Rundfunk, WDR, Germany and ORT, Austria. Deutschlandfunk, Berlin produced a radio portrait of him in September, 2003. Anton has also performed concerti with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the 2001 Aldeburgh festival and the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with many composers and performers including David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, Amnon Wolman, Pierre Strauch, Rytis Mazulis, Karlheinz Essl, Helmut Oehring, Christopher Fox, Philip Corner, Alvin Curran, Phill Niblock and Laurence Crane, He is unique in the UK through his use of the curved bow (BACH-Bogen), which he is using to develop new repertoire for the cello. From 2005-7 he was New Music Fellow at Kings College, Cambridge and Kettles Yard Gallery. Anton is the subject of four films (FoxFire Eins) by the renowned artist-filmmaker Jayne Parker. A new film Trilogy with compositions by Sylvano Bussotti, George Aperghis and Laurence Crane premieres at The London Film Festival, October 2008. In November will premiere a new hour long work by Christopher Fox for cello and the vocal ensemble Exaudi commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and will also present new solo works for cello and live electronics. Anton is also active as an artist, his work has been shown in Holland (Lux Nijmegen), CAC, Vilnius, Duisburg (EarPort), Austria, (Sammlung Essl), Wien Modern, The Slade School of Art, Kettles Yard Gallery, Cambridge Film Festival and Rational Rec. London. His work has been published in Musiktexte, Cologne, design Magazine and the book SoundVisions (Pfau-Verlag, Saarbrucken, 2005). Anton Lukoszevieze is founder and director of the ensemble Apartment House, a member of the radical noise group Zeitkratzer and recently made his contemporary dance debut with the Vincent Dance Company in Broken Chords, Dusseldorf."

"Ulrich Phillipp (* 1956 ) is a German contrabassist of free jazz and new improvisational music.

Phillipp founded the Wiesbaden improvisation ensemble with Dirk Marwedel and Wolfgang Schliemann. He is one of the founders of the Wiesbaden musician co-operative New Jazz (1979), from which the ARTist collective hervorging in 1983. In addition to the concert activity, the inclusion of other genres, such as Tanzimprovisation, where Phillipp performed with Fine Kwiatkowski, Günter Christmann , Erhard Hirt and others. He also worked with Birgit Ulher and Roger Turner . In 2013 he was involved in the Grand Orchestra of the ensemble."

"Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.

A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He leads the projects Carbon and Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction.

His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack deJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.

Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson's Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin. He has composed scores for feature films and documentaries; created sound-design for interstitials on The Sundance Channel, MTV and Bravo networks; and has presented numerous sound installations in art galleries and museums. He is the subject of a new documentary "Doing The Don't" by filmmaker Bert Shapiro."-Elliott Sharp