"Nicola L. Hein (Born 1988 in Düsseldorf) is a guitarist, composer and soundartist. As a guitarist he is mainly concerned about the search for new sounds on his instrument. He plays electric and acoustic guitar with or without preperations and tries to find new ways of playing the guitar within the context of Free Improvised Music and Jazz. He plays the guitar with his hands and plectrum but also with a lot of different objects: screws, rulers, iron wool, violin bow, abrasive paper, magnets and many other objects which are part of his musical vocabulary. The result is his very own world of sounds, which is using the rich potential of the guitar as a creator of sounds. The manual creation is a very important character of this sound world, which never gets distorted by the use of electronic effects. As a composer he finds different ways of integrating philosophical ideas into music and to play music as a form of philosophy. In order to actualize itself the compositional work is always aimed at the improvising musician as a dialectic partner of the composition. From the interplay of these partners an ästhetic emerges that is based on the spontanity of the performance and the setting of aesthetic action spaces alike. As a soundartist he is developing different ways to project the musical ontology of Improvised Music onto different aesthetic rooms. This is done by creating instruments, installations and other ways of using the guitar, which use the musical ontology of Improvised Music as the center of the sonic practise but generate a lot of different sense structures that differ from the usual practise of Improvised Music (for example by creating a scenic sense layer etc.). He also creates sound installations which involve the recipient as a part of the work. The works encourage the recipient to make a special aesthetic experience with different sounds. The aesthetic of these sounds is inspired by the aesthetics of Free Improvised Music.

He studied Jazzguitar, Soundart/Composition, Philosophy and German philology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn and the Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. Projects with the support of: Initiative Musik, Staatsministerium für Kultur und Medien, Kunststiftung NRW, Deutscher Musikrat, Akademie der Künste der Welt, Kultursekretariat NRW, Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Landesmusikrat NRW, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Mainz, Staatstheater Hannover, ON Neue Musik Cologne, RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur, Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, Kulturamt der Stadt Düsseldorf, Kulturamt der Stadt Essen, Kulturbehörde Hamburg, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Köln Musik, Acht Brücken, RWE Stiftung für Energie & Gesellschaft, Second Floor e.V., Jazz Offensive Essen, ZKM Karlsruhe etc. He has worked with: Evan Parker, Phil Minton, John Russell, Paul Lytton, Frank Gratkwoski, Michael Vorfeld, Rudi Mahall, Tobias Delius, Liz Allbee, Christian Lillinger, Ute Wassermann, John Butcher, Axel Dörner, Thomas Lehn, Wilbert de Joode, Tristan Honsinger, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Thieke, Sofia Jernberg, Audrey Chen, Peter Jacquemyn, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Robert Landfermann, Jon Rose, Sebastian Gramss, Tomomi Adachi, Alfred Zimmerlin, DJ Illvibe etc."

"Alan Courtis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on February 22, 1972. He studied classical guitar, piano, theory and composition. He holds a degree in Communication Science from the University of Buenos Aires, where he currently runs an annual music workshop. He played electric guitar in diverse bands and in 1993 he co-founded the group Reynols. With this group he has released more than one hundred CDs and vinyls worldwide in labels like Trente Oiseaux, Digital Narcis, Drone Records, Locust, Sedimental, Beta-Lactam Ring Records, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, RRR, Audiobot Records, Roaratorio, JDK, Reverse, Matching Head, American Tapes, Last Visible Dog, Carbon Records, Mikroton, etc."

"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

"Hery Ujjaya aka Ujjaya is a french-malagasy rooted ethno-ambient musician , influenced by TUU, JORGE REYES, ROBERT RICH,STEVE ROACH and BRIAN ENO.

*At the very beginning (1993) UJJAYA was a group of Psyche-prog space metal music with a soprano voice influenced by HAWKWIND,MAGMA, and Ummagumma era PINK FLOYD but it turn out to be a one man band project .

* HERY RANDRIAMBOLOLONA, the founder of the group, decided to turn toward the AMBIENT MUSIC .The PILGRIMAGES in holy places in Asia , and the meetings of remarkable men ,his spiritual and YOGA practices shaped even more his music than the influences of JORGE REYES and TUU.

* As he is a guitarist and not a synth player it give to his music some organic refections that make his ETHNO AMBIENT music unique.As the time goes by add dozens of world instruments to his playing .His main instrument in concert now is the SARASWATI VEENA, a string south indian instrument."

"Killick Hinds lives in Athens, Georgia. His music is Appalachian Trance Metal with an emphasis on unquantifiable rhythms, intuitive intonation, and shamanistic ROYGBIV. He plays a variety of unusual stringed instruments (bowed H'arpeggione; Big Red harp guitar; 3rd bridge Harmonic Isolator; infinite sustain Vo-96; fretless guitar; quarter tone fretted guitar; banjo; 3-string one-holer; 6- & 7-string guitar) with a comprehensive approach to genres known and as-yet-unlabeled. Specific focus includes sympathetic string activity; microtonality; pantonality; natural harmonic fretting; playing between the fretting hand and nut; and emerging technologies to facilitate new musical pathways. Reinvention has been the constant throughout his creative output. He has toured extensively as a performer (since 1985, hundreds of club/gallery/school/festival appearances in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois, Colorado, California, Louisiana) and is an active organizer and promoter of lesser-heard music. He founded record label Solponticello in 2001, and now runs H(i)nds(i)ght Studio for his musical and written word pursuits. Pop-culture mashups and ancient and obscure forms infuse his music; his song titles are integral to the works they embody: they result from free association without censorship, refined until they capture the tenor of a given piece of music.

Killick has deeply rooted classical technique as a player, but broadens his music by stretching and contracting phrases temporally, conceptually, dynamically, and stylistically. The effect more closely resembles speech patterns and emotionally-drawn architecture than it does conventional Western music. Despite its eclectic nature, the music is surprisingly familiar and accessible to audiences of all ages and levels of musical involvement.

Outside interests and jobs have included yoga and lifeguard training, 13+ years of public school writing assessment for the state of Georgia, 5 years working at Daily Groceries Food Co-op, oceanographic research, archaeology, psychology, philosophy, and religious and women's studies. Killick has a fascination with early 80s arcade games, plus a love for instruments and any tools that encourage linear expansion. At age 19 through the Sea Education Association, Killick sailed from New England to the Caribbean on the brigantine SSV Corwith Cramer. Travels to France, Costa Rica, Australia, Tahiti, Mexico, Canada (Ontario, New Brunswick, Québec, Newfoundland), and Morocco plus the first 3 years of his life in Japan are formative experiences. A near-death experience in 2008 and an active meditation practice (including a recent 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat) have greatly broadened his perspective and capacity for compassion. The primary sonic influences on Killick are animals, wind, water, fire, electrical hum, and silence.

Killick's preferred performance vehicle is the solo concert, a "One (Sha)Man Band" channeling the muse in the fashion of shamanic ritual of old. Every performance is different, factoring the instrumentation and energy of the audience and space. Various strains of Killick's training and enculturation appear in bespoke combinations with the likelihood of something (an approach, a texture, a rhythm, a juxtaposition) entirely new emerging. Shamanic presentation is characterized by sometimes abrupt shifts in mood, pulse, and harmony yet Killick prioritizes inviting dialogue infused with levity and sudden beauty.

In 2012 Killick published his first book, an autobiography about the creative process called The World For A Dying Antidote.

He has given masterclasses and forums in musical improvisation at the University of Colorado Boulder, CalArts in Valencia CA, Alfred University in Alfred, New York, the University of Georgia Athens, and through the Frantasia Festival in Livermore Falls, Maine and City University of New York's New York City Electroacoustic Improvisation Summit. Killick has co-presented with luthier Fred Carlson at the University of California, Santa Cruz as part of the International Society of Improvising Musicians 2009 conference. He has served as musical education guest in the Gwinnett & Athens-Clarke County school districts. Killick's work has been featured in Guitar Player, Creative Loafing, Copper Press, Flagpole, Signal to Noise, among many other magazines, as well as online publications Bandcamp Daily, Unfretted, Guitar Moderne, Prepared Guitar, and New Music Box.

Killick was co-curator, along with Athens musician Julie Caldwell and MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellow Ken Vandermark, of the Athens Creative Media Encounter (ACME) Festival in 2004, centering around the music of pioneering free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. In 2010, Killick was southeastern tour coordinator and a nightly performer for The Improvisor magazine's 30th anniversary four-city traveling concert series.

From 2002-2004, Killick organized The Butterfly Effect, a yearly concert series highlighting new music compositions by Athens composers. Killick also organized several Solponticello Nights and numerous large-scale concert promotions over the years, including the world premiere peformance of Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet (attendance: 1,000!). Killick has showcased numerous local, national, and international performers for Athens concertgoers for more than 20 years.

With host Robb Holmes, Killick helped start the popular WUGA (www.wuga.org) radio and television program It's Friday (which in 2015 celebrated its 300th show), presenting local and regional, well-known and yet-to-be, musical acts of all types.

Killick performed and recorded his interpretation of Slayer's thrash metal classic Reign In Blood on his 18-string H'arpeggione, and was a technical consultant and interviewee for the 33 1/3 series book about Reign In Blood by D.X. Ferris published by Bloomsbury.

With Pocketful of Claptonite, Killick has performed an Athens-centric cover of the underground classic Franklin Kiermyer album Solomon's Daughter; Pharaoh Sanders' saxophone role was played by Killick on guitar. Thunder O(h)m!, Crazy Hoarse, Killick & Monique, Killick & Sahada, and Beverley Hinds are also Killick's groups.

Killick has played with many great creatives from around the world, including composer/violinist Annie Leeth, electronic media artist Paloma Kop, prepared guitarist Christopher Riggs, artist Dale Inglett, Monterrey, Mexico rock band The Warning (bassist/vocalist Alejandra Villarreal, guitarist/vocalist Daniela Villarreal, drummer/vocalist Paulina Villarreal), clarinetist Kathryn Koopman, clarinetist/saxophonist Chris Tidwell, vocalist Monique Osorio, violinist Sahada Buckley, bassist Michael Manring, guitarist Se'nam Palmer, flautist Beto Cacao, drummer Kathleen Duffield, Haken Continuumist Arto Artinian, violist LaDonna Smith, vocalist Claire Campbell, vocalist Claire Dunphy, guitarist Colin Bragg, drummer Blake Helton, trumpeter Jeff Crouch, cornettist Pete Lawless, violinist Ezra Buchla, bassist Thomas Helton, guitarist Mary Halvorson, saxophonist Blaise Siwula, cellist/bassist Heather McIntosh, guitarist Jeff McLeod, guitarist Sándor Szabó, improviser Id M Theft Able, saxophonist/vocalist Louise D. E. Jensen, saxophonist Larry Ochs, drummer Ravish Momin, drummer Jamie DeRevere, fretless guitarist Adam Wilson, clarinettist Samuel Burt, multi-instrumentalist Neil Feather, cellist Chelsea Dunn, bassist Darrin Cook, drummer John Norris, pianist Brad Bassler, guitarist/bassist Jamie Thomas, guitarist Charlie Rauh, trumpeter Liz Allbee, the Shaking Ray Levis, guitarist Tim Schroeder, electronic musician Harry Shaffer, bassist Tom Blancarte, bassist C.J. Boyd, pianist Scott Eggert, cellist Alec Livaditis, guitarist Henry Kaiser, Duet for Theremin & Lap Steel, guitarist Scott Baxendale, lap steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, poet Life the Griot, multi-instrumentalist Jon Francis, and bassist Peter Kowald, as well as Mastodon's drummer Brann Dailor, filmmaker Erin Espelie, and musical projects with the Georgia Guitar Quartet, dancers, visual & multi-disciplinary artists, and many, many others. In the spring of 2019, Killick played ceng-ceng in the University of Georgia's Balinese Gamelan Chandra Natha.

Killick has appeared on more than 200 commercially released recordings in various styles (many at Bandcamp), most of which feature Killick as executive producer, engineer, composer, visual director, and performer. Killick's work as a designer includes his own solar-powered home; countless album project layouts; his full-body tattoo project; art direction with illustrator Neal Williams; a logo for legal consulting firm Law2sm, LLC; and his own "navigation wheel" logo. Collaborations with instrument builders Fred Carlson, Rick Toone, Lewis Waters, Thierry Andre, Harry Shaffer, Tim Schroeder, Paul Vo, Jamie Thomas, and Scott Baxendale, among others, have resulted in one-of-a-kind guitars to further explore idiosyncratic musical territory. In 2016, Killick received an Athens, Georgia Flagpole Music Award for the category of Avant-Garde.

Killick has been married since 2003, has two dogs, loves to hike, and is an advocate for healthy and local food, meditation, and solar power. He eats gluten-free (silly Celiac disease), every meal."

"Nick Vander: Musician Improviser Composer

Experimental musician. Focus in to build a narrative pulsion that aims to influence the deconstruction of the imaginaries associated with music. Explore the classics boundaries of improvisation, the non-existent free jazz conception of freedom, the fusion of ethnic elements in the subconscious of tradition, and the last avant garde generation, reaching the today most disruptive paths from where it takes a starting point to create inmediate and alive music.

Active in the european scene for over 20 years. Shared projects with some especial musicians as the mythical Terry Day (Uk), Javier Paxariño (Es), Nicolas Von (Ch). Has been part of a wide range of projects, and disciplines, always following the spirit of experimentation and improvisation: Equinox Collective, Sound of Scape, Maldita Compañía, Free or Die, Krudo, +."