"Born in Trieste, Italy to Indian émigrés in 1971, Mahanthappa was brought up in Boulder, Colorado and gained proficiency playing everything from current pop to Dixieland. He went on to studies at North Texas, Berklee and DePaul University (as well as the Stanford Jazz Workshop) and came to settle in Chicago. Soon after moving to New York in 1997 he formed his own quartet featuring pianist Vijay Iyer. The band recorded an enduring sequence of albums, Black Water, Mother Tongue and Codebook, each highlighting Mahanthappa's inventive methodologies and deeply personal approach to composition. He and Iyer also formed the duo Raw Materials.

Coming deeper into contact with the Carnatic music of his parents' native southern India, Mahanthappa partnered in 2008 with fellow altoist Kadri Gopalnath and the Dakshina Ensemble for Kinsmen, garnering wide acclaim. Apti, the first outing by Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition (with Pakistani-born Rez Abbasi on guitar and Dan Weiss on tabla), saw release the same year; Agrima followed nine years later and considerably expanded the trio's sonic ambitions.

Mahanthappa has also worked with Jack DeJohnette, Mark Dresser, Danilo Pérez, Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, the collaborative trios MSG and Mauger, the co-led quintet Dual Identity with fellow altoist Steve Lehman, and another co-led quintet with fellow altoist and Chicago stalwart Bunky Green (Apex). His exploratory guitar-driven quartets on Samdhi and Gamak featured David Gilmore and Dave "Fuze" Fiuczynski, respectively. In 2015 he was commissioned by Ragamala Dance to create Song of the Jasmine for dancers and a hybrid jazz/South Indian ensemble. He was also commissioned by the PRISM Saxophone Quartet to compose a chamber piece, "I Will Not Apologize for My Tone Tonight," which can be heard on the quartet's 2015 double-disc release Heritage/Evolution, Volume 1."

"Royal Hartigan is a percussionist who has studied and performed the musics of Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, including indigenous West African drumming, dance, song, and highlife; Turkish bendir frame drum; Japanese taiko drumming; Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensemble; Chinese Beijing, Cantonese, and Kunqu opera percussion; South Indian solkattu rhythms; Korean Nong ak drum and gong ensemble; Javanese and Sumatran gamelan; Gaelic bodhran; Native American drumming; Dominican merengue; Brazilian samba; Cambodian sampho drums and Vietnamese clapper percussion, European symphony; and African American blues, gospel, funk, hip-hop, and jazz traditions.

He was awarded an AB in Philosophy from St. Michael's College in 1968, specializing in medieval metaphysics and the existentialism of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Satre. He received a BA degree in African American music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1981, studying with Roland Wiggins, Frederick Tillis, Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, and Clifford Jarvis. royal earned his MA and Ph.D degrees in world music at Wesleyan University in 1983 and 1986, studying intensively with ethnomusicologist David McAllester and Bill Lowe, Bill Barron, Ed Blackwell, Freeman Donkor, Abraham Adzenyah, and other master artists from Java, India, and Ghana, West Africa.

He has taught ethnomusicology, African drumming, and world music ensemble at the New School for Social Research in New York and the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan University. royal helped develop and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in world music, large and small jazz ensembles, experimental music ensemble, Asian music ensembles (Philippine kulintang and Javanese gamelan), African American music history, and West African drumming and dance at San Jose State University before assuming a position as Assistant Professor in world music at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He has taught Music Theory and Fundamentals, Western Music history, and Introduction to World Music. He currently teaches music of the African Diaspora, area studies, and World Music Survey. He has served on the music department curriculum development, the CVPA lecture series, and the University Cultural Diversity committees as well as initiating grants for numerous workshops and concerts of world music during the 1999-2000 academic year.

His publications include Cross Cultural Performance and Analysis of West African, African American, Native American, Central Javanese, and South Indian Drumming, a 1700-page analysis of world drumming traditions (the Edwin Mellen Press); articles in Percussive Notes, World of Music, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, and The African American Review; and a book with compact disc, West African Rhythms for Drumset (Manhattan Music/Warner Brothers). He has given lectures and clinics on world music and jazz in Africa, China, Europe, and North America. He travels to West Africa each summer to teach, perform, and do research, collaborating with J.H. Nketia at the Institute for African Studies, University of Ghana, and the musicians at the Dagbe Cultural Center, Kopeyia village, Volta Region, Ghana.

He has performed, given workshops, and recorded internationally with his own quartet (Blood Drum Spirit, 1997 and Ancestors 2000), Juba (Look on the Rainbow 1987), Talking Drums (Talking Drums, 1985 and Someday Catch, Someday Down, 1987) the Fred Ho Afro-Asian Music Ensemble (We Refuse to Be Used and Song for Manong, 1988, Underground Railroad to My Heart, 1994, Monkey Epic:Part 1, 1996,Turn Pain Into Power, 1997, Monkey Epic Part 2, 1997, Yes Means Yes, No Means No! 1998, Night Vision 2000), Hafez Modirzadeh's Paradox Ensemble (Chromodal Discourse, 1993 and The Peoples Blues, 1996, The Mystery of Sama 1998), the David Bindman-Tyrone Henderson Project (Strawman Dance, 1993 Iliana's Dance, 1996), and Nathaniel Mackey (Songs of the Andoumboulou, 1995). He has released a documentary and artistic video of his work in West Africa and its relation to the African American music cultures (Eve)."